Tuesday, August 15, 2006

it's a whole new world before 10 a.m.



I'm up before 7 for the first in months. Today begins my week from hell. Granted, it will only last for three days, and I named it thus because I have TWO things to do each day instead of zero. I really have no business calling it that, but I will. First, I'll start my new part-time teacher job (I've decided to go with that, its official title in the eyes of the Dept. of Ed, because it sounds a little better than "tutor," which evokes images of a spinster governess or virginal, consumptive Englishman). Then I'll pick up my auntie and rush down to the other high school (the one by the garbage dump) to make it to our first day of substitute teacher certification class. My aunt, who taught elementary school for 35 years before retiring and moving here to live with my grandma, has to take the same class as degenerates like me. That's messed up.

Anyway, the class will be 2 nights a week for the next 3 weeks, totalling 30 hours. I'm not dreading the class on its own merits; I actually do quite well in situations where I have to sit still for hours and pretend to pay attention to someone. Borne of a lifetime of going to church and two years in grad school when my mind was elsewhere. No, I'm incensed and resentful that I have to spend 30 prime-time TV, work out (and Workout) usable hours that I will not get paid for. Ugh. Isn't my sense of entitlement cute?

But after it's all done, I'll be qualified for my dream job of nervously placating ornery children! It's a good deal.

***

Here are some of the ways in which my new job is preferable to my old one:

1. I have to turn in my keys at the end of each day. This means that I couldn't return to school to do a little more work if I wanted to.

2. I am not responsible for the welfare of anyone but myself. That responsibility rests solely with the teacher whose room I am visiting, and whose clothes I will make fun of with doodles and notes with my pupil.

3. At 2:30, I will be elbowing those kids out of my way as I make a run for the parking lot.

4. It's now 7:15, and I am typing this instead of frantically grading essays, there is no dreadful churning in my stomach, and I'm not too nervous to enjoy a Missymussy breakfast burrito. (It's tiny and made with a whole wheat tortilla; I haven't totally abandoned my old ways since living with Ben.)

More later if I'm not utterly exhausted from this monumental day of exertion.

1 comment:

Dennis R. Plummer said...

I've been delinquent in checking your blog. Glad to see the current updates. Thanks for checking in on mine from time to time.