Today were Middle School Science Teacher Meetings at the district office, which meant that there were wall-to-wall substitutes in one quadrant of the school. It was fun. My neighbor was Mr. Peterson, whom people get me confused with all the time (I get called Mr. Peterson maybe 50% of the time). He had the “bad” kids who weren’t on an all-day field trip. Good news for him: he only had 2-7 kids per class. I had mostly 8^th graders. The teacher wanted them to do silent reading, which really doesn’t work with middle school kids. I offered to give each class 10 free minutes if they could do the work and stay absolutely quiet for 40 minutes. Four out of five classes did. The fifth class had two kids who were very talkative. I wrote them up for not following directions, but still gave the rest of the class their 10 minutes because they were good.

This evening’s band practice was excellent because we had a very good mix of musicians. We were very loud, but precise and practiced.

I didn’t get a job on Monday, but that’s OK because I got to do some chip work, and wound up making more money.

Today, I was a sub for a sub of a special needs class – the other sub wasn’t available today, but he subbed yesterday and he’ll sub tomorrow for a teacher who just had another baby. I had subbed with this group of so I knew them and they knew me. . The teacher trusted me enough to take them on an all-day field trip. The thing is though, the teacher’s plans were very “light” with things missing like: destination, how to get there, where to get money for this. After a few texts back and forth, I had enough information to carry on; the rest I Googled.

Our first trip was across the street to the High School. They were having a student exhibition of art, and today was an art-themed day. It took a while for us to get over there, but once there, the kids looked over the art for about 10 minutes and were then bored. I had forgotten to get the money for the rest of the trip so I run-walked back to the middle school to get the money while the rest of the aids watched the kids at the bus stop. We eventually got on the bus and headed for San Jose State University to go to the Thompson Art gallery in the campus’s Art wing (where I had spent five wonderful years getting a Masters in Art History). We got off one stop too early so we had to walk a few blocks. It was OK because our walk there included a sidewalk art gallery exhibit. After bathroom breaks in the massive Martin Luther King Library, we ate lunch at Togo’s then headed across campus. So much has changed in the 15 years since I have attended the school. They are currently just finishing a very large food court where the old food court and pub used to be. Well, we got to the art wing and couldn’t immediately find the Thompson Art Museum (new since I had attended there). I went into the teacher offices to ask for directions and I met my old master teacher! It was so nice to see her – it was so nice that she remembered my name! She gave me some pointers for my job search, and also directions to the Thompson Art Museum… which was closed for the summer. Great, we trekked all the way there to see the (rather attractive) dark blue door of the closed museum. We walked back across campus and saw some statues, which sort of made it an art walk. The whole way home, one of the aids nearly talked my ear off. When we got back, the kids played with iPads for a while, and then school was over. What a day! The teacher kept texting me to apologize for how poorly things had gone, but you know what, I had a lot of fun, and I did see a lot of art. It was not a wasted day at all!

Another very full week; this time, five days in a row, though they were pretty easy days.  OK, the first day, Monday, was not so easy.  The teacher had a lesson plan that maybe covered half a class, and then forgot to put the most important bit on the internet for the kids to use.  I had to track her down to get that document online for second period.  After that, it wasn’t too bad, but I think I messed up her plan because (with her approval) I doubled the lesson plan, and then the kids couldn’t finish!  Tuesday through Thursday was AP testing, which lasted until noon.  Yeah! Half a day, and full pay.  One kid threw up on the first day, projecting over three theater rows of seats.  It was spectacular.  After that, it was kind of boring.  Through this three day period, I met three of the four counsellors.  They had all heard good things about me.  Good!  During that period of time, I kept running into former students.  They were all giving me hugs.  This makes teaching very rewarding – the kids remember you, enjoyed your company, and learned something in the process.  On Friday, I was back in a favorite teacher’s class.  The kids were great.  That day was also an assembly, which ran so long that it went through the break and into the next period.  The result was that third period only lasted 30 minutes.

