Fashion

I want to get a new job.  Not that substitute teaching, which means every day going in to a strange classroom cold, with a bunch of strange kids who are sometimes really mean to me, and getting paid a pittance with no benefits or retirement plan isn't a sweet job, but I guess I'm getting kind of sick of it.  I actually do like it most of the time, and I was hoping to use it as a way to get my foot in the door of a bunch of school districts who are not hiring, and are, in fact laying off more teachers every year.  It's time to give up the dream, I guess.  So I've been applying for new jobs.  I applied for a bunch at the University of Minnesota.  Everything from receptionist to adjunct professor in the philosophy department (whatever that is LOL!)  Just kidding.  I didn't apply to be a professor.  Turns out that despite earning a Bachelor's Degree, I'm not qualified to do much.  I really painted myself into a corner when I majored in English.  I'd like to go back and slap college me.

I've been a little anxious about the whole thing because I don't have an "interview outfit."  I wear basically the same thing every single day and it isn't interview-worthy.  So yesterday I went shopping.  Man, shopping sucks.  I looked at literally tons of clothes and hated 99.9999999% of them.  I wanted to get a blazer/jacket type thing, a blouse and maybe a skirt or a pair of dress pants.  That should be easy huh?  Pretty classic pieces, shouldn't be hard to find.  I found a jacket that I really like a lot.  It wasn't easy.  Then I had to get a shirt to go under it and a skirt.  Skirts, I found come in a few varieties:  Cindy-Lauper-from-the-eighties style, Mrs. Doubtfire style, Janice Joplin style, or the classic street-prostitute style.  None of which, I am exactly crazy about.   For one thing, I hate the idea of skirts because all it would take is one quick tug from anyone, and boom! I'd be half naked.  I'm not crazy about that.  I need it to be cute, long enough to not accidentally flash my nethers to the world, but not so long that I look shorter and dumpier than I actually am.

I was about to give up when I decided to go to Sears.  I HATE Sears so I wasn't expecting to find much.  I was flipping through the clearance rack and I saw a black skirt.  Okay, right color.  It was the right size.  Okay... So I tried it on.  It fit me like it was made for me and the best thing of all - it's not a skirt after all, it's a skort.  I have pants on in secret, but it looks like I'm wearing a skirt!  I love that.  AND it has four pockets!  I realize that I'm not making this skirt sound exactly stylish, but it's a black skirt (skort) that is not too short, not too long.  That's all I require.  The undershorts and pockets are just icing on the cake.  I don't need it to be haute couture.  I just need it to be a skirt, be black, and cover my butt when I go on a job interview.

I also looked around for a blouse.  I usually wear solid-colored ladies t-shirts.  I figured if push comes to shove, I could just wear one of those under my jacket, but I wanted something a little more fashionable.  Why are all ladies blouses these days made of gauze?  Seriously, there is nothing to them.  They are not made of textiles so much as they are made of spider webs.  Most of them are flimsy and transparent.  Who wants to wear that?  I tried on one and it was sort of fitted with strange gathers on the sides and in the front.  The seams on the side went in an arc toward the front which just made me look like a pregnant 41 year old, and right in the center, between boobs and belly button there was a stitch gathering all the front material together.  What?  Who made that and thought it was a good idea?  It's not like I'm picky, I just want to look somewhat nice and not be naked.  I require full-coverage, and the clean lines that a skort full of pockets can provide.

I'm just going to wear a neck brace and Hello Kitty bandaids on my nipples under my new blazer.  That's the direction women's fashion is going anyway with the bandage dresses and guaze blouses.  It's first aid couture.  The fashion industry thinks we want to convey this message to the world: "I'm sexy, I'm injured and I'm practically naked... uuuuuuhhhhhhh baby.... come and get me!" I might as well be on the cutting edge.  

Saggy Pants

"Excuse me, Sir?  Your butt is hanging out.
Thought you'd want to know."

In the last few years of subbing I've seen more and more of the latest in "I'm-a-badass-gangsta" fashion of wearing pants not just low, but totally below the butt.  These boys wear their pants BELOW. THEIR. BUTTS.  And they think it makes them look really tough.  They basically have to wear a belt cinched tightly across their upper thighs to prevent the pants from falling all the way off (cuz, boy would that be embarrassing!) so their clothing choice is actually hindering their movement, much like high heels (but that's another post), and their back pockets, conveniently located at arm's reach when the pants are worn properly, are waaaaaaay down behind the wearer's knees.  It looks so stupid.  Not only is it hindering their movement, but their butts are hanging out.  It's like they're trying to say, "Hi, my name is BiTchH8R (Josh) and I have no dignity."

I've seen the teachers in the high schools beg them to pull up their pants and the kids argue and tell them to stop nagging them.  This is how they want to look blah blah blah.  And the teachers plead with them by saying, "Please pull your pants up.  That looks so stupid." and then the kids inevitably get all huffy and say, "You think I'm stupid!?"  The question is never answered but the answer is always YES.

Well, today I found the solution.  I was subbing at an elementary school and had my class out on the playground.  The kindergartners were out too with the "Trailblazers," teenage delinquents from the local residential school.  I love watching the Trailblazers try to deal with the kindergartners because five year olds are not intimidated by ANYONE so the tough-guy act is totally wasted.  It turns out that after you cut through the posturing, the Trailblazers aren't that tough after all.  One of them was playing tag with a bunch of the kindergartners (or he was just running for his life, I don't know) and his big shirt came up and his butt was hanging out. When the little girl at the front of the pack saw that she stopped, pointed and screeched, "I SEE LONDON! I SEE FRANCE!" and that boy yanked his pants up so fast she didn't even get to finish.  After a while I looked around and all of the Trailblazers had their pants pulled up.  Hmmmm...

So my idea is to hire a kindergartner to come with me to every job I do next year.  They are very intimidating.  They aren't afraid of anything and nobody messes with them.  And wouldn't they have a fantastic time at the high schools pointing out how many times they see London and France?  Pants would be pulled up all over town.  

A few things...

