Career-altering decision news

So, the very first thing I did with my day yesterday was meet with the principal of the middle school in my favorite school district, where I’ve been a day-to-day sub for a couple of years now. They offered me a long-term position in 8th grade English, from the beginning of the school year until the beginning of December. I asked for some time to consider it.

In that time, I talked to Rand, and talked to my parents. I had some hesitations regarding leaving my adjunct positions and potentially burning bridges and such. I also called the personnel office to ask about salary.

I learned that I would make substantially more in the long-term position, plus be eligible for benefits. These are both *very* good things, but just icing on the cake, really. This is an excellent district, a place that I would very much like to work permanently, and it’s a pretty tough one to crack. Getting my foot in the door is incredibly valuable. Also, the experience and building up my portfolio for secondary teaching is very good for me in the long run.

So I couldn’t say no. I felt bad about the adjunct stuff, but there was no way I could pass up this opportunity! Plus, I’m going to keep my evening class at the community college. I’m very excited, and very nervous!!

More bday stuff later…for now, you can enjoy this little flickr set. I’ll be adding titles and descriptions to the photos soon!

Papers to grade. Later, gators!

Getting there…

Two of my four classes finished today. A third will finish tomorrow afternoon, and then it’s just grading portfolios for the fourth one.

I can see the light!

Work

I’ll be happy to have the money, but lord how I wish I hadn’t taken work today.

It will be so very nice when this day is over…

Hope you’re having a better Monday than I am!

Busy

The beginning of a semester is always an adventure, trying to get organized and make sure things get off to a decent start. I’m not making any drastic changes to either of my classes, but there are always little things that have to be changed or adjusted.

The cheerleading thing has been a bit of a challenge. Things have been chaotic to begin with, and I’ve had one (out of seven) quit. Ah well…it’s less than a month to go, and (assuming that I’m doing this again next year) it’s just the beginning. I’m sure things will improve.

The weekend was uneventful, but semi-productive. We bought a desperately-needed vacuum cleaner, and I did a bit of cleaning. There’s still more to do, of course.

Yesterday, I had lunch with Jen (something we’ve been trying to do for a couple of weeks now) and spent way longer than I meant to in the mall. I went in for a pair of gloves, as I somehow lost one. I came out with gloves, a cute little denim jacket that was $12, and a shirt that was on a sale rack.

In the mail, I got a pair of jeans that I successfully purchased on eBay. You know how you have that one favorite comfy pair of jeans that you don’t know you’re going to love when you buy them? And then when you go back looking for another pair, they’re nowhere to be found? Yeah, they were those jeans. And I found a pair for $16.50 plus shipping, brand new with tags. Yay for me. 🙂

Okay, gotta go…I have a class to teach!

Attention Buffalonians…

Last week, I posted my resume at I am Buffalo Niagara Jobs.

Today, I got a call from someone who said he saw my resume on the site and wanted to invite me to an information session tomorrow evening. He said the company was doing some expanding in the area and had some opportunities that might be right for me. I took the information and said I would try to attend.

He told me the company name was Primerica. I first searched the website for any job postings from them. I didn’t find anything. Then I did a google search. The first thing I turned up was their official website, which let me know that Citigroup is their parent company. I poked around a bit to see if they had anything remotely resembling a job that I would ever want to do. I found nothing.

I went back to the google search page and clicked on a few of the other links. I found this page, with a bunch of links to various people’s experiences with Primerica. Basically, I learned that some people argue that it’s a scam or pyramid scheme…others make a case for it being a legitimate business. But regardless of which is true, I found this “recruiting” technique to be dishonest and shady. They get people to come to these meetings and try to get them to agree to become representatives for the company and fork over money for training. If I hadn’t been savvy enough to find something out about the company first, I would have wasted my time. I certainly wouldn’t have signed on, but I’m sure I would have been subject to an extremely aggressive and annoying sales pitch. No, thanks.

Canada, eh?

Spent a lovely couple of days at FilKONtario. I’ll tell you more about it later. When I’m less tired. Also, when I’ve finished the Toasted Cheese newsletter. (it’ll go out tomorrow, I swear…)

Meantime, here’s some fun for ya.

You can read jennimi’s account of Friday night’s Ookla concert and also see some of her photos.

You can see what books I finished last week here.

And you can see what I posted last week while I didn’t have access to blogger here.

Big interview week…I’ve got three teacher recruitment day interviews on Tuesday, and an interview for a JV cheerleading coach position on Friday. Whoohoo!

Oh, and if I have a chance, I’ll post to the wordpress blog during the day today.

Later. Happy April!

Teach your children well

Let’s all hope it was the right choice. 🙂 The more I think about it, the more excited I am about (almost) having my own classroom!

Madam librarian…

Yes, I’m pretending to be a librarian today. 😉 Honestly, I’ve gotten the easiest assignments. On Tuesday, I was in for a teacher whose classes were all (but one) meeting with guidance to discuss scheduling. I read a book.

Today, I get to read between turning kids away from the library (capacity is 25), monitoring computer use and shelving the occasional book.

