I recently celebrated my 6th year with WordPress. However, I haven’t written a blog in two years. I guess I have some explaining to do.

Well, let’s pick up from the time of my last post. It was a post about comments that my principal made after observing my teaching the first time. As you can see from the post, I was not in agreement with his comments. This was not a good start. And it got worse. Every time he observed me, I thought that the class went well. When I received his comments, there were nothing positive said and more negative things said. This continued until April 2022, when he was removed as principal of our school. Good news, right? Well, yes, but not for long. Not for long because, in May 2022, the new regime let me know that they were not renewing my contract. Ironically, I was informed of this during Teacher Appreciation Week. The message to me was loud and clear.

When I took this news in, I took it as an opportunity to try something different as a profession. (My wife didn’t take this as lightly as I did.) In a way, I had anticipated this scenario; I worked many evenings preparing to take the Virginia Real Estate Exam. After two attempts, I passed the exam. (The average pass rate of the test is around 50%.) A week before Teacher Appreciation Week, I received my new license. My first thought was that I would just smoothly move into real estate.

Since real estate income is pure on commission, I need to find a way to earn benefits. I figured I would need to supplement the real estate job with a benefits-offered job. So I started applying to jobs. But where should I apply? I quickly decided that I should focus on jobs I had done before. Within a few weeks, I was hired as a bartender at a chain restaurant. It seemed perfect; I could bartend a few nights a week and focus on real estate during the day. I quickly learned that reality and theory live in different houses. After four days of training, I decided that this was definitely not going to turn out the way I had envisioned. I quit the job and the management seemed as relieved as I felt.

Not long after leaving that job, another profession from my past came a-calling. I was called in for an interview with an engineering services company. Before I knew it, I was hired a Construction Materials Technician. It paid less than teaching but overtime could take care of the difference. On top of that, like the bartending job, they offered full benefits. I was nervous at first but I soon settled into the job and rather enjoyed it. It required me to be on rooftops of tall buildings. It also was in the middle of the summer so the job was incredibly hot. Despite all of this, I enjoyed the job. On top of that, my wife said that I seemed happier.

Then I got distracted and made a pretty poor decision. One of the jobs I applied for was a substitute teacher at a psychological rehab facility. When I met the man in charge of the school, I liked him very much. The job was challenging but the manager gave me flexibility in my teaching methods. He said, as demand increased, he wanted to hire me as a full-time teacher. It made me reconsider teaching as a full-time profession. It was not August and school would be starting soon. I applied to a high school in a very small and rural county. They hired me very quickly and paid me a little more than the construction job. I told myself, “Take the job. The construction job is friggin’ hot as hell and our 63-year-old knees hurt when I have to climb those ladders.” I now have second thoughts about that move. Not only that but the conflict with school hours prevented me from being trained for the part-time teaching job.

Looking ahead to the summer, I plan to throw 110% into the real estate gig and see what happens. If I don’t sell enough real estate, I will return to teaching another year. Or maybe I will go back construction.

Then came the holidays. Several events have shown me that my social skills are quite poor. This mostly due to a poor social upbringing. I came to realize that I need to work in an area that requires very few social skills. I know what you might be thinking; “Why the hell did you choose to teach teenagers and sell real estate if your social skills suck so much?!” Okay, maybe you didn’t think that…but I did! That is the reason I have returned to blogging and looking at books about freelance writing. I guess only time will tell where all of this takes me.

In the mean time, I will continue to teach, while putting out Google ads for math tutoring (drboguynn.com) and real estate sales (boguynn@abbitt.com).