On Saturday, Barb and I went to Stanford to map out what we would do for the field trip in two weeks.  We attended an excellent docent tour of the Rodan section of the museum, which will help us greatly, and we met some grad students who showed us a few things on campus, which was super nice of them!  We also took the Porsche, so it was a really fun “date.”  On the way home, we saw a woman trying to apply makeup while driving.  She almost ran into several cars and couldn’t stay on the road, yet she was determined to get that makeup on.  She eventually ran into a car that was right next to me at a stop sign.  I probably should have called the cops on her when I had first seen her weaving.

You know, that new show “Cosmos” (an updated version of the original “Cosmos”) is a great show, but it’s really making me begin to question the Bible.  Neil Degrasse-Tyson makes no bones about not believing in the Bible, calling it superstitious myth.  Unfortunately (for me anyway), his arguments are quite persuasive.  I will have to assess what I truly believe and why.  I have no doubt that there is a God – the universe all but screams that there is – but I am suddenly (and maybe not so suddenly) coming to the conclusion that the creation story is not literal, which means that the Bible is not inerrant (at least not that part), which is one of the tenants of LCMS Lutherans.  Perhaps I am not a true LCMS Lutheran after all?  I shall have to ponder this further.

It was a very full week, though it did start with a day off – Cinco de Mayo.  After that, it was a string of rather enjoyable classrooms.  All the teachers were excellent and organized.  It made a difference.  Their lesson plans were awesome and their students were well-behaved.

Still no word on the job front, though I did apply to four high schools and two colleges.  I did get a phone call from a Vice Principal, but it was for photography, which I probably shouldn’t teach.  There are better candidates out there.

It is now May. This is the month that I hope to get a teaching job for next year. Many districts have posted next year’s job openings already, but not Milpitas. This may be because they just got a new principal and she’ll need some time to figure out what’s going on. I hope that’s the case. Rumor has it that there is an available job in my field for next year. It has never been posted. I hope it’s still available.

Friday was just nuts at school: 26 teachers were out at the high school, and there were only 20 available subs (I had personally received 9 requests for this day and had to turn down 8). All of us subs, plus a few teachers, were dispatched to random classrooms on our prep periods.

My English 1A classes were doing Romeo & Juliet, and this was a particularly light day on the agenda so I had them debate this for about 15 minutes:

1. Is Romeo & Juliet truly a love story, or is it merely a tragic three day crush that resulted in several deaths?
2. If teenagers carried swords today, how would dating be different?

They had a great time and it produced some great discussions. Even so, after the 5 minute quiz, 5 minute video and 10 minute vocab worksheet, I still had 15 minutes on my hands so I turned to physics: there were available pieces of wood (used as dividers during quizzes/tests), so I had table groups attempt to create the tallest structure, all using the same pieces of wood. Let’s just say that none of them will be structural engineers, but it did get them thinking. Afterwards, they challenged me to beat their tallest structure. I handily beat it by about 4x. The students were amazed and took many pictures to post on Instagram. For my prep period, I wound up in another English class. These sophomore students did not know me, and they were not thrilled to be in this class. I had to be on them constantly, which was exhausting. It was not a fun class. But hey, now it’s a three day weekend and I can rest. My cold is subsiding. I should be better for next week’s full schedule of subbing opportunities.

A rare college job has opened up at a nearby trade school. I will definitely apply. It may be my only opportunity to teach at the college level around here with “only” a Master’s degree. I’ll also apply to some of the more lucrative and nearby districts who are hiring Social Studies, English and Art teachers for next year, all the while still hoping that Milpitas gives me a call.

For much of this week, I’ve had a cold. This has not stopped me from teaching though. It’s been a weird week. On Tuesday, I subbed in a class that I swore I would never sub in again, my first ever sub assignment from last year, but this year, the classes were awesome! Last year’s students were just that bad. On Wednesday, I got a phone call to come in just 10 minutes before class started. I got there five minutes late, not knowing what subject I would even be teaching. It was math. The teacher had been out all week, and there were no lesson plans. I had to improvise. After lunch, I moved to an English classroom, where I would be teaching for the rest of the week. I knew these kids, and they knew me. The teacher’s lesson plans were detailed and wonderful, but only covered about 20-30 minutes of instruction in some of the classes, so I had to find ways to stretch this out. I was alright with that, as it is a skill I will no doubt need when I start teaching my own classes.

