Someone had a baby, I get to have a job!

I knew THE phone call would be coming sooner rather than later… my teacher I was long term subbing for was now a full 9 months pregnant and I knew any moment I could get the call that I had to go into work.

I kept my phone with me all day Monday. I didn’t get called for any other job, so I just hung out at home. And by that I mean I laid on the couch and watched my DVR-ed Grammy’s with my phone right next to me.

About 3-ish I felt like all my blood was going flat on one side of my body from being horizontal so long so I decided to do something really adventurous… like go get the mail.

I left my phone inside and went and got the mail. I get back inside.

Missed call from my school.

Thank yoooooou.
I was gone a whole two minutes after I didn’t move from next to my phone for 5 hours. And I miss the call.

No matter. I call back, and YAY as of Tuesday, I’m a long term sub. Report in for duty at 8am.

It’s not till after I hang up the phone that I’m hit with the full knowledge that I’m going to be responsible for three separate classes: yearbook, media and speech. Deep breaths. Not too many… that’ll make you hyperventilate and nobody looks professional heaving into a paper bag.

I was worried I was going to get to school late because I have the cruel luck of being late to every important “first.”

I'm my parent's firstborn but I was born a day late, much to the dismay of my mother who spent the time counting contractions in Home Depot while my father shopped.
I was the very last one of my friends to get boobs in high school. Girls track that sort of thing quite closely. I didn't "woman" myself until the sweet awkward age of like 16 and 1/2.
I woke up 10 minutes before my Ancient Near East 4250 final exam my sophomore year of college.
My alarm didn’t go off my very, very first day of student teaching and I arrived at the school at 10:30 instead of 7:30.
I woke up at 7:45am, the day I was actually supposed to meet my student teaching mentor for my second semester…. at 8:00am.

So anyway, I wanted to avoid that panicked, heart-in-your-throat-this-is-a-terrible-first-impression-I-wonder-if-I-brushed-my-teeth moment on my first day of my long term job(aka a 6 week interview at the school I would love to get hired at).

I left my house with an hour available to make the 23 mile trek. It took me approximately an hour and ten minutes. Just enough to make me late and not enjoy my walk in from the parking lot.

I get inside the school and run into one of the women from administration, who informs me that all the teachers are in a staff meeting in the library and I should just go on in. This makes me a little nervous, but I’m thinking I can just sidle in on the side and stand by the book return in a safe no-notice-me zone.

False.

I walk in and take up a position on the side. Where no one can really see me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was halfway behind a pillar.

And within minutes, the principal is gesturing the universal ‘come here’ wave with her hand.

At me.

In front of every teacher in the school.

So I walk in a little, as the principal announces who I am, and that I’m here while Mrs. Such-n-Such (not her real name haha) is having her baby. She then proceeds to say that she has seen the great ideas I have given Mrs. Such-n-Such and she thinks I’ll do a great job.
I do the world’s most awkward little half wave to all the full-time employed people eyeballing me, the sub with apparently “great ideas.” *gulp* No pressure here.

I am flattered though. I’d passed along the idea that the yearbook students could work on a blog for the school after the yearbook is completed next week. The principal sent me an e-mail in the morning with a green light to go ahead. I used my lunch break to draft up a blog site and sent it to her. Her verdict: “Looks good. Do it.”

I was excited. The day was a little bit of a struggle as I worked to get my feet under me. Managing 3 very different classes within one schedule was just as much of a challenge as I thought. I did have some very helpful teachers in my hall that were lovely support.

I did have some tech issues, and Mrs. Such-n-Such called me from the hospital and after happily declaring that “the baby should be here in about two hours, but I’m on some really good drugs” proceeded to walk me through her website and fixed the problem I’d been wrestling with for two hours in two minutes.

The most humorous thing happened in my last class of the day. It was a Speech class. The students have a blank outline for a generic speech, and they are to come up with a topic of their choosing and back it up with details.
The following went pretty much like this:

(This is between me, and a male student with thick foreign accent. I’ll call him… Norberto. Forgive me as I try and capture Norberto's accent in written form)

Norberto: I don’t nah wut to write aboot.
Me: Anything that you want. What’s an issue that is important to you?

*pause*

Norberto: Pandah burrs smokenn cigarettes.

*pause*

Me: What?
Norberto: Pandah burrs smokenn cigarettes.
Me: Um. Ok. Uh, you care about panda bears?
Norberto: No. Well, I sarw ahh Asian smokenn once, and dahh’s like the same theng.

*pause*

Me: Are you serious?
Norberto: Yuss.

At that point I truly did not know what to say… so it was very lucky that at that moment another student called for my attention. I didn’t go back over near Norberto for the remainder of the class. I genuinely didn’t know what to say! He has a difficult face to read; add that on top of the accent and I was looking at a closed book… in Greek or something. Definitely a language I don’t know.

Good thing I get to spend the end of every day with him, figuring out if he really thinks Asians are panda bears.

Overall I’m very excited about these coming 6 weeks. I enjoy having my days full. And of course I get lots of stories to tell. It is kind of comforting to be back in the school I student taught at.

Mostly I was just happy that in my 1 ½ minute time slot to pee between classes I already knew where all the bathrooms are.