It's about time!
Isn't it funny how sometimes it takes putting yourself physically into a situation for memories to come flooding back? Like it takes going back to your Grandparent's old house to recall that big scary wardrobe that you used to be scared to death of, convinced that something big and hairy with lots of horns and drool would jump out of it at night.
Well, I got on a school bus this last week for the first time in, uh, about 14 years. It was weird. I sat there in a bit of a stupor, just smelling the bus-smell, and remembering how it felt to dodge flying books and insults on a daily basis.
But there was also a part of me that was oddly comforted. Buses smell the same. Kids still sit in the back and sing popular songs off-key. And I can still scrunch down in the seat so my knees are perched on the seatback in front of me and my feet are dangling off the floor. And that's still a comfortable posistion to sit in. All I needed was someone to play "Miss Mary Mack" with me.
I guess I should clarify that I wasn't driving the bus, this was during a field trip. I had been called in to sub for a class of itty-bitties that was planning to leave school grounds during the day. There were specific directions left for me. When we would leave, where the activity bus would be picking us up and letting us off, what we were to be doing, when we would be back, how I should tie my shoelaces, and what songs we should sing as a group during the trip. Maybe they weren't that specific, but I had in front of me the best and most thorough sub-plans I had ever recieved. Unfortunately, they were all wrong.
Before it was time to leave, a member of the administration visited the classroom where he heard about our little jaunt. Here is what I learned: It's illegal for a sub to take students off school grounds. Did you know this? I did not know this. This is a necessary info, people. You need to know something like this before you commit 25 counts of felony kidnapping! Needless to say, I made sure that Admin. knew of my ignorance. Hey, better ignorant than fired and incarcerated.
After this U-turn in my day, I'm scrambling around trying to figure out what to do with this class since my erstwhile "perfect" sub-plans had just died a fiery death, when the regular teacher calls to check in. I'm going to skip a lot of details here, because this was an uncomfortable and very stressful day. Here it is in a nutshell:
- Real Teacher comes in to ensure the legal operation of the field trip.
- At place-o-fun, Real Teacher is MIA.
- Discover only through eavesdropping that Real Teacher has left the premises without telling me.
- Return to school sans one adult and have to tattle to Administration.
- Feel like a vindictive fink.
The really interesting thing here is that the only enjoyable part of the day... was the children. They were little cherubs. If they had been hateful ankle-biting heathens, I might have gone AWOL along with Real Teacher, and left the bus driver to deal. Hmmmm... I wonder if that's the sort of thing I have to look forward to...
Bored bored borrrrrred
I have recieved no sub calls this week, or last week for that matter. What is wrong with these people? Don't they get sick?!? So in lieu of actually being a productive member of society, I have turned into The Incredible Sleeping Woman.
It's a sloth!
It's a chaise lounge!
NO! It's Sleeping Woman!!
Da daa daaaa!!!!
You might be thinking that I exaggerate, that I can't really have been as lazy as all that, but I assure you that I have been living an utterly and totally couch-potato-like existance. I've surfed the internet, read loads and loads of blogs (there are some real weirdos out there!), and watched every episode of
Law & Order (even
SVU and
CI) known to man. OK, so I do occassionally get off my butt to run errands, but all this accomplishes is to bring me in contact with students, former students, and parents of students who ask me about my *ahem* "teaching career". This of course only serves to depress me, sending me running back to my precious couch where I channel surf until I find yet another episode of L&O.
It's a viscious circle.
To break this personal Catch-22 I will soon be beginning a new job. Are you ready? Starting next month, in addition to subbing I will also be a...
Bus Driver. Woo Hoo!
Frightening? I think so, but I figure that it's a steady paycheck, I'll have even more to write about, and if the little snots get on my nerves too much I can just put them out on the side of the road. Now, don't be sending me hate mail about the safety of our children. I'll be driving High Schoolers and I know full well that those people are able to fend for themselves out in the wild.
Stay tuned...
Welcome to my new home!
Subsister: (sub sist'er) n.
one who lives through affliction
Sub-Sister: (sub' sist er) n.
female substitute teacher; "sister-in-arms"
Just thought you should know. After all, it
is my job to educate ;)
Ernesto Blew
Actually, he did more raining than anything. Hard rain. Rain that kept me awake all night long. Stupid rain.
For anyone who's managed to miss the joy, we here on the east coast of the U.S. have had our first tropical-storm-could-grow-up-to-be-a-hurricane of the season. These little squalls are always fun to watch. The news crews go absolutely berserk and panicky, even the local crews who should know better by now, the locals wave 'bye-bye' as the tourists run for the hills, and some places had mandatory evacuations. The main point to remember is: The Tourists Left. Hallelujah!
This morning, I went to Food Lion and didn't have to play bumper carts with the 25 other people crammed into the same aisles, AND I got to pick the kind of cereal I wanted instead of having to take the battered box of Frosted Wheaty-O's that happened to be the only thing left on the shelves. Bliss.
Truthfully, there was only one downside to Ernesto (and there's only one because it doesn't bother me to miss a night of sleep every once in a while), and it was that I missed a day of work. The schools had to close due to the copious amounts of rainwater flooding the streets. Heck, my house had a moat. It was cool.
But I missed a sub-day! My first day as a Middle School sub. I was looking forward to it... and the money. Yep. Ernesto blew.