I don't really have much to blog about lately.  Nothing to fill a whole post but I do have a couple funny stories:

I subbed for 8th grade band on Friday and because I don't know their music and what they've been up to, I asked one of the students to direct in my place.  This kid was so funny.  They had recently gotten music for the high school song and they were trying to learn it.  It was horrible.  They were all trying SO HARD to play it but no matter how hard they tried, it just sounded like they were tuning up.  Chris, the student-director stopped them and very dryly said, "I think it's important that we play more of the notes right."  Oh how I laughed.

The other little tidbit I have for you is that Maisy, my wonderful dog who communicates to my by whining only because she can't form words with her dog lips and doesn't have a voice box, whined the entire first verse of Camptown Races, leaving me with the "Do da, do da," part.  Wow.  Best duet ever.  

Kindergarten

Months ago I agreed to sub for three days in kindergarten this week because I like to screw over my future self.  It's over now and it wasn't so bad.  Of course, nothing could be as bad as what I had envisioned.  The kids are adorable, but part of what makes it so hard for me is that the girls are about a year and a half ahead of the boys maturity-wise.  So kindergarten girls are like second grade boys.  Second grade is fun.  Kindergarten sucks.

Kindergarten boys are difficult for me.  If something CAN be thrown, it's thrown, if someone bugs a kindergarten boy, that poor someone gets pushed down, slapped or pinched.  If someone has a toy that boy wants, the toy will be ripped out of their hands. If that kindergarten boy gets confronted for throwing something that shouldn't be thrown, or hitting someone who bugged him, or taking something someone else was playing with, he cries.  If that boy has something to say and I am talking, he will scream whatever it is that pops into his head whenever it happens to pop into his head.  That, in a nutshell, is what makes kindergarten such a nightmare.

And the parents. One mom dropped off her boy every day and then lingered. Endlessly lingered. The first day I was there she complained that some of the other boys were bothering him at lunch and could I make sure they don't do it anymore? Turns out her sweet little angel was the biggest trouble maker in the class. The boys were messing with his lunch because he was first messing with their lunches, as a sort of game. I kept my eye on this kid all week and he was ALWAYS doing something he wasn't supposed to do. If the kids were gathered on the rug, he was by the cubbies, digging in people's stuff. At playtime, he was in the bathroom squirting liquid soap all over the place, etc. etc. etc. What a BRAT.

The weather was gorgeous yesterday so I took them outside for a while.  They were having a great time.  One of the little girls came up to me laughing and told me that she and a few other kids were playing the BEST game!  The boys were chasing the girls and putting them in jail.

Me:  Oh, you're criminals?

Girl: YES!

Me:  What crimes are you doing to get put into jail?

Girl:  Because we're so PRETTY!!!!

Me:  The boys are capturing you and putting you in jail for being pretty???

Girl: Yes! And we catch them and put them in jail too!

Me:  Because they are so pretty?

Girl:  No silly!  Because they are rich!

Me: Wow ............. That is Fucked Up.

Just kidding, I didn't say that's fucked up but I was thinking it.  A while later she came up to me and her hands were cuffed behind her back with a hair tie.  She thought that was brilliant.  Somewhere Betty Friedan was spinning in her grave.

There were, of course, some good things that happened during the week.  Working with five-year-olds always boosts my ego.  At playtime I went to the coloring station and drew pictures.  I am TERRIBLE at drawing, always have been.  They thought I was excellent, on par with the great masters.  They lined up for me to draw a picture for them.  If adults had their taste in art, I would be a rich and famous artist.  Also, they think I am gorgeous.  I was told how beautiful I am dozens of times.  I was hugged hundreds of times.  I was told I was the best sub they ever had every day.

And they are funny.  They made a "special person" poster about one of their classmates (apparently they do that for every kid) and I was to go around and get a quote about her from all the other kids.  Most said, "She's pretty" or "She's nice" but there were a few that were oddly specific like, "She draws good daisies on the Smartboard."  I asked one little boy, a rage-aholic, what he had to say about her, thinking he would refuse to say anything because he didn't string three words together all week unless he was having a tantrum.  Without skipping a beat he said, "She loves me."  I laughed and another kid said, "She really does," and I laughed some more.  Crazy kids.

One day I was getting impatient with the mama's-little-angel brat mentioned above when he was racing around tables when everyone else was sitting on the carpet waiting for a story.  I said, "Please go to the carpet.  I already told you that five times.  I shouldn't have to tell you to do things more than once," and a bunch of kids piped up and said, "Hey! My mom says that to me all the time!" and "Yeah, my dad says that to me every day!"

Redemption for last Friday

What a fantastic day. I am subbing in one of the high school's for a music teacher. I tentatively took the job because I have shell shock from verging out of my comfort zone last week and getting totally screwed over by the Catholics, but I thought that nothing could be worse than that so I went ahead and took the music job.

I was tentative for a few reasons:

1) When I was in band in high school, whenever we had a sub we had a study hall, which was great when I was in high school, but probably not so great for the poor subs that had to babysit 60 kids in a study hall where nobody was studying.

2) Also, when I was in high school, in one of the aforementioned band study halls, my friends and I decided to play a hilarious joke on the sub. One of my friends was born without a right hand, (she played trumpet), and we thought it would be funny to have her stuff her stump in her mouth and tell the sub that we were having a contest to see who could stuff their fist the furthest into their mouths and she won, but now she couldn't get her fist out of her mouth! She's choking on her own fist! Oh my god! What are you going to do? The sub went into emergency mode and did everything she was supposed to do and when we saw that we laughed and laughed. Good times.

3) I can hardly read music anymore, much less a conductor copy of music I'm not familiar with, so I am hardly qualified to teach a music class; and why should they miss out on a day of practice because of my shortcomings?

I am so glad I took this job. For one thing, the kids are FANTASTIC. I really love kids sometimes. When they are focused and have a skill they want to show off, they are at their best. For another thing, the teacher must be pretty good too because things are going so smoothly. First hour was concert orchestra practice. Most of the kids are gone on a field trip, so there were only 12 kids, but they came in, got their instruments out and then a girl and a boy led the practice. They did great even though they were missing about 40 of their classmates.

