And I Wonder...

I just received my teaching contract for the 2011-2012 school year in the mail.  This is crazy!  I’m super excited to start teaching!  There’s SO MANY things I need to do before the school year starts, but I’m glad it’s still relatively early.  I’ve kind of started a list of the things I need to do, but holy crap!  A real job!  A CAREER!  A salary!  :)

I have awesome news!  I have been hired to teach elementary music (K-5) next school year!  I’m super stoked about it!  Plus I get to move back to Columbia and see friendly faces and be in choir again!

Also I turn 23 tomorrow!  I feel super old!  But that’s ok b/c we’re celebrating!  Also I’m looking at two different apartments to figure out where to live!  And then Saturday I’m going to a Cardinals vs. Royals baseball game in Kansas City!  And after that we’re going out to Power and Light and celebrating some more!  This is gonna be awesome!

When you’re reading a book.  I may have to sub tomorrow which means waking up at 5am and trying to find clean, professional looking clothes and eating breakfast in a timely fashion and making lunch in a timely fashion and maybe waiting on said “clean clothes” to get done tumbling in the dryer b/c I accidentally found them hiding in the bottom of my clothes basket and washing my face and putting on makeup in a timely fashion and deciding what I want to take with me in a timely fashion and making sure I go to the bathroom after drinking all that coffee b/c let’s be real my eyes don’t open that early w/o caffeine in a timely fashion and driving to the school, checking in w/the office, walking to the classroom, locating the sub plans/closest bathroom/hall passes/teacher’s pet in a timely fashion BUUUUUT all of that is irrelevant if I have a hilarious book to take my mind off of the fact that it’s seniors’ last week and Monday and I haven’t subbed in sooo long and I still don’t have a summer job or hey, a career!@#$%^&*(), and who knows if I can really handle classroom management b/c apparently I’ve gotten to be “quiet” over the years (!) (more about this identity crisis later!) @#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@!@#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@#$%^&*&^%$#@#E

the book will solve a million problems.  Except I don’t know which one to take.  I may have lost the 50 Rules Kids Won’t Learn In School in the heaping mess that is my bedroom floor.  Or perhaps the karma gods decided I shouldn’t have such a negative perspective of kids before entering the profession and have therefore taken the book from me?  Maybe it’s a sign that I should bring something unrelated to education b/c if I want to “escape” from reality (you haven’t figured that out by now?) surely I wouldn’t want to read something that will plop me right back down into the middle of it.  Harry Potter would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, soooo that’s always a safe choice, and it WOULD be good to reread the Deathly Hallows before the second half of the movie comes out this summer.  I need to get me some new books.  I may steal Bossypants from my mom.  Hmmmmmmmm……………

I’d probably say something like this:

• Woke up
• Hit snooze on my alarm
• Went back to bed
• Woke up to go to the bathroom
• Went back to bed
• Woke up when my alarm went off for the 8th time, probably
• Noticed I had a missed call and a voicemail
• Listened to said voicemail to find out it was the principal from a high school that I interviewed with last week saying he wanted to fill me in about the position
• Freaked out
• Spent the next hour and a half freaking out and figuring out how I would respond if he either a) offered me the position or b) told me he hired someone else
• Fixed breakfast whilst still freaking out
• Mailed some letters for my dad (still freaking out)
• Wrote down a list of pros and cons about working at said school if I were in fact to get hired
• Called my dad to ask his opinion
• Called my mom to ask her opinion (b/c I can’t make decisions by myself, apparently)
• Called principal
• He was busy and the secretary told me she’d have him call me back when he was finished
• Decided to get my mind off it and at least stop hyperventilating
• Watched 18 to Life online (b/c it’s Canadian and I can’t watch it on real TV)
• Principal called.  Told me they had offered the position to someone else with more experience with musicals.
• Was kind of relieved, yet kind of discouraged
• Decided for whatever reason to pretend I was singing karaoke at a bar and what song would I sing if I were ever to find myself in said situation?
• Sang Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”
• Sang Lady Gaga’s “Judas”
• Sang Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”
• Sang La Roux’s “Bulletproof”
• Sang Cascada’s “Evacuate the Dancefloor”
• Sang Katy Perry’s “Waking Up in Vegas”
• Sang Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face”
• Sang Lady Gaga’s “Just Dance”
• Sang Rihanna’s “Rude Boy”
• Sang Backstreet Boys’s “Backstreet’s Back”
• Sang Backstreet Boys’s “Larger Than Life”
• Sang Backstreet Boys’s “The Call”
• Sang Backstreet Boys’s “Quit Playin’ Games With My Heart”
• Sang Britney Spears’s “Circus”
• Sang Britney Spears’s “If You Seek Amy”
• Decided to switch up styles and sang “Per la gloria”
• Went to the piano to see if it was in the right key.
• It wasn’t.
• Sang it in correct, higher, key
• Decided to play piano for an hour or so or maybe more; I lose track of time when it’s rainy and crappy outside and I’m still in my pajamas
• Thought very strongly about going to the rec center to run
• Remembered that I need to print out my résumé and letters of recommendation for tomorrow and Wednesday’s interviews
• Remembered that we have very low black ink
• Remembered that my mom left me a twenty dollar bill on the table with a post-it on it that said to buy ink, along with a teacher discount coupon to Office Max
• Got a soda (Vanilla Coke!)
• Went to Office Max to buy ink, declined the two suggestions I got to buy computer paper that was “on sale, 2 for $10, that’s a really good deal”
• Impulsively drove to McDonald’s and ordered a double cheeseburger w/o onions and small fries
• Realized if I don’t start running soon I’m going to gain at least 5 lbs and not be able to run…at all
• Stuffed my face with my McDonald’s whilst watching Days of Our Lives with my mom and sister
• Got back on my computer b/c that’s where I live
• Decided to do something semi-mature and check school districts for more openings
• Found at least one and applied, even though the position is “TBD,” which I think is code for “not a real opening, you’ve been PUNK’D, jackass!” or maybe “hey click this link and waste at least 10 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back but at least it seems like you’re doing something worthwhile”
• Looked around at a few different school districts’ websites and teachers’ blogs
• Downloaded the Bach B Minor Mass which is pretty awesome and you should TOTALLY CHECK IT OUT ON THIS CONVENIENT LINK THAT WILL DIRECT YOU TO YOUTUBE WHERE YOU CAN HEAR ONE OF MY FAVORITE MOVEMENTS IN THE WHOLE DAMN THING…IT’S REALLY SPECTACULAR…SERIOUSLY…YOU’RE MISSING OUT IF YOU DON’T LISTEN TO IT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE JUST CHECK IT OUT…GIVE IT AT LEAST 15 SECONDS OF YOUR TIME YOU WON’T BE DISAPPOINTED I PROMISE!!!
• ^^^ Seriously not kidding.  Check it out.  If not, we’re no longer friends.  I had the immense pleasure of performing the mass in its entirety last spring at Mizzou and it was one of the coolest pieces I think I’ve ever performed.
• So I downloaded the entire mass and am currently listening to it b/c the whole thing is a little under an hour and 45 min.
• I got the mail
• Got a letter saying that my current credit card is about to expire and that I was sent a replacement last year but that their records indicate I’m still using the old one (expires in June) and to start using the new one.
• Tried to remember where I put that after my mom sent it to me about a year ago in the mail and then where it went when I was moving out of my college apartment
• Spent about half an hour looking for it but still couldn’t find it
• Decided to call to request a new one be sent b/c I’m an idiot and lose important things like that (actually I really don’t, I know it’s somewhere in my room, I just don’t know if it’s really worth it to look for it)
• Made a cup of coffee
• Sat down in comfy recliner
• Decided to write a tumblr post, aaaand
• we’ve come full circle

