... just tuning in, you will want a brief back story about my ill-fated career as a substitute teacher. I will give that - after telling you about a little girl today who was for some completely unknown reason so taken with my presence she asked if I was going to come back tomorrow. Tomorrow being Saturday, I said: "No, and you won't either!" It was a circus, a classroom filled with needy kids.
I've been sub. teaching for years, and honestly cannot decipher why. I don't enjoy it, and really don't need the little bit of income enough to warrant the misery it takes to get paid. I make about $55 for spending my day as a teacher's aide in a pre-K or Kindergarten classroom. Years ago, when I still had a family at home that needed my attention after an exhausting day of sub. work, I would come dragging in the door wondering what the dinner plans were. Along with three other people who were wondering the same thing including a man who would say: 'I would have paid you a hundred dollars to stay at home and not be so exhausted and cranky when you come crawling in.'
Plus if you do the work at the beginning of a pay period, it can be nearly a month before the funds are actually deposited in your account - so far after the event you rarely recall where you were when you earned it. Or how awful the job situation was that you survived. Admittedly, going in the classroom as a teacher instead of support staff pays better, but it is also accompanied by a massively bigger headache which usually seems like too high a price to pay for getting a day closer to the minimum requirement of twenty days.
Happily I can announce that today was day number 21. I had a sub. job last Monday, in addition to the one today that was just sort of 'insurance', a cushion to be sure I had the days needed. Sadly, I looked at my watch this morning when I was with the students in art class and said to myself: "How can it be that I have been here all day long and it is only 9:30 in the morning?"
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