Subbing in Kindergarten

    I'm standing in the middle of chaos - wondering what the hell I'm doing here. Interviewing physicists and clergy is much easier than what I've just signed up for. Heck, even interviewing chefs is easier than this and they oftentimes possess inflated egos. All I can say about that - is the Food Network has created small hometown chefs who think they are celebrity chefs just because they can grilled a steak properly. To be fair - I can't really grill a steak properly- so I will give them props for that.

    But media jobs are hard to find and I was in need of some income - so I signed up to be a substitute teacher. After all, I homeschooled the girls during their middle school years and we work on assignments during the summers. I also have a background in education, although not formal classroom experience - so why not?

    After a background check and two and half hours of training I'm ready to lead the classroom. Or so the sub coordinator tells me.

    Um, no. I thought I was ready to lead the classroom and then I decided to sub for a kindergarten classroom for my first time.
    It was like 24 Baby Blueberries at the same time. I wasn't a temporary kindergarten teacher - I was a manager of chaos. A director of potty breaks, Band-Aids, and oh, please don't eat the math cubes.

    To be fair the day had no chance not to be a little on the chaotic side- the teacher had gotten ill and went home half way through the day. So the little guys went to lunch and when they came back- there I was to take over - after they had only attended two weeks of school. They don't even have their routine down and their teacher has gone missing.

      It started out calm and managed though. Our first assignment was watching a Leapfrog video on the alphabet. But I couldn't find the video. So we searched the Youtube for it. I found it, but not the entire song.
    "That's not the right one," one little boy told me.
    "I don't know which one it is, guys."
    "It's that one," another student insisted.
    "No, it's not. It's that one."
    "I see Pete the Cat on there- can we watch that?"
    "No," I said, finally finding the correct Leapfrog video.
     All the kids joyfully sang with the song and tried to make their letter sounds. Okay, this sub thing is going to go okay, I think to myself.
     Then we have to work on our All About Me books. Do you know how hard it is to pass out books when you don't know anyone's name and half the class isn't listening for their name? And some of the kids can't even pronounce their names well enough for you to understand them?
    Finally, all the books are passed out and I'm reading a book to them while they color.
    Then total and complete chaos erupts. The noise level has slowly and steadily grown higher and then I turn around to see that two of the little girls have dumped a tub of crayons on the floor and the two boys sitting at their table are running over the crayons with their chairs. OMG
   
    And that's when the parapro walks in to pick up a student.

    I haven't been that embarrassed for a long time - not since I asked a chef how to make peasant soup instead of pheasant soup. (He was wondering if I was seriously asking about cannibal recipes.)

     She instantly goes to the front of the room and threatens to take away recess if they don't quiet down and start listening to the sub.
     A startled hushness falls over the previously noisy kindergartners. Lose recess? The horror.

    And for the rest of the day - when ever the noise level started creeping up- all I had to do was remind them that they wanted to go out for recess, right? Instant quiet.
   And I also kept the two little trouble makers separated for the rest of the day. That helped a lot.

   At the end of the day the counselor came in to do a activity with the children- they kept her on her toes too. She had a photo of her dogs and do you know how much five years old want to talk about all their pets - dead and alive? I'm now aware that there are quite a few cats and hamsters buried in people's backyards throughout town.
       After the children leave she comes up to me and says, do you know how many people won't sub in kindergarten because of how busy they are? Quite a few.
      I nod, still trying to catch my breath. But surprisingly, I found myself thinking I would come back - but with stickers. Definitely stickers and maybe Goldfish crackers.

    
    

Answer to the Meaning of Life is Unavailable- please try placing your order again next week

    
   When Bean's English teacher tells her he considers me and Hero Hottie endearing- what I'm supposed to think? Is it because she wrote a letter to him last year about how we're just failed artists - who wanted to be scientists - who just ended up being overly tired and too broke working-class stiffs? Or is because she said we try and try and everything we do ends up failing?

    Is endearing another word for pitied?

    Or is it a sign of solidarity- from an English teacher to a writer - we who must have words in the way the lungs need oxygen? Does he recognize a shared love for words, for expression, for mastering the skill of trying? 

     I would like to think it's because we asked him about his pothos houseplant that he keeps at school. Actually the conversation started with Hero Hottie asking about the huge windows in his classroom. Because Hero Hottie is not going to ask you about the weather, or other topics that are generally considered 'small talk' - he asks big questions, curious questions, sometimes uncomfortable questions.

     And most of the time - people answer him. Because no one actually wants to talk about the weather all the time - we want to connect and be neighbors and be part of a community.