That’s what I would tell them.

Ok, mini rant here:

I’m a little bit pissed at this whole accompanying thing b/c first off, I don’t feel like I got the music early enough.  I have enough to worry about right now, like trying to find a job for next year, subbing, and training for this stupid half marathon.  I know that I’m going to be busy all next week subbing every day for middle school choir, and I know, I know, most people probably think subbing is easy; it’s just babysitting, right?  WRONG!  It’s really all about classroom management and not letting kids take advantage of you.  Now that I’ve contacted every music teacher in the district, I feel like it’s my duty, nay, my job to not only maintain good classroom management but also to teach music.  Meaning I have told them that they can leave me lesson plans and I will teach their kids.  Fortunately the first time I did that the kids were ok even though I didn’t know them.  The second time I subbed for music was at the elementary where I student taught, so they all remembered me and I remembered their names = success!  (It’s really hard to get kids to listen to you when you don’t know their names.)  Anyway, I’m going to observe the middle school both Thursday and Friday of this week so that I can see how the teacher runs his class and the warm-ups he uses, etc., so that while he’s gone for a week there can be some sort of consistency when I’m there.  Subbing is stressful and it also means there’s 7 hours of the day when I CANNOT practice these pieces.  I know I’ll have enough time (there’s still about 2 1/2 weeks left, but I guess I also feel kind of bad that I’m only taking 4 out of the 10 pieces.  But you know what?  No, I shouldn’t feel bad; it’s not MY fault that this teacher waited until the last minute to start looking for accompanists when he should’ve started doing this in January (note to self for future reference!)  I just wish he would email me back about when I’m going to meet with these kids - he keeps avoiding the topic even though I’ve flat out asked TWICE - there’s really only 11 days that I can be at school, which isn’t a whole lot.  

I guess it also pisses me off because it’s a disservice to the kids to not have this stuff organized well ahead of time.  I was talking to a freshman band kid yesterday while I was subbing and he said he was helping make the schedule for contest; I asked him if the teacher had it all figured out yet and he said no.  Then another kid asked the first kid if he was playing a solo, he said yes, and then he asked when contest was and kid #1 didn’t even know!  I know I can’t blame the band teacher for this b/c I’m sure he’s told them the date, maybe the kid just forgot or it isn’t really his top priority right now b/c it seems so far away.  But 2 1/2 weeks is not so far away, and I know if I were the teacher I’d be reminding these students every other day about it.  I’d actually have a countdown on the board, like my mentor teacher at the high school did last semester.  Anyway, I guess this is just me saying that this disorganization is not working for me, and probably isn’t working for the students either.  I know that there’s times when my life seems pretty unorganized, just walk into my room and you’ll definitely agree, but when it comes to my job, my career, my students, I owe it to them to be on top of my game.  And for something that important, you can bet I’ll have my shit together, especially when other people’s schedules are at stake.  

Aaaand </rant>