Subbing (again)

The new school year has begun so I'm trying to get motivated to substitute again after thoroughly enjoying having the summer off. I have a half day tomorrow, that'll be my first day back in the saddle and I have to admit that my heart is not in it. The one good thing about it is that it'll be nice to have some income coming in again.

Oh by the way, did I mention that I do not qualify for unemployment? Yup. For two reasons. First of all, when you work for a religious organization (which I did from Jan to June) they do not take money out for unemployment, so those six months don't count. Also, when you are subbing, you cannot apply for unemployment during the breaks because you are technically employed (there's just no jobs available). Lame, huh?

I'm registered to take my last science class, Botany. This (should be) my last requirement to fulfill the Science endorsement. It is a 6 credit online class, which basically translates to a lot of reading and hard work. I'll be glad when it is all over. Once I finish the endorsement, and it will be January, I expect one of three possible things will happen:

1. I'll get a science teaching job somewhere (maybe in Washington, if I am lucky)
2. I'll get a position teaching abroad (which may not happen until next fall, but the job fair for International Schools is in Jan or Feb)
3. I'll get a job doing sometime completely different.

I'm ready to go abroad again, I am sick and tired of not getting a job around here. I've heard from local teachers that many open positions get several hundred applicants. How can I compete with that? With teachers who have 20 years experience, teachers coming in from out of state, yadda yadda. I've hardly bothered with applying for jobs for this fall. The one hitch to going abroad is my 14 year old cat. I don't want to leave him again, like I did when I taught English in Ecuador and when I was in the Peace Corps. But it'll be strenuous on him, and I'd want to make sure that my living conditions would be favorable for him, as well as making sure I get good vet care.

I was helping out with the Peace Corps booth at Bumbershoot festival recently and was talking to a recruiter. She encouraged me to pursuit working for the Peace Corps. It's an interesting idea...

The adventure is not over yet

Wow, where has the last 4 months gone? I can't believe it's been so long. The other night I rented "Julie & Julia", which I hadn't see before (cute movie) and it made me realize that I haven't been doing a very good job of keeping up my blog (and I could relate to Julie's blogging quest, and wondering if anybody even reads this anymore).

I started this blog when I began my Peace Corps adventure in Macedonia, which was quite exciting. Now, for the last two years I've been trying to find a teaching job in a tough economy, which has not been very exciting, and to tell the truth, pretty depressing. A few months ago the New York Times came out with an article that stated that it is as difficult nowadays to get a teaching job as it was in the Great Depression. I believe it!

As for my job at the Catholic School, I learned later that I was one out of 400 applications for 3rd & 4th grade position. One job and 400 people applied for it. Yikes! Well, unfortunately, I did not get the job, which totally floored me. I worked my butt off at that school and sacrificed many hours and much of my personal life to do the best flipping job that I could. The staff liked me, the students liked me and the majority of the parents liked me and I was doing an excellent job, so why wouldn't they hire me back? I already had plans to get my own apartment up in Everett, my career was finally taking off! Well, my deepest fear came true. They did not hire me because I am not Catholic. It is a small school and they really need teachers who can teach Religion. My principal told me that she "would hire me back in a second", but they needed Catholic teachers. Now, I'm not bitter or anything, but out of 400 applicants, they ended up hiring a gal who is about 22 years old and straight out of Graduate School and only 5 months of subbing experience under her belt. However, she is Catholic, so she got the job. Did I mention that I'm not bitter?

So, here I am now back in the subbing pool, still looking for a job. I'm just about ready to throw the towel in and start applying at restaurants and retail stores, in order to find a job with regular hours and a steady income. But even those jobs are hard to come by. I can't even qualify for unemployment, it's pathetic.

On the bright side, I have completely enjoyed having the summer off not working. I went to San Antonio, TX to visit friends, visited my sister, brother-in-law and cutest nephew in the world in Indiana for a week and then went to Cannon Beach, OR for a little vacation and R & R.

School starts up soon and subbing jobs will probably start creeping up around October. I have such mixed feelings about returning to subbing.

My long term plan is to pursue a job in International teaching. The sky is the limit to where I could go, but I am feeling an urge to return to South America (I could regain my Spanish skills!). Argentina sounds fantastic...

The adventure is not over yet.

Spring update

Well, I've been so swamped with my job that I haven't had time to keep the blog up to date. Here's a quick synopsis: coming into this classroom in the middle of the year with NO info on where the kids are at assessment-wise with very little information from the previous teacher and NO lesson plans to go with, I think that I've managed to keep my head above water pretty well. Of course, I'm still in survival mode, but things are better now that I've established myself a little bit. My job is incredibly stressful, overwhelming and rewarding too. I think it is pretty common for most teachers to want to embrace and strangle their students, sometimes at the same time. I LOVE MY STUDENTS!!! They are clever, funny, intuitive, sweet, talkative, curious, loyal, devout, kind and energetic. There is *never* a dull moment in my class. I have done so much for my kids, to the point of sacrificing my own time and energy, I barely have a life outside of school. I am working on average 15 hours a day and mostly on weekends too. Part of the reason for this is due to the fact that this is my first year teaching. I have run into some problems with parents, AKA "Helicopter parents" who hoover over every little thing that their kids do and want to control every part of their child's education. Fortunately, this is a minority.

My long term sub job goes from January to June. Now I am applying for a permanent position at my school for this fall. I really pray that I get it. My job interview is tomorrow. Wish me luck!

I wish I had the time to write some stories about funny, humerous and poignant events that have happened in my class. I feel very blessed to be working with such an amazing group of kids. I also am grateful to have a supportive staff that have made me feel at home.

I'll keep you posted when I know more of what is to come!

Teaching Adventure

My teaching job is going well, it is just very time consuming. I'm about 5 weeks behind in grading and correcting papers, so that is one of my biggest challenges right now. I'm teaching at a small private Catholic school outside of Seattle (and I'm not even Catholic), teaching 4th and 5th grade. I really enjoy it, even though it is my life...all I do is go to school and work like 14 hour days and then drive home and plan for the next day and try to get more than 5 hours sleep before doing it all over again! But I don't mean to complain, I'm just really happy to have a job! And I love the kids and the staff are great so there's lots to be grateful for! There are many funny stories and anecdotes I'd love to share, so someday I hope to write them down and share them with you. My class has 5 girls and 13 boys and many of the boys are natural entertainers, so they keep me laughing, that's for sure! :)

I am really grateful for this opportunity to be teaching at this school with these wonderful students. :)

The Best Christmas Present Ever!

I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! It all happened so fast, I got a long term sub job for the remainder of the school year on Dec 22nd and had a week to prepare before my first day of school. I'm teaching 4th and 5th grade at a Catholic School outside of Seattle and I have 18 students! It is a wonderful way to start out my first official certified teaching job.

And just to bring you up to speed on the last 6 months, I finally finished taking classes towards my Science endorsement and passed the West-E Science exam in November, exactly one year from when I first attempted the standardized test. So, although I don't have the endorsement, I am now highly qualified in Science. And this all works out great with my new job because since I'm not Catholic, I can't teach Religion. So another teacher will teach my class Religion while I teach her class Science. It is a good arrangement for us both.

Above is a photo of my classroom. Although this is all new and overwhelming, I am so blessed to have this job and so happy to have a new chapter in my teaching career! My students are great!