Wow, an unexpected day 3

Whaddya know! Yes, things are warming up and melting, but apparently not fast enough, as school has been cancelled for a third day. I just went out and looked, and our street is still a sheet of ice, so I don't blame them for doing so. The other district I work in is running late, but with weather conditions, my getting up late for a late-starting job, and needing to get gas, I've decided not to try anything. I'll just make today up in June instead. I fully expect I'll be tutoring tonight, however.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Tutoring is out again tonight. Tomorrow has already gotten complicated, as the main district I work in was scheduled to have a lot of teachers out at meetings, and they were requesting lots of subs. I already had a job lined up, even. But now that meeting has been cancelled, and so even if school is back in session tomorrow, I may not have a job, or at least a different job, but I won't know until the sub office calls me (at least they warned me it could happen). Of course, if that next storm front moves in tonight as predicted, it may be moot as there would likely not be school, either. Eh, we'll see what happens.

UPDATE: The original job for tomorrow was officially cancelled, freeing me up to accept a two-day elementary PE job instead. It doesn't give me a lot of time to get from there to tutoring, but I will get some sleep, at least. Temperatures are supposed to warm up tnight, and the storm moving in is expected to drop rain, not snow, so odds are good that I will actually work both jobs tomorrow. But as we're hovering right around freezing, it may end up being another day off, or a morning delay. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted, and winter break starts in a little over two weeks.

No school, Day 2

Wow, that was fast! Both districts I work in have already announced that they'll be closed tomorrow. Yay, sleeping in! Without a lot of new snow falling but record low temperatures expected overnight, this is not so much a snow day as it is an ice day!

Someone didn't get the memo

I just accepted a job teaching drama today at one of the high schools. This is after turning down a job earlier this morning to teach ELL at another high school.

But it's all moot, since school was cancelled for the day earlier this morning anyway. The only reason I accepted that job was to keep the phone from ringing with any other jobs. And on the off-off-off-off-chance that things warm up and roads actually become driveable today, I can go in and get a day's pay for a few hours work.

I should find out around noon whether or not I have to go in and tutor tonight, but after last night's drive from heck, I'm tempted to tell them where to stick it if they do open. I just saw on the news some traffic footage from 1:00 this morning of down around the airport, and there were still cars stuck on the road, still trying to get home even that late (although I suspect a lot of them were coming back from last night's Seahawks game — which the Hawks won, I might add, woo-hoo!).

It does not look like it will get above freezing at all today, so we may be in for at least another day of ice. If I can, however, I may at least get out and fill my gas tank. Not only do I need it, the extra weight would help in getting a grip.

I'm babbling now, so I'll just sign off, go back to sleep, and enjoy the day off.

LATE MORNING UPDATE: The drama job was cancelled, so I thought that someone in the central office got the idea finally. Nope. A while later the machine called and offered me an all-day kindergarten job. I turned it down, and finally told the computer that I wasn't available. That finally stopped the phone — except for the call I just got from the tutoring center telling me to not bother going there, either. So I get to sip hot cider and play on my computer all day. Oh, how terrible...

Driving in the snow in Seattle...

It started to snow again this evening. So the tutoring service cancelled the last two hours and let us go home early, because driving in the snow around here with all of the hills is a major pain in the asymptote.

It took me two hours to drive the four miles home! And I was one of the lucky ones! There were horror stories on the radio of people making drives of similar length, and it took three, four, or even five hours!

At least I got home at about the same time I would have gotten home anyway if the weather had been fine and I'd tutored all night...

No snow day for me

We had a pretty heavy snowfall yesterday, and I thought for sure that today would be a snow day. I've lived around here long enough that I should have known better, however. It pretty much all melted here last night. Several districts to the north and west are closed or delayed today, but I've already snagged a junior high science job for today. Oh, well.

This (short) week in teaching

With Thanksgiving this week, it was a pretty short week. And it started off pretty uneventful as well, as I filled in for two math teachers Monday (high school) and Tuesday (junior high). And with the holiday coming and some students probably leaving early (which did not happen, I might add), they both kept it pretty simple. I think that junior high job was all review worksheets, in fact, but that didn't prevent me from helping out, pointing things out, reteaching, that sort of thing.