The last class that was in here was symphony orchestra. They were so good. One of the senior boys took over the rehearsal, set an electric metronome, and they played through the list of the pieces the teacher wanted them to play through. They stopped at trouble spots, talked out the problems and tried again until they got it right. It was so great! I sat in the back and tried to keep from clapping like a doofus during every rest.

Now it is lunch time and a bunch of kids are eating in the room and visiting with each other, and a few others are playing piano and timpani together and it sounds wonderful. Again, I'm finding it hard to keep my cool and not run out there to clap every time they finish a song. This totally makes up for last Friday. I would have done today's job for free.

Yesterday was great too.  I taught a half day for an adult English as a Second Language class.  It was like a party.  We were talking about food. I'd hold up a picture of a food and say it and then they would all repeat it loudly in their crazy accents and then they would tell me about how whatever food it was is way better in their country (watermelons in Iraq are way sweeter, butter in Russia makes our butter taste like plastic, strawberries in Minnesota taste like you are chewing aspirin compared to the ones in Brazil).  And then I heard a lot about how fat Americans are (but not as fat as Egyptians!) and how we have no taste for good food.  We laughed and talked and had the best time.  Towards the end they were feeling comfortable enough with me that they started making fun of MY accent!  Hey!  I don't have an accent!

Hell

Well, I had my completely-brought-on-myself horrible day, thinking, of course, that it couldn't possibly be as bad as I thought it might be because how could it?  In case you didn't read yesterday's post, I stupidly took a job at the Catholic middle school.  It was stupid because A) they only pay about 2/3 what I could get anywhere else (believe it or not, my prime motivation for substitute teaching is the money.)  B) They told me about two days before the job that it wouldn't be a full day, it would be a half day, and paid for a half day.  C) The day before the job they told me there would only be two regular classes, the other THREE HOURS of the day would be an outdoor basketball tournament.  D) my job during the basketball tournament would be bathroom monitor.  By the time I got that email that told me all this, it was too late for me to cancel or else I would have.

It was worse than I could have ever imagined.  The first hour, however, wasn't bad at all.  I was subbing for a math teacher and she was very organized, although over-prepared which I think teachers think is a good thing, but I don't have time in the 15 minutes from when I get to school and when the kids come to read multiple three-ring binders about all the minutia of how the class is run.  I just need a list with times on it that tells me what you want me to do, seating charts, page numbers and worksheets.  That's it.  Oh, and maybe a post-it telling me if you have a crazy kid in your class and what to do with him when/if he loses his mind. Six inch thick binders I get; the thousand-times-more-helpful post-it, I never get.  Anyway.  The kids were very nice.  They were helpful and polite and as good as you can ask seventh graders to be.  The first hour was math class and we learned how to convert numbers of things to degrees to make a pie chart.  It was pretty fun.

Then it was time for the stupid tournament.  At first I thought the Catholics were kind of cute because I read the info I was supposed to read to the kids and it said, "Boys report to Mr. O's room, and girls report to Mrs. L's room to change into your costumes,"  and I thought there would be some kind of play or skit or something, but it was referring to the basketball costumes.  Gym clothes.  (lol you silly Catholics!)  The note to the teachers about the tournament logistics said,

9:00 - 9:15 - kids change into costumes
9:15 - 9:30 - give kids directions for tournament
9:30 - 12:00 - have 12 seven-minute games
12:00 - 12:30 - have lunch with the kids outside

I've never been to this school before so I was in no way going to point out what I thought were the obvious flaws in the schedule because apparently they do this four times a year, but this is what I was thinking:  No way does it take kids 15 minutes to change into gym clothes.  It takes them about 3 minutes to do that.  Then what do you do with the other 12 minutes?  I'll tell you what they did:  they all came back to my homeroom and hung out, which was fine, but I started having ominous thoughts right then about the schedule.  Next we went down to the courts for the fifteen minute giving-directions portion of the day.  It was 40 degrees outside.  That might be a warm winter day but it is a mother-effing cold spring day.  I didn't look how long it took to give the directions, but it felt like 15 minutes.

Then the first game started.  I was told to stand on the outside stairs and keep the kids from going in the building.  Basically it was my job to watch kids freeze to death and then deny them shelter.  It told them they could go in the building, in the little space between the outside doors and the inner doors.  I was then scolded by a teacher (who was inside the building) that the kids had to stay outside.  You should have seen their little hands.  Red, stiff, frozen solid.  They were forced to change into their "basketball costumes" so they were all in shorts and t-shirts, with a sweatshirt or jacket.  Not warm enough!  I looked at my watch, thinking it must be at least 10:00.  It was 9:30.  I couldn't believe it.  It felt like a punch in the stomach.  But being the bitch-they-never-met-that-is-making-them-stay-outside-on-a-stupidly-cold-day really takes a lot out of a girl and time was going torturously slow.

About six hours later, at 10:00, the teacher who told me I have to keep the kids outside said that the library was open for kids who wanted to warm up, but they had to be silent.  Yeah, that's realistic.  Was I supposed to enforce that too?  No, he stayed in the library with the warmth and the chairs.  I had HAD it with standing outside in the freezing cold and figured I could just as easily shoo kids out of the building from the inside as I could the outside so I stepped in the inner doors and watched out the window.  Then library-enforcer came out and told me I had to do my job from outside.  What the fuck is the difference?  He said I should try to keep them from running in and out.  Seriously?  Has anyone taken into account that these are KIDS we were dealing with?  Running in and out is WHAT THEY DO.  I felt like they were picking on the sub because none of the other teachers seemed to be doing the shitty shitty job of denying kids warmth and shelter so I was just trying to ignore it (and stay inside) and occupy my mind with something else.

I did a little quick math in my head:  12 seven-minute games = 12x7 = 84.  Allowing two minutes for transitioning between games makes that 12x9 = 108.  This tournament should take no more than an hour and 45 minutes.  They had allotted two and a half hours.  I asked a teacher walking by, one of the many who said, "Hee hee, It's not usually like this!!  You must hate us!!"  You're fucking right I did.  But I didn't say that.  I asked one of them:  What do the kids do after the tournament is over?  Surely they weren't going to make them stand outside with nothing to do for 45 minutes.  She said, "They have lunch.  But we decided to let them eat inside since it's so cold!"  Then I said, "But what about the time between when the tournament ends, and lunch begins at 12:00?"  She didn't know what I was talking about and looked at me like I was an idiot, (what did I know?) and walked back outside.  She was wearing a blanket.

