As a "supply" teacher, you go where you are needed.  You can be called months, weeks, days or even minutes in advance and you need to get your butt in gear and get to the job.  Since being hired here in TO, I have always been lucky to be booked solidly, sometimes days and weeks in advance.  I get the odd day that comes months in advance... but for the most part I'm usually booked up no more than a week or two in advance.  Calls can come in the evenings between 6-10 or in the morning between 6-noon.  I ALWAYS get called in the evening.  Always.  Being the organizational freak that I am, as soon as possible (which is sometimes hours later as I am sometimes out and about when the calls come) I will log the necessary information like: date, school, times, teacher into my google calendar. 

Enter yesterday.  My trusty google calendar said that I needed to be at a school in Richmond Hill for 8:45.  That's a lovely 40 minute commute from my home.  So by 7:45 (because you can never predict rush hour traffic) I was in my car and off to work.  Well I arrive by 8:30, traffic being pretty reasonable.  I saunter into the office to find out where to go.  To say they were surprised to see me is an understatement.  I was a wee bit early for my job on Thursday November 20, 2008 --> not Thursday October 23, 2008.  Yes, I had obviously logged the information into the wrong month... whoopsies!  Feeling like a total idiot, I leave -- tail between my legs and march back to my car where I then call into the call-out system to confirm that I am an idiot.  "Yes", it confirmed.  I must have been totally off my rocker when I accepted this job as on Thursday November 20th I will be boarding a plane to Montreal for Grey Cup -- so I will have to cancel this job anyway -- ahhh the flexibility to create my own work schedule being one of the many perks to not having a contract position.  So I'm sitting there in my car dumb-founded by my complete mental lapse and then I start fuming.... I should have had a call this morning for a new job alerting me to this error!   Bah!! There have been very few days with no calls so far this year (with the exception of the first week of September) -- of course today would be the day for a work slow down.  Arghh!!!  

Rattled, I head for home.  Now, I always drive against the flow of traffic when I commute from TO out to the burbs for work.  The drive from the burbs to TO during rush hour was enough for me to comtemplate suicide.  Seriously folks, people do this everyday.  Thank God, I DO NOT!  It was horrible.  It took me well over an hour to get home and the kicker???  Just as I'm pulling into my underground parking spot, I get a work call for the afternoon.  My round trip (for nothing) this lovely morning had had me in the car for approximately 2.5 hours and I was supposed to turn around and head back out to the burbs for the PM????  F$%# that!!!!  I literally slammed my cell shut, started cursing my luck and took the day off.  Which in the end, gave me a super long weekend because today is PA day and schools are out. 

Keeping with the tone of the day (dumb, in case you forgot), that evening, N and I ventured out for supper.  Rather than subway downtown we decided to drive to a newly opened Jack Astor's a ways north of us and it was terrible.  It was a terrible drive there.  It was terrible service and it was terrible food. 

Then, coming home, we witnessed what must be one of the most daringly dumb driving techniques we have ever seen... and this says something because Toronto drivers suck and are the biggest jerks you will ever encounter on the road.  I was in the left most lane, the taxi driver in the right most lane.  Both of us were stopped at a red light.  Seeing that there was a hole in traffic going through the green light, the taxi decids to turn left, from the right most lane on a red light.  What an ass!  I feel the need to graphically show the insanity of this again so I went into photoshop to create the following:

Had the light turned green, I might have hit the idiot as I am not usually looking for taxis turning left in front of me.  

In summary, what a dumb day!

SCHOOL'S OUT FOR SUMMER!

School actually ends on Thursday but one of the perks of supply teaching is its flexibility.  If I want a day off, I take one.  Don't worry -- it's not something I get to take advantage of too often as I have to maintain my glamourous lifestyle - haha.   My brothers are currently in the air right now, on their way to invade my home with their smells and good humour - at least I hope... (Grouchy Tim better have stayed in Regina... something about working on a never finished deck has made him an ornery soul).  Their arrival prompted me to take the next 2.5 days off and thus I am calling the year done early.  I have much planned... but I won't give our plans away... I promise to blog more frequently now that I'm done working until September.

I actually thought that I'd be much more excited about having a couple months off. I was waiting for the weight to lift off my shoulders... but on the way out of the school today I went to say goodbye to a few fellow staff members and we got to talking about the hiring process, school politics and other NON-joyful topics and I left feeling rather down.  You see, I had a FANTASTIC year.  I met loads of colleagues, was welcomed into the fold of a wonderful school... I really thought that I was nearing the end of my "supply" days.  Then May rolled around and there was a load of staff restructuring... 14 teachers alone at my favourite school were losing their jobs and back on the hunt for a job (with priority naturally).  They've all since been placed.  Then there were at least 5 LTO's (Long Term Occasional positions -- like a temp contract, for example, covering a mat leave) -- none of these people have jobs for September.  The problem seems to be low enrolment numbers for next year???  I'm still looking.  I have been told that there will be a rash of hiring at the last minute (end of August, beginning of September).  It's just hard to not be jaded in my situation.  I was talking today to a girl who is a total eager beaver.  She is devastated that she will possibly be back on the supply list next year after an LTO... I just laughed inwardly.   Same thing happened after my LTO 3 years ago.  An LTO helps but is not a guaranteed step to a permanent position.  I'm not sure those exist unless you know the right people.   In my district, they stress knowing the right buzz words (which I didn't last year having come from BC and different buzz words).... It's a silly system they use to determine your suitability in the classroom.  You can be dumb as nails but if you can memorize what "balanced literacy" is and how it would look in your classroom you half way to nailing your interview.  Problem is, most interviews you get are "filled positions" -- you see, there are quotas for the number of interviews required per job. Still, filled interviews are good practice.   Last year at this time I'd had 4 interviews -- all with positive feedback, and with the warning that I needed to learn the Ontario lingo (read: buzz words) for things.  This year I have had zero. None. Nada.  I'd feel bad if i weren't alone but I know that I'm not and therein lies the problem.  If only I had chosen something where there was demand.  Oh well, I happen to enjoy my job most days and that's what counts.  If I am supplying again next year, at least I have a school administration that likes me and will keep me working steadily. 

