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Clarendon

     Clarendon, in retrospect, was a job I did not have to take. Since I was only guaranteed employment there while another math teacher was deployed to Iraq, I should have held out to hear from Holly Grove (a smaller school system in a neighboring community that was offering me a chance to teach upper-level math; as opposed to Clarendon where I taught Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebraic Connections). Another option would have been to stay in Jackson, finish at Union a lot sooner than I did, find a teaching job after graduating, and look for another chance at a master's in math at either Ole Miss or Knoxville (I lost a teaching assistantship at State due to my low GPA at the end of 2001-02). Maybe I should have challenged the board when they forced me to resign. At least Mr Thomas was supportive later on when I started teaching at Marvell.

     NOTEWORTHY:  I never really liked living in Jackson, TN. Even though enrolled at Union; and even though it was one of the ten largest cities in Tennessee, it felt more like a small rural community that predominate the South. I also did not want to endure another tornado like the one that hit only a few weeks before my interviews in Arkansas (I also had an interview in West Memphis a week before my trip to Clarendon and Holly Grove).

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