Thursday night’s band practice was the best we’ve had in a long time. The band mix was good, the set list was good, and everyone seemed to have practiced ahead of time. It was quite the high energy affair. I hope we have this much fun on Sunday!

My money woes continued from last week.  The Porsche ended up costing about $1000. to get it tuned up and smogged.  My Honda cost another $450. to fix the A/C… for the third time.  My dog got severely sick, so that was another $450.  And then there were taxes… another $450. went to my accountant for her services.  To make up for all these expenses, I now have to sub every day until school gets out!

I spent Thursday and Friday subbing in my favorite English class.  What a treat – that teacher is so organized, and the kids are so well trained.  I think it also helps that they’re seniors.

Over the weekend, I felt a cold coming on, but I still taught Adult Ed at church.  It wiped me out though, so much so that I questioned whether or not I should sub on Monday.  I did, mostly because it was a minimum day, but it was rough.  For the rest of the week, it’s English classes at the High School.

Good news!  I mailed off my English Credential Application (plus documentation and check) today.  Very soon, I’ll have an English Credential.

So now what?  I’m done with class.  That goal has been met.  I now have to wait until grades get posted before I can submit my credential paperwork.  Do I wait for the local high school to contact me, or do I start looking at all districts?  I need a job!  I’m starting to line up the sub jobs, which is good because by June they’ll be gone… and so will I shortly after school gets out.  Between now and then, I would really like to know where I’m going to work next year.

Today was an expensive day.  I took my car in for “minor” service and a smog check.  At the Porsche dealership, “minor” is still $900.  I can’t afford to pay this every year.  Not on a teacher’s salary.  I need to find another place that can service my car, or I’m going to have to get rid of it.  I don’t want to, but it’s costing me a fortune  just to keep it on the street.

Yeah, I’m done with my class!  What an exhausting week!  Not only did I have a ton of class work to do (this week was 50% of our grade, 5 papers/projects due) but it’s also Easter Week.  Somewhere in the middle of the week, I sort of lost track of what day it was and I wound up missing a band practice because I thought it was a different day – that sort of sums up how my week went.

My final paper turned out to be 72 pages long.  The other four projects were another 14 pages (for a total of 86 pages typed this week!), plus an 8 minute video that I had to put together.  I’m happy to be done and I feel quite accomplished.  My teacher liked my final output, and I have received a perfect score in this class.   On her final comments, my teacher said that I deserve a teaching position because my work is excellent, I had the best ideas, and I put in maximum effort, which I did!  She said I can use her as a reference and I don’t think she says this to everyone.  Now I just need to get a job.

On the home front, my dog, Rudy, is not doing too well.  He’s having an allergic reaction to something, and after taking him to the vet, we learned that his kidneys are shutting down.  He may not last much longer.  Courtney will be crushed if he dies so soon after we euthanized Jeffrey’s bunny.  Me, I could go either way – I like the little guy, but I don’t want him to suffer, and if he does go away, it solves the problem of what to do with him when we go away for a month this summer.

This week was crazy!  My class workload was so much greater this week due to vague instructions.  I was not alone either; many of my peers were off base with the assignment and like me, probably spent way too much time on both major portions.  As I was getting into page 7 of my “5 point” assignment, it occurred to me that I might be doing it wrong so I asked the teacher.  What she wanted was in no way reflected in the assignment instructions, which called for a unit level of study, or about a month’s worth of class instruction.  With this new information, I quickly finished, but my peers turned in rather large reports.  For the other assignment, a group assignment, we were asked to create all kinds of stuff and put it on a Wikipage.  None of us had done this before, and our teacher didn’t even know what a Wikipage was (so why assign it?)  The assignment was hardly trivial — I think my group put in over 70 hours between us on this.  We did get full credit, but it could have been a much easier assignment.

Next week is the last week of class, and the workload is about 4x of last week.  As a result, I’m taking the entire week off from work.  Even so, I’ll probably work six straight 10-12 hour days just to complete this class on time.