Today, I also get to use the computer for a brief moment while the library clerk is on her lunch break. Woohoo!

I subbed 7th grade Spanish on Monday…they were…uh, a handful. Not “bad” exactly, but they didn’t want to shut up. A few of the kids were blatantly disrespectful to each other. One girl, a snotty little thing wearing a too-short skirt and a too-tight top, gave me attitude when I asked her to sit down during study hall. She huffed back to her desk and slammed down her notebook. I went up to her and told her to knock off the attitude. She glared at me. Sigh…

My community college class is, um, interesting. I like my Tuesday class better. The Wednesday class won’t talk to me, will barely talk to each other, and I just feel this wall of attitude coming from them. I spoke to two adult students yesterday after class who told me that I am *not* imagining the attitude. Every moment of that class is like pulling teeth. Yesterday, I let them go early, offering to stick around and answer questions for anyone who wanted help on their essays that are due next week. Four of them stuck around to talk to me. We’ll see how their papers look.

I have one student who is not on my roster. I just got my final list, and he’s still not on it. I told him he has to go to records ASAP and straighten it out. He wanted me to take care of it for him…um, right. Do I look like your mommy?

Hmmm…what else…oh, yeah! I went to the Ash Wednesday service at the Episcopal church yesterday with Jen, and so I still had big smudgy ashes on my forehead. One kid, as I started class, said “Miss, I think you have some ink on your face or something.” Hee. After the service, Jen and I met up with Rand for a tasty fish fry at Gabriel’s Gate. Ah, is there anything better than the Lenten fish fry? 🙂

If you build it, he will come

Ah, substitute teaching…

Last week, I got called in four out of five days. I imagine I would have gotten called in for Thursday as well, but I chose not to work so I could be there for my roommie. I worked today, and got a call for tomorrow.

I should have done this a LONG time ago.

I’ve also made sure that I will get back on one more sub list…a rural district that is the highest paid in WNY, and possibly has English/ELA openings for next year. That is a good list to be on, I think…

Ummm…anyway, I’ve pretty much reaffirmed that I like middle school better than high school. As I mentioned, I had a couple of seniors with attitude problems on that first day.

I *love* subbing classes with teaching assistants/student teachers. My second two days were for 7th grade English, in a class with a student teacher. When I was a student teacher, I had one day where my cooperating teacher had to be out, and I taught the classes. The sub was just there to back me up. That’s nice…not terribly interesting for the sub, but nice. 😉

Also on Monday, I noticed one of the girls crying in the hall on the way in to class, and I listened as her friends rushed up to comfort her…it seemed her boyfriend had just broken up with her. Schmuck couldn’t even wait until after school, apparently. I remember how much that sucked…you’ve just ended this relationship that seems like it’s your entire world, and you have to face that person every. single. day. Ugh. Poor kid…

On Wednesday, the seventh graders had a noun worksheet, on which they had to answer a bunch of questions about themselves. One of the questions was What is your favorite singer/band?

Most of the answers were typical…Usher. GreenDay. Simple Plan. Jessica Simpson. Ashlee Simpson. *shudder* But I saw a few that surprised me. Pink Floyd. Metallica.
And…um…Scott Celani. (certain people will understand why that’s amusing to me…heehee)

On Friday, I entered the land of the unknown and did a half day as a gym teacher. Whee! It really wasn’t that bad.

And can I just say two words…cafeteria duty. Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I’m pretty sure cafeteria duty is one of the levels of hell.

So yeah, keep those positive thoughts coming…with any luck, this will lead to something permanent, or at least semi-permanent. 🙂

This-n-that

So after I got the hair done yesterday, I needed to make a few stops. I thought, “Hey, if I stop at Evil Wal-Mart, I can get my glasses adjusted.” (They were loose.)

I went in, stopped off at the vision center…the nice man took my glasses and came back a few minutes later.

“I have to see if we have this frame in stock. I went to tighten the screw, and they snapped,” he said.

They did not have the frame in brown, but they did have it in black. He said he’d order the brown frames, and gave me the black ones in the meantime.

When I got home, there was a message on my machine letting me know that the brown frames were no longer available…manufacturer recall blah blah blah. So I can either keep the black frames or come in and pick out new ones. (With a store credit, of course…I was worried that they were going to try and make me pay for the new frames.)

R and Jen both like the black. Thoughts? 🙂

I was surprised this morning with a goodbye breakfast…donuts and bagels, a card with lots of sweet “we’ll miss you” sentiments expressed, and a silver Cross pen. It made me a little teary. 😉

I have a lot of random tidbits of things that I want to accomplish today, and a busy, busy weekend ahead. I can’t really seem to focus on anything…

And of course, I want to express sincere congratulations to my dear friend Shannon and her new fiance Craig! I am so happy for you both. Jen posted a photo of the ring here. 🙂

OH! And I knew there was something I wanted to add about Lost. You know the comic book that Walt was reading, which has been prominently featured in a couple of storylines? The one with the polar bear? Well R’s friend John colors comic books for a living, and he colored that book! Pretty cool, eh? 🙂