Sure enough the tournament ended about 40 minutes early.  The kids ran upstairs back to their homerooms.  I was so happy to be back in a room with heat and chairs I could have cried.  Then another teacher came into my room and started barking orders at the kids in my class.  Apparently we were all going to be sitting there for 40 minutes until the cafeteria was free.  She wanted ideas for what the kids wanted to do.  One kid said he wanted to watch a Magic Schoolbus episode and this teacher told him it would take him about ten minutes to run to the library to get one so it probably wouldn't be worth it.  First of all, a seventh grade boy can retrieve a dvd from a room two floors down in about 90 seconds (what is with these teachers and their total lack of knowledge about how long things take?) and for another thing, they had a smartboard and Youtube.  No need to run anywhere.  I found a full-length episode of Magic Schoolbus and started it up.  I thought that teacher would leave my room and go back to her own, but she didn't.  She sat down.  (WTF?)  Was I done?  Why was there another teacher with me? Who is watching her class? Is it because I let the kids in the stairwell when they were hypothermic against "orders?"  She sat down in the chair next to the computer and bumped the keyboard.  The movie paused.  She got all flustered and tried to fix it by turning the volume all the way down.  When she saw that didn't fix the problem, she came to the conclusion that the "internet was probably broken."  I pushed play and it started again to her utter amazement.

One of the most frustrating things about the day was that people thought I was so stupid. I know I'm not exactly a genius, but when stupid people think I'm stupid, that's discouraging.  Needless to say I will never go back there again.  Oh, and another thing:  I was told I would be paid for a half day: four hours.  I was there from 7:15 to 12:00 and I was supposed to stay until 12:30 to eat with the kids but I ducked out.  That is 4 hours and 45 minutes.  If I don't get paid for that 45 minutes I'm going to raise a stink.  I normally wouldn't, I'd just make a note not to do the half-day for them again because it isn't really a half-day, but this time I'm going to make a big deal about it because the day was so incredibly shitty.  I've already gotten the bit about how the Catholics don't pay as much because they just don't have the money:

To which I say, "Bullshit."

Kira in the Car

Kira got her first pair of glasses today.  Doesn't she look adorable?  Things must have been blurry for a while because when we came outside she said, "Oh my god!  I can see each individual leaf on that tree way over there!"  Anyway, in the car on the way home, right out of the blue she said, 

"Do you think there is such thing as gecko abuse?"

Which I thought was a little weird and now I'm worried that even if there wasn't gecko abuse before, if she ever gets in the proximity of a gecko, there will surely be some gecko abuse.

In other news, I stupidly took a job subbing for middle school math at the Catholic school.  Ugh.  I was curious what it was like over there, but I've already grown to regret it.  First I learned that the kids come at about 7:30 which means I have to be there by about 7:00.  Then I learned that it is a half day, so I will be getting paid for a half day, which will be about 25 bucks because the Catholics pay their teachers WAY less than the public school does, which means that they pay their subs about 2/3 what I could get anywhere else.  So 2/3 divided by 1/2 of what are below poverty wages in the first place = A humongous waste of my precious precious time, and finally, I learned that they will be having an outdoor basketball tournament all morning and my job will be bathroom monitor.  For three hours.  Then I can come out and eat lunch with the kids.  Ugh.  If it rains the basketball tournament will be postponed.  I want everyone who reads this before tomorrow morning to wish and pray and do rain dances to beg the powers-that-be for rain.  Okay? Because I would rather teach math to middle school students than sit in a bathroom all morning.  And that is really saying something, because I'd rather kick a puppy in the face than teach math to middle schoolers; ergo I'd rather kick a baker's dozen of puppies in the face than sit in a middle school bathroom all morning for $25.  

Cats

I haven't written about subbing lately and I've been subbing a LOT.  Yesterday I took a kindergarten job.  I don't know why I do it.  I guess it's like a challenge, and also the teacher likes me and asked me specifically to do it, so I took the job.  I'm a sucker.  Those kids are SO CUTE, but teaching kindergarten is like simultaneously managing a room full of cats and putting out fires - all day long.  Occasionally I have to take the cats out of the room to the library, or the lunchroom and that is a total fiasco.  Getting the cats to put on all their winter clothes to go home is another fiasco.  Cats don't care if the bus is going to be there in 5 minutes.  Cats don't care about anything but what they want to care about, and you can be sure it's nothing you want them to care about. 

My class

We got through most of the day with no major problems.  We had reading centers and did a pretty intense math activity.  That took the whole morning with me running around helping, solving problems, picking stuff up off the floor, resolving conflicts, tying shoes, buttoning pants, listening to tattles, etc. etc.  I was, for every second, either being talked to or talking.  I didn't have one minute to sit, go to the bathroom, or take a drink of water.  I don't know how kindergarten teachers do it day in and day out.  It is exhausting. 

Finally it was lunch time.  I gave them 15 minutes to get ready with all their winter clothes for recess afterward.  Some kids were ready in one minute, some kids still hadn't even put their snowpants on when it was time to leave.  So I brought the first wave down and then came back to get the second wave.  When I finally got back to the room to eat my own lunch, a parent came in with a kid that wasn't there in the morning.  I told him the kids were down at the cafeteria for lunch, thinking he could bring his kid down there himself.  He stared at me.  The kid stared at me.  I said, "Joseph, put your stuff on for recess and go to lunch."  The dad said, "He has to wear all his stuff just to go to lunch?"  Yes, Mr. Underminer, because if he doesn't put his boots and snowpants on now, he will totally miss recess because of how long it takes a five year old to put their boots and snowpants on, not to mention the fact that if he isn't wearing everything he needs, he will lose half of it on the short walk to the cafeteria.  I didn't say all that.  I just said, "Yes."  Then he stood there while his kid sloooooowwwwwly put on his stuff and griped about why the kids have to go to lunch wearing all their stuff.  He finally left and I had about ten minutes to myself where someone wasn't poking me or crying about something. 