But Wednesday... Now that was different! I got the call to go to the junior high up the street and teach PE. I should have known that today would be unusual, because it often is when I go there. In the past I've been there for the annual schoolwide fun run, and some interesting fire drills. This day, it was the Turkey Trot. This is the culmination of the square dance unit. This district does terrific work with square dancing, making it seem a lot less quaint and unhip than in my day. It can be a lot of fun at the elementary schools, in fact, with line dances to hip hop songs and the like. They take it a little more seriously at the junior high level, but it's still a lot of fun. In the morning, all I had to do was take role and then let the caller do his work. But after lunch came the big event, as the Turkey Trot is the school square dance championship, and they make a big deal out of it. The gym floor was packed with eight-person squares, and many of them were color coordinated or came up with costumes — and not, I might add, the traditional costumes associated with square dancing. I only saw two of those little short sticking-out skirts, and I was surprised it was that many.

But the fun part about the Turkey Trot? It's a last square standing competition. There are several rounds, and in each round, once a square makes a mistake and can't recover, they have to sit down. As each round starts, it's all a whirl of kids, but as they progress and more squares sit down, it becomes clearer who's going to contend in each round. It's wild, and a lot of fun. Squares get points for how high they finish, and their scores are added up after all the rounds. The final round proved to be especially difficult, as three squares just kept going and going — until the caller sped up! I'm sure glad I wasn't on the floor trying to keep up! All the top squares got prizes, but the winning square actually won turkeys. It was a fun afternoon.

So, what's coming up? Not much coming up this week (so far), but after that I'm booked pretty solid. A high school teacher is going to be unavailable for the last week and a half before Christmas winter break, and requested me to fill in. Naturally I accepted. I'm looking forward to this, even though he also teaches one period of health. So long as I don't have to teach sex ed, I think I can handle it.

New Adventures in Teaching!

It was a pretty quiet week. Monday, as expected, I taught science for that one teacher I subbed for the week before. Tuesday, nothing turned up, even though (I found out later) that same teacher needed a sub again. (Gee, did I do that bad?) Wednesday, junior high computers and video production. Thursday, science and math at the local alternative junior high (the one for smarter or just differently-talented kids, not the one for students nobody else wants to deal with, I'm sure you know what I mean by that difference). Friday, more junior high science. Hmm, am I stuck in a rut? Well, I guess it doesn't matter so long as I get paid.

"Real Life" teacher comics

Well, here's something you don't see too often: Comics about teaching! Real Life Adventures is a comic panel that I read every day, and I usually get a smile or a chuckle out of it, but rarely a guffaw as raucous as I got from today's installment. (I don't know how long it will be available, but I suspect for no longer than a month.) Aw, heck, and while you're at it, here's yesterday's, too.

How not to be naughty

Here's a tip for any students who are reading this and might want to do something naughty when there's a substitute teacher: Don't give a wrong name to the teacher when you get caught and he writes up an infraction. Because it's entirely possible that the substitute will be back two days later, and have the real student whose name you gave in one of his classes. Then the substitute can go and talk to the teacher he originally subbed for and the vice-principal and get everything straightened out, and you will get a lot more than an infraction; you will be suspended. This is exactly what happened to me this past short week of teaching, and I am not at all happy about it. Fortunately, both students who had to serve undeserved detentions, the teacher, and the vice-principal were all very understanding and forgiving about the whole thing. When I found out who these students really were and told the story to other teachers at the school, I got lots of rolled eyes and exclamations of, "Oh, yeah, those two," or words to that effect. I gather I'm not the only teacher who's had a run-in with them.

So, I ended up with a half day on Monday of wood shop, which started out with a couple of very fidgety and rude liars giving me the business. Fortunately, it went uphill from there. I did enough wood shop in high school that I can handle myself and the equipment there, and I helped out as best I could. Tuesday was drama and video production. Video was easy, I just let them do their thing, while in drama we got to play some improv games. I think one class could have played Freeze Tag for hours, they were very good. They even let me jump in a few times. Wednesday, back to the first school, and I "taught" science and math. But since this was the last day before the long weekend (this district had set aside Thursday for a teacher work day, and Friday was a day of since Veteran's Day is Saturday this year), and periods were short because of the Veteran's Day assembly, and they were all done with units anyway, I got to show them the first few minutes of October Sky instead. Yeah, that was a really hard day... The other district I work in had school on Thursday, but believe it or not, nothing came up, so I ended up with an extra day off, which works for me.

