I guess I’m back to posting sporadically, which is presumably better than not posting at all. I suppose so, anyway. Even though I really enjoy writing, I find there isn’t much of interest going on in my day-to-day life. At least not much of anything that I could write about in a way to be interesting to others. So in lieu of a totally cohesive story for this post, I’ll just run through a few update-y type things that have happened recently.

1. My 14-year-old son Lex was assigned to his top choice of high school. I don’t know if I’ve ever written about the craziness of the school system here (I did a cursory search of my old posts and didn’t find anything, so maybe not), but it’s essentially a lottery system for kindergarten and 9th grade. We moved here when he was going into 4th grade, and I was lucky enough to land him a spot in an awesome elementary school. Total dumb beginner’s luck that worked in our favor twice, since he was going into 5th grade there when we needed to get Misty into kindergarten. There’s no way we would have gotten her into that highly-desirable school without the sibling preference weighting factor in the K lottery. Middle school was no big deal, as they actually assign those based on the closest elementary. My point? This is the first time that we’ve truly dealt with the SFUSD lottery assignment process. We toured different schools, he took the required admission test for one of the options, we talked about what order to list our preferences in. One grade-based school requires you to enroll there if you put it as first choice and get accepted; the others aren’t grade-based admission but there’s also no way to weight your chances at acceptance. It’s a lengthy, stressful process that culminated in a delay on receiving the assignment letters in mid-March due to an error by the school district. In the end, he was assigned to the school he put first on the list, and now I have a small idea of what the college application process looks like from a parent’s perspective. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.
2. I have accepted a new job. Same university, similar role, but in a central administration office rather than one of the individual schools. A lateral move for now, but with more opportunities down the line. I had several reasons for considering the position (I was essentially recruited – or, as a coworker likes to say, “poached”), some of which would require a password-protected post, but the main thing is that this will get me back into a part of the job that I really enjoy. I’m really looking forward to it, and will start in my new role on May 8 because of something else that I’m about to mention. There! That was a lot of words to not say much at all.
3. So, even though I was offered the new job in mid-March, my last day at my current job isn’t until May 5. That’s because I was selected into a US/Europe exchange program and if all goes well, I’ll be in Moscow later this month. I’d give more details, but I don’t really have any. I filled out the visa application and sent off my passport, so now I have A) no passport B) no plane tickets C) no visa D) no idea where I’m staying E) no firm travel dates and F) no clue when I’ll know any of this. The program staff are all very chill about the whole thing and they do this all the time, so I’m trying not to freak out. But theoretically I’m leaving in less than two weeks and since I refuse to do any packing or preparation until I have plane and hotel reservations in hand…it could be a photo finish, is what I’m saying.

So there you have it. I’d say I’ll try to update more regularly, but I think we all know that’s a lie.