Then I went to get them.  There must have been a bee on the playground because every single kid told me there was a bee on the playground.  Then one kid said he got stung by the bee.  I asked where and he didn't have an answer.  Another kid heard the first kid say he got stung so he said he also got stung.  Then everyone was saying they got stung. They lie.

The afternoon was much less intense than the morning; they had library, which left me with a merciful 25 minutes to pick up the room and get ready for them to come back, and then when they came back it was story time (my favorite), and then free play time.  During free play time a group of them wanted me to read stories to them.  They LIKE me!  They made me sit on the carpet and then they piled around me like a bunch of puppies and listened to me read.  It was pretty sweet, but while I was doing that, there was another group of kids who silently FILLED the water table to the tippy top. They did it by filling and re-filling a four-cup measuring cup.  I bet there was fifty gallons of water in that table, and the kids were soaked and the floor all around was soaked.  I made the water-table people help me clean up the mess they made, which had the exact results as it would if you told a bunch of cats to help you clean up a mess.  It was more work getting them to grab paper towels and soak up the water on the floor than it would have been to just do it myself, but we finally did it.

Then the sub notes said to gather on the carpet and talk about our day.  "Hey cats, I want all of you to sit in the same general area at a specific point in time!"  It eventually happened, but I had to chase and cajole and plead with five or six of them to go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, can't you see everyone else on the rug?  go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug.  Let's go to the rug!  Wouldn't going to the rug be fun?  go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, you don't need to check your backpack for your toy shark right now, go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, you can get your water bottle after you go to the rug, go to the rug, go to the rug, don't worry that your shoe is untied for the 800th time right now, just go to the rug, go to the rug, yes, it's very intersting that you have scabs on your leg that vaguely form the letter Y but right now go to the rug, go to the rug, no, I didn't know your teacher usually says "carpet," does it matter? oh, it does? okay, go to the carpet.

go to the rug

Finally, time to go home.  This brilliant teacher has set things up so a bunch of fifth graders come and are assigned to certain kindergarteners, and they help them get ready, gather their things, and then walk them to their bus.  I was so grateful to see those fifth graders that I could have cried.

Today I'm subbing for a woman who teaches AP social studies.  I have not had to tie any shoes or button any pants (so far).  Nobody has tattled and I don't expect to hear any tattles.  If they miss the bus, I won't even know about it, much less be responsible for it.  Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Prison is all the rage

I had my first sub job of the year this week.  I worked in a third grade room for three days.  The teacher had a death in the family early Tuesday morning so she called in to the automated system which called a different sub for Tuesday.  That sub apparently didn't want to come back because I was offered the rest of the week.  I like multiple-day jobs and I even like when I have to do all the plans.  It's kind of crazy the first day, but after that it is smooth sailing.  And I love third graders.

Today they had Friday Fun Time in the afternoon so a group of boys got out the geometric blocks and built a large and intricate prison.  They were very proud of it.  They had me come over and they showed me where the cells were located in the sturdily built section with no windows, and then there was a corridor going to the fenced-in yard that had a basketball court and a track.  I asked why they decided that it was a prison and they all just looked at me and shrugged like, "why not?"  Hear that, Playmobil? Oh, nevermind, I see you already know:

The kids are dying to play prison!  I told them that I used to work at the jail.  They wanted to know all about it so I told them some prison vocabulary words like "shiv," "shank," "keister" and "celly;" I also told them how to start a fire with pilfered paperclip and an electrical outlet; and they loved learning about toilet wine! (Just kidding. I didn't tell them what keister means.)

We also learned about our solar system this week.  I told them the mnemonic for remembering the planets, My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.  I had kids coming up to me all week screaming that sentence at me because I told them I'd give them a thank-you slip if they could remember it.  It was a very fun three days.  I'm sad it's over.  I'm going to miss those crazy little nutjobs.

Working

I haven't been subbing nearly as much as I would like this year so I am taking jobs that last year I would have turned down.  For instance, gym.  I'm not a gym teacher.  I don't like noise and I don't like to try to yell over loud echoing noise in humongous gyms because my voice isn't very loud.  But I do have my very own whistle for just such occasions!  I taught middle school gym last week and they were swimming in the pool.  They are very cute in a pool because some of them are soooooo skinny that they can barely float.  Fat is like a life vest.  My fat is my life vest.  I'm only tubby in case I ever find myself stranded in the ocean for days at a time.  I could do it.  I could tread water for days.  In fact, I couldn't NOT tread water.  I could never drown because I'm too buoyant. So if you ever hear that I drowned, I have been murdered.  I pop up like a cork.  Even when I try to be stealthy and swim under water, my butt pops up.  Oh well.  I'm not chunky, I'm buoyant.  Like a bubble.

I taught third grade last week which is my favorite grade, but this particular class is about 1/3 behavior problems so it was a challenge.  You know what I've noticed about kids since I've been teaching?  Little boys who have mohawks or earrings are little assholes.  And I've seen the same boys without the mohawk and they are NOT assholes when they don't have that strip of long hair running across the top of their otherwise bald head.  Moms, don't let your little boys get a mohawk.  It's not cute and it turns them into little dicks.

My blog is my sty

I'm having a great morning.  I got a job teaching for half a day for a health teacher who I get called for every spring when she is teaching something totally awkward and embarrassing.  I don't think she is embarrassed by it at all, in fact, I think she's totally immune, but I have to wonder at her needing a sub in the spring and never any other time.  Hmmm...  Anyway, today the kids have guest speakers talking about date rape.  They are doing a unit called "One by One: Teens explore Date Rape"  Just the title alone is enough to cause a 15 year old to claw hopelessly at the ground hoping to dig him/herself a giant hole to climb in.   I LOVE that ninth graders, who can be pretty obnoxious at times, are reduced to looking busy and interested in the most insignificant scribble on their desks when someone asks, "What are three ways a girl might say "no" in a date rape situation."  Is there any good answer a 15 year old boy can give to that awkward, potentially incriminating question? -- "Well, when I dabbled in date-raping, I found girls usually just said, 'WHAT do you think you're doing?'"  -- No, there really isn't a good way a kid can answer that question,  so they stay silent and still, knowing that the guest speaker can only see movement, and if you stay still, avert your eyes, and blend in, they won't even know you are there. 