    We want to say things like, "I'm sorry your spouse died, even though I only know you from the times you would buy Girl Scouts cookies from Abu." Or "do you ever get lonely because you live by yourself ever since your fiance died and you never found love again?"

     So Hero Hottie asks the English teacher about his huge windows and this lead to the health and happiness of his pothos plant - which didn't do so good over the summer because it was moved to a location that was too sunny. The conversation continues from there and somehow we become endearing during this time. 

    Perhaps I should just assume he meant it caused him feelings of admiration or fondness. I can handle those reasons.

     Or perhaps he just liked the fact that we took the time to treat the teacher like a regular human being and asked him about his windows, and his classroom, and his plant.

    Either way - whenever Bean gets annoyed at me - because she's seventeen which means she's constantly annoyed at me - I will remind her that I'm actually endearing.

Voodoo curses aren't funny

 Earlier this spring, when I was in the muck of it all - I was overwhelmed with the school work surrounding my computer. My life was piles of books, paper, and mess cover my dining room most of the time. It was a series of late nights, waiting until nearly midnight to turn in hastily finished assignments- the magical due date of online school - and hoping my Internet didn't freeze up right at that moment.

Luckily, my college is online and I send in digital files of my homework - because the paper copies that I work from are sometimes covered in splashes of spaghetti sauce, grease from various kids' snacks, and Baby Blueberry's scribbles. Although her supply and demand curves are the cutest drawings ever. (Ever learn microeconomics with a preschooler on your lap - it's an interesting process.) 

I am nearly two years into my return of completing my degree and I've realized that my sense of direction or lack of - hasn't changed in the nearly twenty years since I started the college process. I was going to study accounting, because accountants make enough money to live off of - and then I took an accounting class. Confession- I took two because I figured it would be a really handy skill to have. Which it has been - I now know for certain after looking at my bank statements with the critical eye of a business major that I'm definitely broke and my net worth is less than when I started school and applying for student loans.

Perhaps European students with their nearly free or at least affordable college education have a good thing going. Don't get me wrong- I was a business major, coming from a long line of failed and closed businesses - but also an equally long-line of never give up entrepreneurs - so I have a healthy respect for capitalism. I also came from Oregon - so I believe higher education shouldn't shackle a ball and chain around your ankle for the rest of your working life.

But back to accounting...

When my head stopped exploding and I stopped crying in the bathroom between each new lesson - I realized I could learn accounting and even pass the class with a decent grade. I also spent most of fall and spring semesters memorizing my accounting textbook just so I could pass the tests. (Just to be fair I passed with high grades, but again this is because I memorized the damn book.)

I switched majors because business would take another two years to complete and I wanted to figure out a plan to finish next year, since balancing school and kids was difficult.

And then my financial situation came crashing down around me and damn it - if I don't go back to work by October than I will not be able to pay my mortgage. School? Mortgage? Running away to a tropical island and living on a beach?

We take a small break from this blog to offer some advice:

1. Finish school before kids and a mortgage payment - it's just easier. I've done school both ways and I miss the days of go to class, meet friends in the library, eat some Ramen noodles, and study or take a nap - it was easy either way.
Going back to school with a mortgage payment and kids - not so much fun. It means your brain is so full of your schoolwork that you forget all kinds of other things - like paying the dentist bill, or picking up groceries. And for some reason the- meaning the kids-  don't want to eat Ramen noodles - they actually expect things like mac and cheese and spaghetti. Meals that take longer to cook! Damn kids for wanting food, and groceries, and bedtime stories.

2. Take your algebra class before business classes - especially accounting. It's amazing how much math you use in an accounting class. Go figure.

Back to the Blog: 

So here I am, changing my school plans - slowing down my school plans - and trying to figure out a job with only part of a degree and no recent job experience. In our economy- this should go really well. I read hiring ads all the time that say, "Looking for hard working employees that only have 3/4ths of a degree, no internships, no field experiences, and have wiped more runny noses in the last ten years than typed a business memo. Also must know how to vblog, obtain millions of followers on a hundred different social media apps and have the secrets to the last episodes of Games of Thrones before they air."

Add in my failed Ebay business I tried to do last Fall - I'm looking at making lattes instead of drinking them.

I'm going to blame all this on a chance encounter in Denver last spring- because I think I was cursed with a voodoo curse. Or it could have been my overactive imagination, since I couldn't hear the exact words being used at me. But then this happens...so I'm just saying- avoid voodoo curses.

Or don't accidentally piss off someone in traffic that can voodoo curse you- apparently it's bad.