Home Sweet Home

I now live just East of Dupree and West of Gettysburg, see the river, to the left of that. It is a beautiful place, with better weather than I had in California, at least to my mind. Although, the Summer heat did follow me, it has been in the low 70s and mid-60s for the past few days. It will warm up again later this week and next, but I should see some snow in October.

It took nine days to get my internet connection set up, costing me almost what I pay a month in rent...the consequence of country living, but it is high speed fiber optic, so I cannot complain too much.

As I do not have any furniture and had to leave all of my bookshelves and desks behind (no room in the moving truck) it will take me a good six months to unpack the majority of my belongings that matter (books, board games, and miniatures).

I learnt a lesson my first week here. Whenever I make any big purchases out of town, because that is the ONLY place to go make big purchases, I must check the items first. Otherwise, a broken item will cost me at least 3 hours of driving time and fuel to resolve. Amazon only goes so far...

They do not deliver mail to the houses out here. I had to get a PO Box, which is a problem for FedEx and UPS. I've already been hit once by package thieves, so I need to be careful of when I order something. The drivers for both delivery services show up by noon, and I do not get off work until after 4pm, so it is a risk. However, work is a 5 minute walk from home, so if they deliver just before I go to lunch, I can sort it almost immediately.

Obviously, I've done zero gaming in the past couple of weeks, but I do have some solo games I hope to break out and give a go, posting about my experiences here. I need to FIND the games first, somewhere in about 100 boxes, which is not easy as they are nicely stacked and packed into one of my two bedrooms.

In about six months, I should have all the furniture (bookshelves!) that I need to get most of my things set up to where I can easily access them and put them away. I'll need to get some organizers for my paints and miniatures, but one step at a time.

I must say that I do love it here. It is a quiet, country life, with gusting winds that cool things down, generally, in the evenings. This is a far cry better than having 90+ degree heat at midnight, with nary a breeze to push the air around.

While poverty affects the lives of most here, they are, as a group, good people. I've been welcomed and encouraged to participate in community events. They have a local museum, with arrows from the Battle of Little Big Horn (I need to take pictures of those). I do expect to have stress from work and a lot of grief from my students, but my class sizes should be about half or less of those I dealt with in California. My classroom is half again larger and the retired teacher I replaced has left me all of her materials, meaning I do not have to reinvent the wheel this whole year.

They also have a local community college which has need of history instructors, so that is a possible opportunity for some income on the side, we will have to see.

I do miss my friends in California, but life must go on and I cannot move forward while looking back over my shoulder. The school here still needs teachers, and I have been asked to check with any teachers that I know of who are looking for a job. Since the housing is cheap, compared to California prices, it has its benefits, but I do not know of any other teachers who want the contemplative life in the country, which will also get very COLD in a couple of months. Still, if any of my readers know of teachers looking for opportunities, they should check out the Bureau of Indian Education website. We even have teachers on work visas, from another country, who are here to teach, so that might be an option for non-USA folks.