I needed a good job today.  Yesterday I taught kindergarten again.  I only sub for one kindergarten teacher and only because I like her, but I might have to break the news to her that I HATE kindergarten and can't do it any more.  She's kind of a big shot and is gone to meetings a lot, and that means a lot of work for me, but I don't know if it's worth it.  Yesterday three kids peed their pants.  My mom, who was a kindergarten teacher for many many years said that she thinks it is because they are afraid of me, but I know that isn't it.  Two of them are best friends and both peed their pants during a bathroom break after lunch.  They peed their pants together in the bathroom.  Like it's what all the cool kids do.  Another one came out of the bathroom that is located in the classroom with pee all over her pants.  Excuse me, aren't you six years old?  WTF is with all the peeing? 

One girl came in to class first thing in the morning and told me that she needed a student to assist her for the day because she went blind. Here's our conversation:

Girl: Can Ava sit by me and help me today?  I need help because I went blind.
Me:  You're blind?
Girl: Yes.
Me: When did you go blind?
Girl: Yesterday after I went bowling.
Me: Do you mean you can't see anything, or you can't see well?
Girl: Yesterday I couldn't see anything.  Today I can't see well.
Me:  Did you go to the doctor?
Girl:  No.
Me: Did you tell your parents?
Girl: Yes.
Me:  Do you have a headache?
Girl: No, I'm just blind.
Me:  -----
Girl: So can Ava help me today?
Me:  ...........  Yeah, sure. 

I agreed to teach that class again tomorrow.  New class rule -- NO DRINKING LIQUIDS ALL DAY LONG.

I have to say that after my last post, exposing to the world my true nerdiness (and my sister's true nerdiness) that I am loving the comments!  My aunt emailed me and called me a big nerd, and then went on to give me her opinion on which Hogwarts houses she thinks the Founding Fathers would be placed in. (NERD.)  Diary of a Mad Bathroom made me crack up this morning when I read her comment that kindly suggests I find like-minded nerds to talk to, like if I don't find an outlet for my nerdiness I might do something dramatic and irrational.  Of course, this is all happening on my blog, which in itself is an indication of my immense nerdiness.  I embrace my nerdiness and roll around in it like a pig in a sty.  My blog is my sty. 

Some Blog Business and a Tiny Rant

Hi Everybody.  I have some blog business to discuss with you.  You know how commenting on my blog is easy as pie with no word verification or anything?  Isn't that nice?  Well, I have to change it.  I thought I could put up with the spam in order to make commenting so hassle free, but I am sick of it.  I get an email every time I get a comment and lately most of my emails are because of spam comments on the blog, so I'm afraid I am going to have to put the word verification thingy back up.

I know, it's a pain in the ass, but I don't want any more ridiculously phony comments from who I suspect are non-English-speakers, that have nothing to do with the post and everything to do with the link to the online casino they are trying to get people to visit. ("Your blog are best I read!  Please sent a link!) I also am pretty sure I don't need a bigger penis, discounts on Viagra, or to learn how to unlock an iPhone 4, so, there you have it.  Word verification is re-activated.

I worked today in my favorite third grade class and at lunch I was talking with another sub who said she works pretty much full-time as a sub, but also has a job as a cashier at a grocery store for the money and benefits.   She makes more in a 6 hour shift swiping groceries over a scanner than she does teaching an eight hour day at a school, not to mention health and dental benefits that she says pays 80% of her health and dental costs.  WTF?  Seriously,  What.  The.  Fuck?

Lame-o

I have been so lame this week that I'm actually sick of myself.  Does that ever happen to you?  I only worked on Monday for half a day so I've been at home, alone with myself for three days which I usually enjoy, but not this week.  I work tomorrow (THANK GOD!) for one of the worst fourth grade classes I've ever seen, but oddly enough, I really enjoy working in that room. I get to bark out orders like Tommy Lee Jones does in every one of his movies

"Blah, blah blah, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse blah blah blah."

and that makes me feel good and important, because like all teachers, I only went in to this profession for the power it gives me over weak and helpless children; the money; and June, July and August!  Just kidding.  I should stop giving the anti-teacher movement ammunition.  They don't need it.

Although I have been lame, I have been kicking some major ass in Angry Birds! Now that I read that last sentence, I think that is just further evidence of my lameness.  But look at my progress!

And...

And...

In case you're not a player of Angry Birds (lame-o) those are a few of my score boards and if you'll notice they all have THREE STARS!  That's perfection, my friends. 

So what has been making me feel so bad about myself this week?  I feel bad that I lost the frog again.  He's in the house somewhere getting drier and drier, I can just feel it.  Either that or there is a thriving community of tree frogs in my house that are mostly really good at staying out of sight.  Who knows.  I never once saw that frog poop.  Isn't that weird?  And I am also getting anxious about traveling with my children across the country by myself.  Mitch has to stay here and work so I can afford to take the kids on fabulous vacations.  I'm pretty much ready for the trip, I think, but I keep thinking of the worst things that could happen, like losing a kid in an airport bathroom, or dying in a fiery plane crash.  That would suck.  But I have to get out there and do stuff or else I end up feeling lame for sitting around my house with my thumb up my butt.  (In my defense, I never actually had my thumb up my butt.)  

The Dark Ages

I have been without wifi at home for over a week now.  How did I ever live without the internet?  What kind of existence did I have if I couldn't find out within minutes what the R. in Edward R. Murrow stands for (Rocky), if cabbits are a real thing or if Mitch was just lying to me again (lying), or what is the meanest animal in the animal kingdom (honey badgers)?  I had vivid dreams last night about looking out at our wifi receiver thingy and seeing five red lights indicating that not only do we have internet, but we have super fast internet, but when I jumped out of bed to look to see if it was real, I saw that it wasn't.  I am doomed to another day of ignorance and hardship. 

