[Xist]

I have been a bilingual Speech-Language Pathology Assistant for two years, working in clients' homes, and I have never had enough work. Almost all of my clients are school kids, but I have almost always had openings after school, and I have almost never worked Saturday. For the first time I will have three morning clients this week and I am supposed to have a fourth soon, but I have been working fewer hours than last year, and there are always cancellations.

Both of my Hondas broke down and I have only had one good paycheck since March. I was dealing with too many problems when my landlord said he was raising my rent. I have not responded yet. Instead I applied to every full-time school opening in the state of Arizona.

Well, not to the ones that paid substantially less than I earn now. I had never seen pay that low, and when I looked for places to live, they charged far more than I can get here. That is a horrible combination!

Only Page responded. It is about four and a half hours from here, only seventeen square miles, eight thousand people, one Walmart and Safeway. No Lowes or Home Depot, just one True Value and one Ace. There is a one-screen movie theater that hopefully has color and sound. The nearest Honda dealership is in Flagstaff, 125 miles away.

However, it is fifteen miles from Lake Powell, 104 miles from Zion National Park, 110 miles from the Grand Canyon, 127.5 miles from Monument Valley, and 151 miles from Bryce Canyon, plus it should pay 30% more than I earned last year, I will not need to pay self-employment tax, will have benefits, and summers off. Also, Mom keeps saying Page has one of the best autism day programs in the state.

My brother is autistic.

My sister is a nurse practitioner and she has been telling me how living at 6,345 feet has been bad for Mom. Page is 4,118. It sounded like Page had more moderate temperature, but it looks like their respective winters are similar, while Page's summer is a little warmer, but it snows in Show Low, but not in Page. I told Mom about the interview, she excitedly told me about the day program, and I said I only found a two-bedroom apartment for rent for more than I felt was reasonable, but a three-bedroom 1,400 square-foot house on a 9,000 square-foot property would have a mortgage payment of about the same.

She excitedly said that they could both come.

This sounds like it would be great for both of them, while I would appreciate the raise, stable hours, and benefits. Also, once I pass the GRE I will finally be able to apply for grad school. I could have from my current job, but the program I want requires applicants to work twenty hours a week doing speech therapy, and parents would have a problem with me leaving every summer, even though I would return a better speech therapist.

If somehow this does not work out, having worked in a school, I should have a far better chance of working in another somewhere more desirable, but hopefully I will finally get into a Master's program, which will make an even bigger difference.

I cannot help but think my landlord will complain that I did not give him more notice, that he would have had an easier time replacing me earlier, but I would have had an easier time finding a job had he told me he was raising my rent before July 14th.

I cannot imagine there are many dating opportunities there.