so, guess what?

i'm now employed.

yayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayayay!

words cannot express how great it feels to have a job, but i'm going to try to use them to do just that.  imagine being hit repeatedly in the stomach with a baseball bat while a swarm of angry bees, who have stealthily entered your skull, play ultimate frisbee.  additionally, president taft is perched on your shoulders.  throughout this, you have to be coherent, pleasant, knowledgeable, and charming while being constantly grilled with questions.  that's basically what job hunting felt like for me.  when i got a phone call from a principal that said (i paraphrase) "wanna come work for us, dude?" suddenly taft found better things to do, the bees buzzed off, and the baseball bat (apparently swung by nobody) realizes this and drops.  there might have also been rainbows.

quick funny story about how i got this job in the first place: en route to an interview i get a phone call.  it is my new boss (though i didn't know it at the time) asking if i would be at all interested in interviewing for this new semi-uncategorizable class.  he got my name from a posting my fourth-grade teacher's next door neighbor put up on a list.  i asked if he was free in two hours (when i'd be in town) and he said yes. during the interview we discovered i'm not technically qualified to teach this job.  however, he asked me to send him all of my school/work info so he could contact human resources just in case they would be able to make it work.  i did, he did, they did, and thus, i got hired.

so the job i have: i am going to be working in an ABA-formatted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_behavior_analysis#Efficacy_in_autism) classroom with 6 or 7 kindergarden and first grade students with severe autism (and two teaching assistants to help out, thank goodness).  it's a great school with an AMAZING principal (he'd have to be amazing to go out on a limb and hire a newbie who has never WORKED in an ABA-format classroom) in a fabulous location right in the middle of a highly acclaimed school district.  i am very excited.

real world, here i come.

on the hunt

job hunting is maybe my least favorite thing ever. it sucks to have to apply to a bazillion things, only to hear from a few. then, with education jobs in particular, you have to interview with the county/school district first fora screening interview, if they like you you get put in a database where a principal can find your name and they choose to interview you or not and then they tell human resources what they think. then you mayor may not get the job. lots is up in the air. not a good feeling.

tips: print about 20 more resumes than you think you'll need (in case they lost yours or want an extra to pass along to someone else), wear sensible shoes (in case they want to take youona grand tour of the school and/or join in a classroom for a while, and don't hesitate to call them after an interview to follow up if you haven't heard from them in a while (they wont think you are a pest, they will likely see your enthusiasm as a plus).

would be nice to say that, after a month or two of searching a job has been offered to me but nope (in fact, two interviews and two nos so far. womp womp.). so instead it's story time:

i had a screening interview recently with a county that seemed to be going pretty well. the woman interviewing me kept repeating my answers back to me with an excited expression and saying things like "you'd be surprised haw many people come in here and say exactly the wrong response to these questions!". this sounded promising. at the end of the interview she literally placed a gold star on my interview form, gave me a hug, and said it was a real pleasure talking with me. too bad her school isn't hiring. oh well; the hunt continues.

no, zebras!

this post, much like the previous one, is entirely gratuitous - actual important information is to come later in the week. 

so as a parting gift to my kiddos, i made them a picture book.  it really turned out pretty cute if i do say so myself (which, clearly i do) so i wanted to share it here.  i blurred out the names for their privacy, so you can fill in whatever names you want there (zeke, chrysanthemum, josephus, matilda, pickle, etc.).  enjoy!

strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff

so hopefully this works: i recorded my kids singing "puff, the magic dragon" and it is crazy cute :)

that's all, folks!

so i'm done with student teaching.  which sounds (and feels) crazy.  totally nuts.  i'm not sure what i am going to do come monday morning.  it will feel strange not having to get up and go to school. 


i was able to do two very cutesy last-day-of-school things with my kids that i'll try to figure out a way to share here: we sang (and i recorded) "puff, the magic dragon," and i made them a picture book about themselves.  they loved all of it.  i got lots of hugs.  it was a good, good day.

i know what you're thinking.  ok, no i don't.  but if you were thinking "oh man, i totally love reading this and now it's over" never fear: student teaching is done, but job-finding and job-starting and job-accomplishing aren't.  there will be more to come :)  for now, i'm going to relish in not having to wake up early every morning for a little while.  time to relax.

winding down

i ran into the assistant principal today (thankfully, only figuratively) and she asked how much longer i get to stay at the school.  i had to pause for a moment before responding "next friday?  wow, yeah, next friday."  this really has flown by.  i no longer have any real responsibility (no more lesson planning) - i am now just an extra set of hands.  so i'll share two tidbits that haven't yet made the blog yet:

tidbit 1:
one of my kids asks the most interesting questions to me.  he is very curious; he's the one who asked what i was wearing under my shirt, for those of you who know the story (for those of you who don't, he asked me one day what i was wearing under my shirt.  when i told him nothing he said "but what about those?," referring to a couple elements of my anatomy.).  he also once asked me, upon my return from the ladies room, "which bathroom did you go to?"  i said i went to the girl's room, and he asked "why?"  "because i'm a girl."  "oh, ok."  the most recent inquiry: "do you have a ring?"  "nope."  "well, have you ever been married?" "no."  "oh, well good," he said, and scooted over closer to me.  i didn't have the heart to tell him i don't date younger guys ;)

tidbit 2:
the kids have just gotten into the habit of calling each other, and the teachers, silly names.  they will call someone by another person's name (or random objects, such as the other day when a child turned to me and asked "could you get me a milk, miss juicebox?").  i really don't mind being called "miss juicebox" nor to i mind, when zed sits on cassidy's name at circle, calling him "cassidy."  it cracks them up and is pretty harmless.  however, these kids watch a lot a lot a lot of television and so also use names like "jackwagon" (from the geico commercial), wholly unaware of the meaning.  i try to correct without scolding and/or laughing, but have you ever heard a four-year-old call another four-year-old a "jackwagon" in an endearing tone?  i challenge you not to laugh.

enjoy :)

wait, what?

i have a week and a half left of student teaching (plus a week of observation in other rooms, but that doesn't really count as "teaching" in my opinion).  that must be a lie.  not possible.  for real.  where did the time go????  it's freaking me out.  not that i feel like i am still new in the room - on the contrary, it has become really routine.  it's awesome.  but i'm bummed that i won't be with these kids for much longer.  there are certainly bad days (today was pretty rough, in fact) but even the bad days have been fairly good.  today was "pretty rough" because one of my kiddos was in a funk, and another (who has autism) was having a hard time when i told her to go to another teacher (as opposed to me) for help.  which leads to the next issue ...

... fading me out.  there are a couple of kids who ask for me when i even just step out to use the restroom, so getting them used to me not being here at all is going to be tough.  and something i can't exactly help with.  i've been trying to refer them to the other teachers when they come to me or ask for me, with varying degrees of success (see earlier comment about my friend with autism), so that will be my next trick.  we'll see ...