Yes, more Europe posts are coming. Yes, I realize they are dated. Tonight, however, I just wanted to talk about the now.

I have been working pretty steadily this year and that's good. I'm on-call in two districts, I'm on a "preferred list" at a school that I love, and I'm working part-time again (from home in my spare time) for a US company that is compiling an education database of "approved and reviewed" web material in an attempt to break into the Canadian Education market.
(Essentially, I'm a web site evaluator for them -- it's extra $ and I get a chance to compile some pretty cool resources). I have been busy!

Enter 2 weeks ago: I am at this school I've never been to, assigned to tail one particular student and make sure he is not disruptive in his classes. Easier said than done. For starters, it pains me to look at him as he has in his nose what I will refer to as a 'snot marble'. This is a term that I hereby declare copyright to and thus will present my definition:

snot marble - n
A hard ball of snot lodged into one's nose effectively hampering one's ability to breathe out of said nostril. The snot marble can be surrounded by copious amounts of liquid snot that will ooze forth but not act as a lubricant by which the "hardened marble" can escape the nostril. Snot marbles are often caused by neglect -- seriously, they can really only form when the victim does not possess an adult figure in their life that will a) wash it's face / blow it's nose b) insist the victim washes their face / blows their nose. Snot marbles, when serious, need to be removed by force -- most likely by tweezers.

Now you are all probably disgusted by my definition and well... that is exactly what I wanted. I had to stare at this phenomenon ALL DAY. Not only that, but I had to watch as this boy repeatedly wiped his excess snot on his arm, hand, sleeve, desk, eraser, pencils, papers. Repeated gentle reminders that he should use the tissues I had procured for him fell on deaf ears. Attempts to, throughout the day, enforce "hand washing" really didn't ease my discomfort. Further, no amount of hand sanitizer made me feel clean.

Snot -- just one of the things I deal with on a day to day basis. They never mentioned snot in Ed. my classes. Is it any wonder I am in my thirties and childless. Other people's bodily fluids gross me out - and I REFUSE to buy into the mommy tale of, "oh, but when its your own...."

I say, HOGWASH!

I've been super busy lately. Work has been non-stop and the classes I've been in have been keeping me hopping. That is the good news. The bad news is that I had that interview I mentioned a few posts back and found out today that I did not get the grade 8 position for next year. No one did... yet. They interviewed a bunch of people and found us all lacking -- so they are going to keep searching. I took some consolation in that. In a way, I'm not too upset because this class was going to be a handful. I think that was the biggest factor in their decision -- they wanted someone with experience dealing with difficult classrooms and didn't find anyone that fit the bill. The principal actually told me they had concerns that this class could break a new teacher and they wanted to ensure they got someone strong enough to be able to deal with it. Not that I don't think I could have hacked it, but it probably wouldn't have been a very pleasant year. I subbed at this school, a couple of weeks ago, and it was a pretty rough day.

It is a touch discouraging that my teaching experience in BC doesn't seem to amount to anything here. I have to pretty much start over trying to make connections/contacts because experience seems to amount to nothing. On the other hand, why sweat the stuff you have no control over. Neil's job in Toronto is temporary and I know I will be doing this all over again in another year or two so all I can do is go with the flow. Subbing isn't all that bad, 6AM call-outs aside.

I'm going to try to get back to posting semi-regularly here. We have found ourselves swept up in the Facebook phenomenon and my blog has suffered as a result.

We have nothing too exciting planned for the weekend -- except to shop for some patio furniture. We have a kick-ass patio with a pretty decent view. Time to pimp the space out. As expected, Neil is thrilled. There is nothing he'd rather do than shop.

Oh, and my brother gets his black belt in Tae Kwon Do and graduates grade 8 this month. Any suggestions for a kick-ass gift that could be applied towards both accomplishments.

I actually really enjoy subbing. It is never the same, always interesting and you get to see a whole slew of different teaching styles. That said, I have been hunting for a permanent teaching gig for a while now. Well, a potential opportunity has come my way and I'm excited. Then again, if it comes through, I will have my own classroom and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being a touch terrified at the same time.

May is the time when the school boards start hiring for the next year. I applied to a pile of jobs and two weeks ago I got my first bite. I had a chat over the phone with a principal about a 1.0 Grade 8 gig from Sept-June next year. Turns out that this school has 2 positions. The first is a mainstream gr.8 class that will have management challenges. The second is .5 Grade 8 gifted and .5 intermediate special education. I think I'm being considered for both. I was told that for either job I'd have to take an AQ class in Special Education. As it always is in this silly game we call life, this opportunity comes at a price ~ albeit a small one given that I'd actually have a consistent paycheck... our summer Europe trip would be temporarily and indefinitely shelved as I'd have to take this course over the summer.

Of course nothing is a given, at this point I just have an interview on Monday. It sounds crazy but I have a good feeling about it all... I am going to be positive. Subbing has been consistent since I started so if that's where I'm at come fall, so be it. I just wanted the chance for you all to either see me succeed in a blaze of glory or be denied! Again! Why have a blog if not to highlight personal misfortune... I should know soon. Wish me luck!