Last time I had internet access I had a list of things I had to look up.  For one thing, I had to find out what kind of frog I found in my bathroom, and how to take care of it and feed it.  Can you believe that 15 or 20 years ago people who found frogs in their bathroom would have to go to the library and find a book about frogs?  And failing that, they would have to talk to strangers who might know more about frogs than they do.  TALK TO STRANGERS!  Ugh!  Just kidding.  I like talking to strangers as much as I like talking to anyone.  Especially people I will never see again.  That way there's no pressure to be on your best behavior or to try to be normal, and without the pressure it is, ironically, a lot easier to be normal.  Weird. 

Anyway, I took excellent care of the frog and he was eating the live flies I caught for him, and I think he also ate the centipede I found.  He was looking fat and moist and happy, and then one morning I looked in his home and he was gone.  He escaped.  I crawled around on my knees looking for him for a while, but I didn't find him.  He's gone.  Now I realize that I have given you the impression that my house is full of flies (dead and alive), centipedes, frogs and god knows what else.  I can just imagine the pictures you have in your head of my life style and living space.  I can't deny that yes, I do, apparently live among flies (alive and dead), centipedes, the occasional frog among other things; but despite experiencing at least four of the ten biblical plagues while sitting in my living room, it is quite pleasant and comfortable.  This is rural life, people!  We live with the wild life and without the internet!  I am exactly like Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I'm going to start telling people Mitch's real name is Manly.  (Remember?  Laura was married to Almonzo "Manly" Wilder?) 

Oh, Manly!

I am "working" right now for a social studies teacher that has all AP classes and one yearbook class.  It is so easy which almost balances out the days that I have to teach kindergarten or have to babysit ninth graders.  Almost.  In her instructions for her yearbook class she wrote, "Just have them do whatever."  OKAY!  I can definitely have them do "whatever" especially if "whatever" includes making them give me foot rubs and getting me candy from the vending machines.

More third graders

I had another good day with the third graders.  One of the things they did today that made me laugh was during a vocabulary quiz.  They were supposed to match the word to the definition.  One of the words was "decent" and the definition that was supposed to match it was, "what you might call a good and fair person,"  and another w was "inherit"  and the definition that matched it was "receiving a gift of money or property from a family member."  About two thirds of the kids said that they thought getting a gift of money or property from a family member was decent.  I don't know.  It made me laugh.

And then later we were reading about San Francisco and we got to the end of the chapter and there were some questions and one of them was, "Do you have any stories about your community?" and whenever they are asked to tell a story, every hand shoots up in the air.  I chose five kids to share their stories with us.  My favorite was from a kid who said the following:

"One time at my house we got a big box delivered to us and I asked my dad what was in it and he told me to look, and he threw me his pocket knife.  I cut the tape on the box open really fast and accidentally cut my hand right here (pointing to his hand).  Boy did it ever bleed!  My mom saw it and said, "What the H did you give him a knife for?" and my dad said that he didn't think I'd cut my hand open.  Then I had to go to the hospital."

I need a new job

I think I need to find a job.  I'm really starting to hate subbing.  For one thing, I think that all the laid-off teachers have started subbing and are getting all the decent jobs because when I do get called to sub, the job description is something like this:

Job # 12345 7:30-3:45

-Start at Central High for Mr. So-and-so.  Teach 1st hour special ed. in resource room.  (question:  where the fuck is the resource room?) Teach 2nd hour Consumer Science (fancy name for home ec.) in room 153.  (walking down hallway, see rooms 152, 154.  There is no 153.  After walking about a mile looking for it because it MUST BE by 152, learn that for some inexplicable reason it is on the second floor. ??? Oops!  Clerical error!  We meant 253! lol!)  Walk in late, flustered and sweaty.  Read lesson plans and learn that you have to supervise thirty-five 16-year-olds making flan. (what the fuck is flan?)

-Go to STC (Where the hell is that?  Oh, it's across the 15 acre ice-rink parking lot?  I wonder how many times I will fall.)  Teach 3rd hour remedial math for Mrs. Whats-her-face in a freezing cold totally isolated classroom with 15 boys who look like they want to kill you and make your skin into a suit. 

-Drive to East High School.  Teach 5th and 6th hour  for Mr. Blahblahblah in room 353.  Yes, the school in fact does happen to be 95 degrees!  How did you guess?  BTW Mr. Blahblahblah is a slob and won't have any lesson plans for you.  Good luck!

-Drive back to Central.  Babysit an 8th hour study hall that has a student teacher.  Sure, it's a total waste of time but what do you care?  You're getting paid an almost poverty-level wage no matter what you teach so quit your bitching!

Or even worse:

Job # 23456 7:30 - 3:30

Any Elementary School: All day kindergarten.


(Actually, I taught in kindergarten yesterday and it wasn't so bad.  The kids were very cute.  I was wearing a red jacket and one little girl came up to me and said, "I like your jacket," and on the word "jacket" she poked me hard, dead-center in both boobs with her tiny monkey fingers.)

I think I want to find a job that pays a lot of money, has low expectations, is part-time, where I won't have to drive around all day or get sexually assaulted by small children.  Is that too much to ask?

I'm gonna be a Pilot!

Minnesota legislators are soon going to vote on a bill that would allow people with a four year degree, but no teacher training, become teachers!  You could spend four years in college, get a degree in underwater basket weaving and then get out and teach school! All you will have to do is take a 200 hour crash course in teaching.  (I was a real sucker for taking over four years to learn to be a teacher.  It apparently only takes five weeks.)

The second having to have a license or any kind of specific training to practice a profession is moot, I think I will try out all kinds of things, why not! I have a four-year degree!  I can do anything!

The first thing I'm going to do is become a nurse.  RNs  have four-year degrees, I have a four-year degree, therefore, according to the Minnesota legislature, I could probably do a decent job of being a nurse.  I want some scrubs.  I'm kind of squeamish though so as soon as bodily fluids come into play, I'm outta there.  Kind of like when I joined track in high school to get the cool sweatsuit, but then learned I was expected to run. Every day.  Yeah, right.