So now, how goes it on the job front? Very interesting, as it turns out! It seems that the district where I curretnly live and get the most work had a computer meltdown or something over the summer, and they lost a lot of files — including my current application. So when they got my fax Monday morning, they called and let me know that I needed to fill out a new application. Yikes! So I printed that out and my general application file (it has my résumé and scans of my transcripts, certificates, and letters of recommendation) and managed to get an hour off from tutoring that evening. I rushed home and filled it out, wrote a quick letter, and shoved it all into an envelope for Laura to drop off Tuesday morning. Whew! Everything came in and was fine, but then it turned out that the local high school job was statistics, which I'm not very good at at all. Oh, well. Still, there are some long-term leave replacement jobs coming up, and the personnel office knows I want them, so this may pay off soon after all.

Nothing lined up for the coming week yet, although the science-and-math teacher I worked for on Wednesday may need me again Monday, which means I'd get to see more of October Sky. Well, it's a good movie, I don't really mind.

The last few weeks of teaching

Okay, darn it, I know I'm behind. After the emotional roller coaster I've been on with the new-job-whoops-just-kidding tango, do you blame me? And now that I'm back to tutoring in the evenings again, I have a lot less time during the week. So I'd better make better use of my time on weekends, right?

Besides Hallowe'en (see the last entry), here are selected highlights of the last few weeks:

• I had a whole week of high school math for a teacher who had to get some surgery. That was fun, even if I was a little out of my element in the AP Stats class. Fortunately, they knew what they were doing, and I had the answer keys.
  
• I taught primary kids for the first time in ages. I snagged a job at the brand new elementary school in the area because I wanted to see what it was like, and this guy's listing said he taught fourth grade. But this year he has first graders. Yikes! To make matters worse, traffic was a royal pain in the @#$%, and I ended up getting there only about ten minutes before the kids. I hate not having enough prep time! But once things got going, it went all right. They were nice kids and very helpful, and the staff gave me a hand when I needed it as well. But yeah, I remember now why I don't usually take classes that young any more.
  
• I was the latest sub in a line for a high school science class where nobody has been able to find a qualified long-term sub while the regular teacher is on maternity leave. The rest of the science staff has been good at keeping on top of things, but it's gotten very frustrating for everyone, students and staff, and I wish I knew what could be done. If I had more science background, I'd take it like a shot. But I had to leave after only two days, as they had someone else already coming in, and I had another job lined up.
  
• One of the best assignments I've ever had: Junior high English, where this day the kids spent the whole period silent reading! Needless to say, I got quite a bit of my own reading done as well. A very close second was the high school PE class I had the other day. This was on a block day, so there were only three long classes. I got called in late (perhaps another sub didn't show up), so by the time I got there the first class was working hard and steadily in the library, so I got to stay there for about an hour. The next class was weightlifting, and the students all knew what to do. The final period was his planning, and I didn't need to be there, and they let me go home early. Those days more than make up for all of those days with no plans and no planning and aggrivating kids!
  
• The other day, junior high drama! I got to watch part of Casablanca with one class (too bad it was wasted on them, they were clearly not paying any attention) and watch the rest play charades. That was fun!
  
• Elementary library! Surrounded by books and getting to read stories to children. Heaven! If I had it to do over again, I would seriously consider getting a library endorsement (after the whailing and screaming of having to relive my life all over again, of course).
  
• And finally, a junior high math job the other day that may lead to bigger things! The job was certainly enjoyable enough, but they were so self-directed that there was really little need for me to do much math. But I found out during lunch that the school needs to hire a part-time math teacher! So I jumped onto the jobline this weekend, and found not only that job, but a leave fill-in job at the local high school for second semester! Needless to say, I went ahead and applied for both jobs, which is one thing that has been keeping me busy this weekend. Wish me luck!
  

Nothing lined up yet this week, and because of Veteran's Day, it's going to be a short week. Since the holiday itself is on Saturday, school is out on Friday. One of the districts I work in also has a teacher work day on Thursday, but the other one is open, so I should be able to get a job there.