End of Week 1

Today was my first Friday as a teacher, and I must say that I had almost forgotten how much I love teaching.  I love the fact that I don't have to follow another teacher's lesson, I'm teaching the subject that I am an expert at, and I'm getting the chance to make connections and build that trust with my students!  Not only that, but I finally have coworkers again!  I haven't had coworkers since I quite the Security Monitor Program in May of 2007, so it's nice to have adults to talk with who are doing the same thing I am.

While there have been some more difficult parts to my first week teaching my own classes, I've most definitely walked out of school each day with a pretty goofy looking grin on my face.  Some of the kids in one of my hours are complete little shits, but even over the course of 4 days, they've stopped testing me as much, and seem to be accepting that they are stuck with me as their teacher.  Most of the kids that I have in my classes are wonderful and lots just need a lot of support and modeling to understand and do the assigned tasks.  After my first day "All about Me" speech, I've had kids come up to me to show me pictures of their guinea pigs, and tell me all about their pets.  They laugh at me when I pronounce 50 Cent as FiddyCent (because it's weird to have a teacher call him that), and when I can name the artist they are listening to on their iPod during work time.  They've also opened up to me in more ways than I could have ever imagined; allowing me to learn about their families, pregnancies, past issues, friends drama, and why they're at the alternative school.

Overall, I've met some wonderful people over the course of the last week, and I'm hoping that I can one day call this school my permanent workplace.

I got it!

I got the other job I was waiting on!  So I am now officially an English teacher and I'm super excited since the location of the job is basically at my dream school!  Yayayayayayayay!

On the job front

I finally have gotten a minor very PT teaching job offer!  I went to the interview on Monday, and got the call this afternoon informing me that a local school district wants me to teach their Tuesday night Adult Basic Education English class for their diploma program.  It's only .10 FTE, but it's most definitely a resume builder and a way for me to get my foot in the door with this district.

Now, all I need is a positive response from the .67 job I interviewed for last week and I'll be ecstatic (though I'm not holding out too much hope, because I don't want to be super disappointed when I get the rejection phone call...)!

Waiting.

When a potential employer states after the interview that they will be calling either on Friday or Monday to let you know the outcome, one would expect to hear back by the following Tuesday at the latest.  It is now Thursday, nearly a week after the fact, and still haven't heard anything.  I'm tempted to email the lady I've been in contact with, but I think I'll wait it out and give them until Monday to respond to me.  I can't handle another rejection this week.

I feel like so much of my life right now revolves around waiting.  Waiting for jobs to be posted, waiting to hear back, waiting for subbing to start up again, waiting for a dog...

There seems to have been a little bit of progress made on the whole "K wants a dog, but L says not right now" bit.  A couple weeks ago, I was at work and L was home alone all day.  When I got back, L mentioned how he wished we had a dog because it can get lonely in the house (as much as we love Dwight, Darla, Spinelli, and the Degus, they aren't the most social bunch and we can't exactly play rough or take them on walks).  So, of course I jump on this and proceed to send him pictures of puppies from petfinder.com, but he caught on to my evil plan right away and wasn't going to give in.

Fast forward to this past week: The family I currently nanny for was out of town and needed a dogsitter for their Golden Retriever, so I agreed to watch Chloe.  Now, if you've seen Pixar's movie UP, you might remember a dopey and lovable dog named Dug.  Chloe=Dug.  If the animated dog popped out of the screen, what you would have in front of you would be Chloe.  We had Chloe spend father's day with L's family and then she spent the night at our place.  L fell in love with her.  He wouldn't let me keep her at our house for the last two night because "She made [him] too happy."  Last night, I was browsing through petfinder (L calls it my "puppy porn" because I look at pictures of puppies nearly as often as men look at nudie pics) and came across this adorable face:

She is a Newfie/Lab mix and when I showed this photo to L, I didn't get the usual, "Oh great" response.  This time I got an "Oh great, how much does this one cost?" instead!  Which leads me to believe that he is slowly coming around to the idea of us getting a dog sooner than later (though I'm probably wrong and misinterpreted his response).


EDIT: Apparently I posted this only a couple of hours too early... I got a rejection email regarding the job I was hoping to get only hours after posting :-(  K=Failure at getting a job.

Here We Are Again.

Around this time last year, I was just finishing up my last days of student teaching, cleaning out the classroom and saying my goodbyes to the friends I had made throughout my time at the school.  I was also conscious of the fact that the chances that I would have a full time teaching job for the fall were slim to none.  For as much as I would have liked to have had a full time job offer, I was okay with the fact that I most likely would be spending the following year seeing new students nearly every day and battling those who were convinced that they could trick me into letting them out early for lunch or that they never have to be quiet for SSR.  It would take me awhile to realize that Starbursts would become my best friend regarding classroom management with all grades, but once I did, life got a whole lot easier. 

This year there was no grades to post, or classrooms to lock up, but I was left with the anticlimactic realization that I was indeed on summer vacation.  I am again realizing that the chances of getting a full time teaching job is slim to none, and this year I am less okay with that.  I've expanded my job hunting to online teaching, and that has lead me to a successful phone interview that I participated in earlier this week, and am on my way to my second phone interview with the same people next week.  Although it is just a part time online job, it would be perfect because I can continue to sub while gaining more teaching experiences to add to my resume.  Hopefully, I successfully woo Monday's interviewers off their feet and they decide to hire me on...

Please, my readers, keep your fingers and toes crossed for me as I continue the job search for the elusive full time English teaching position.