Then I think I'll be an electrician.  I use electricity literally all the time.  I'm an electricity expert; flip switch up: on.  Flip switch down: off.   I'm trained (enough)!  I have a bachelor's degree in education.  I'm educated.  If I'm educated, I can do anything, right?  All that's been in my way are these pesky licenses!

Need anything rewired?

Oh, you know what I'd really like to do?  Fly commercial airliners!  I'm sure that YEAR LONG course I suffered through, Methods and Materials of Teaching Secondary English will really help out with takeoff and landing. Once I get my job being a pilot, flying will be much more pleasant.  Trips go by so much faster when I'm the driver.  I have lots of experience driving a car, and a little bit driving a boat, and I actually took over the yolk (that's what they call it) in a small plane and controlled it myself once for about five minutes (actual flying experience).  I'm totally qualified.

Then I think I'll become an architect for a while.  I live in a building, I go in buildings all the time, I've built Sims houses.  I could do it.  I'm qualified because I have a bachelor's degree, and more importantly, I BELIEVE I could be an architect although I have a degree in English Education; just like some Minnesota legislators believe that anyone with a four-year degree can walk into a classroom and teach 30 kids.  Easy.

If this bill passes and you can do ANYTHING with your four-year degree, what do you want to do?

Eighth Graders

This is the second day of subbing for eighth graders.  These are some of the best eighth grade classes I've had while subbing, but still, they are soooooo mean and obnoxious.  I am convinced that the 14 year old human male is the meanest living being on the planet, right above the Honey Badger who loves to eat beehives, scorpions and porcupines (troublemakers).

Nature's eighth grader

This is what I mean:  Yesterday during MCA testing, which is a big deal and has to be administered the same way throughout the state, the boys did everything they could to make it difficult.  Every day of testing the administrator is supposed to read a set of instructions to the class.  No exceptions!  It's like miranda rights or something.  I had to do it, but regardless of telling them that I know they'd probably heard it before, and please just listen patiently because I had to read it; after every instruction there was a different boy who said, "We've heard this before," and then there were a series of laughs from the other boys. 

They can have candy and gum during the test.  The school actually gave them each a piece of taffy and every time my eyes were off the class, I could see from my peripheral vision, taffy wrappers flying across the room.  Many of the kids had their own gum.  I can see now why teachers don't let kids have gum.  I bet I heard 25,000 impossibly loud snaps of gum yesterday. 

During the MCA test, when a student finished a section, they were supposed to raise their hand and I was supposed to come over and put an orange sticker sealing the section off.  There were a few boys who would raise their hands and then when I came over with the sticker, they would say, "I'm just stretching."  Then they'd do it again and again and again.  Why?  Just to be annoying, that's why.

The kids had two hours to do two sections of the test.  All the eighth graders in the building were testing at the same time and if they had to leave their room to use the bathroom, I was supposed to call an escort to bring them.  I told them before the testing started to go to the bathroom if they had to go.  None did.  During testing 8 boys (no girls) needed me to call an escort to go to the bathroom.  EIGHT.  And they wouldn't make it convenient for the escort at all.  She would come to get one, then when she brought him back she would ask if there was anyone else.  There never was until about five minutes later when she had gone all the way back to the office.  Then another boy would have to go. 

After everyone was done with the test, there were about 45 minutes left of testing time and I had to keep them in the room and keep them quiet.  I gave them a ball and told them to play silent-ball, which is a popular middle-school game.  They couldn't handle it.  They would toss the ball a few times and then one of the boys would rifle it at the class nerd as hard as he could.  The second time a nerd got nailed with the ball I took it away and made them sit down with their heads on their desks. 

I see now why wars throughout history were fought with teenage boys.  They would drive the adults crazy to the point where the adults would find a reason to start a war and send the boys off to fight it.  Did you know that Alexander the Great's father sent him away to school to learn from Aristotle at the Temple of the Nymphs when he was 13?  And knowing what an enormous burden Aristotle was taking on, King Philip, Alexander's father, agreed to rebuild Aristotle's hometown of Stageira, (which Philip had razed) and to repopulate it by buying and freeing the ex-citizens who were slaves, or pardoning those who were in exile. 

Aristotle asking Alexander if he's really done with the section of the GCA test, and not just "stretching" again.

That's almost a fair trade for tutoring an aggressive 13 year old boy and his friends, but Philip got the better deal.  My guess is that when Alexander was about 15 Aristotle was fed up, regardless of the deal with King Philip, and said something like, "Hey Alexander, the Thracians said you are gay," which, knowing how homophobic every teen boy is, made Alexander fly into a rage and he left to beat the Thracians down.

 

Alexander the Great, history's meanest eighth grader

I think the "Support Our Troops" idea is relatively new.  I would say it started about the same time soldiers had to be at least 18 to fight.  At 18 they are just starting to come out of that unbearably irritating part of life, and we'd be sorry to see them hurt or killed.  Before that happened I think the overwhelming feeling about the support of troops was, "Meh...whatev."

What I love about substitute teaching

My workweek this week:

4 days of work
4 different grades
4 different buildings

1 outfit

Jealous?

Ugh blah yuck

I have the swine flu. Nah, probably not, but I don't feel good. I might have gotten food poisoning from the tator tot hotdish I made last night, although nobody else seems to be sick, but with my cooking my family have probably developed stomachs of iron. Why am I such a delicate flower?

It's a bad time to be sick with all this wonderful Halloween candy around. This is prime candy time. In a few days the kids will have eaten all the premium stuff and I'll be left with nothing but Almond Joy and one crushed Butterfinger, along with crappy Sweet Tarts. I might have to raid their stash and hide some good stuff for myself for later. I already had to hide the half a bag of Three Musketeers I had left over from giving treats at school. THEY'RE NOT IN THE BUNT CAKE PAN, MITCH! HA! KEEP LOOKING!

I might take tomorrow off and try to recover. I think I could make it if I could be wrapped in my electric blanket for the whole day. (I wonder if they'd let me do that? I'll have to look for an extension cord.) In the meantime I'll rest and relax with my Facebook farm and Dr. Quinn. I'm on season 5 of 6. When it's over I will be MAJORLY DEPRESSED.