Scola's Law of IT: Given the clear choice of a simple solution or a complicated solution, people will choose the more complicated solution every single time. When you challenge someone and try to explain that the more complicated solution is not necessary, you will be met with blank stares, and you will be ignored completely.

This is also true in education. With the added caveat of everything you did 3 years ago must be scrapped and you must force all teachers to use a new and expensive program that they need to be trained in.

I feel like at 43, if I am going to make big life-altering choices, I better damn well make the right ones this time. And that's paralyzing.

Exactly. Especially because every choice I made up till now was a bad one.

Also, I have the same work malaise that many of you have. I like education well enough and it's different enough each day to be mentally engaging, but I'd like a job where I had a little more flexibility and more respect.

I am whammied, though, because Grace requires expensive health care and my health insurance is AWESOME and I worry she would not be eligible under other plans. Also, I can't change states because I have 13 years in my current district, which means I have 17 more years until I am retirement/pension eligible. Depressingly, if I moved to say the Pacific Northwest where I'd love to live, I'd have to start over and work for 30 years before I am pension eligible.

Kat, you know some plans let you transfer in a few years credit, in various ways? My mom retired (at 65 or 66) after working about 15 years in a school district near us--she was a teacher many many years ago before I was born, in Illinois, and then when I was in high school went back to college and got a degree as a speech pathologist.

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Also burned out, wanting to do something else -- but I'm eligible to retire with immediate annuity/pension in a little over 5 years. I'd be a fool to leave now. I mean, I could, but then I'd have to wait 9 years for the annuity/pension.

Uh, if I spray a wasp (hornet?) with a lot of Windex, will I kill it? Or stun it enough to kill it?

meara, I'm still young enough that I'd reset. Our friend Julie who moved from CA to WA 4 years ago was reset to 0 and received no credits for out of state service.

Uh, if I spray a wasp (hornet?) with a lot of Windex, will I kill it? Or stun it enough to kill it?

That's usually my way of dealing with flying stinging things. Douse with something that impairs them and then crush them in a wad of paper towels. You can use the lump of paper towel to clean the excess Windex.

So my cat Squeaky had dental surgery today. They had to extract seven teeth. Damn.

Frank, that's what I did! I'm not even sure what it was now, but it was big, and it certainly looked like it had a stinger.

I did apologize, though.