Living and Working in Tuscaloosa

Tuscaloosa . . . where do I begin?

When I accepted my teaching position and began telling my friends and colleagues that I would be moving to Tuscaloosa, their general response was, "Oh my gosh, you're going to love Tuscaloosa!"  Friends, if you know anything about me, you probably know what I was thinking.

"Yeah, right."


Now, I'm not about to start trashing the city I lived in for a year, or the people I met there, but I was not overly excited to be moving to the Football Capital of the South.  It is an exaggeration to say I'm not a football fan.  I'm not actively against football; I just don't understand the appeal or the reactions and behavior it elicits in otherwise rational human beings. I'm indifferent, I guess.

So, I was wary about the move and the people I might encounter, but you know from previous posts that I settled in pretty quickly and happily.  I was excited to be teaching, and for the first few weeks, I spent a lot of time at the school working on lessons and other classroom things.  Eventually, though, I had to get a part-time job to support myself.  After applying to about a million businesses, I finally got a job at Books-A-Million (see what I did there?)

Books-A-Million was going to be my dream job.  I mean, me? In a bookstore? Can you imagine?


I hated it.


I despised the pressure placed on me to sell memberships and magazines subscriptions at a certain percentage.  I couldn't stand being forced to work in the cafe.  I detested the mind-numbingly slow, slow, slow rate of business.

But I loved the people.

My coworkers at Books-A-Million quickly became my closest friends in Tuscaloosa.  To my BAM family: I hate that we spent such a short time together, but I am grateful for your friendship and love during a time when I otherwise would have been very lonely.  Thank you for accepting me into your circle and know that this is not the end.

Eventually, I decided that I could no longer work at Books-A-Million.  I felt that I was carrying home too much stress and unhappiness for what the job was worth to me, so I gave notice and began looking for another job.

Conveniently, a new restaurant, Cheddar's, was opening right next door. I applied there (and lots of other places) and was immediately hired, to my surprise. I had never worked as a server before, but I was excited to try.  Working at Cheddar's was also stressful, in it's own way, but it suited me much better, and I was happier there for the most part.  I made some friends there as well, and I am grateful for them too, even though we didn't get to spend as much time together.

You may be wondering why I have spent so much time talking about these part-time jobs when I went to Tuscaloosa to teach. What about teaching? you say.  How did you like it? Who did you meet there?

Truthfully, my first year teaching was incredibly hard and made harder by having to support myself with another job.  I had little time to prepare lessons the way I wanted to, little time to organize myself the way I wanted to, little time to interact with my students outside of the classroom, little time to get to know my coworkers.  In short, though I still learned a lot and had some shining moments, I was left feeling unsatisfied and disappointed by the experience.

Tuscaloosa, and the year I spent there, was not what I expected, in many ways.

It was difficult.
It was stressful.
I didn't always like it.

But I learned a lot.

About myself.
About working.
About teaching.
And about learning.

And I made some dear, dear friends.

For those things, I will remember Tuscaloosa fondly.