Insert “Hot For Teacher” Joke Here
Well guess what I did today. I was lying there in bed, when my phone rang. The school needed me to come in and substitute! Just like that. For some reason I thought I had to get some sort of “you cleared the background check” notification in the mail, but I was wrong. Anyway, I got to “teach” my first class today, and I survived being in the same room with several children and even managed to communicate with them almost as if I were a human being, so that was good. Less good was the fact that I didn’t have any caffeine for the entire day until I got home in the afternoon. See, when I got the call I wanted to make a good impression, so I didn’t dawdle over a cup of instant coffee but just got dressed and out of there. “I’ll get some in the school at some point. Surely there will be coffee somewhere.” I haven’t been in a school for non-adults in a very long time. There was no coffee to be had, until I got to the teachers’ lounge and saw the pot! Of lukewarm liquid which had a coffeelike flavor but turned out to be decaf since it had absolutely no effect on my headache or my caffeine-starved synapses. So by the time I got back I had a splitting headache which only now has subsided. Lesson learned.
Congratulations on the substituting job and on making it through the day. And uncaffeinated even!
Posted by Lynn on 10/27 at 09:16 PMThey had the real coffee hidden away somewhere, believe me.
Posted by Marc on 10/27 at 10:08 PMNo, really, I keep encountering people here who don’t get the importance of the juice of the bean. They’re all “oh, I don’t drink coffee.” And we have so many cute coffee places that seem to be doing good business—it must be with tourists and college students.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/27 at 10:15 PMWell, if they don’t have the coffee stashed somewhere then they’ve got the whiskey somewhere.
Perhaps you’re living in the long lost Virginia LDS colony?
Posted by Marc on 10/27 at 10:40 PMOK, but what did you do? As a teacher, that is. How old were the kids? What did you teach them? What happened?
Posted by John Weidner on 10/28 at 12:30 AMYay! Work for Andrea!
Like John, I’d like more about age, subject & that kind of gory detail, too.
Posted by kc on 10/28 at 06:53 AMGood morning all. Just woke up here and am having my first cup of coffee. Anyway, last night I wasn’t feeling so great so I didn’t go into much detail and went to bed early, etc. To make a long story short, it was a sixth grade science class (middle school here is 6-8 grade), and the teacher had to leave because her kid was sick with swine flu, which is really sweeping the valley. Fortunately I didn’t have to do much, and it was real baby science which is about my speed. She had a lesson plan drawn up—the kids had to finish up some questions from their book, and pick out a science fair project if they hadn’t already, and I had a dvd on Mars exploration to pop into the player when the kids got restless. They did get a little noisy, but not, I hope, too much so. It was weird having little kids call me “Miss Harris.”
More later after coffee!
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/28 at 07:06 AMI would suggest scoping out all the places where you could score a quick cup on your way for the next time.
Of course, for me that would mean convenience stores, since I can’t taste enough of a difference between “good” coffee and cheap coffee to justify the greater expense.
Posted by McGehee on 10/28 at 09:35 AMI wouldn’t be surprised if they really didn’t have real coffee. It seems to me like schools have been leaning more and more toward the “ban or tax everything that might possibly be the slightest bit unhealthy” camp.
I don’t like the taste of coffee myself. I get my caffeine fix from tea but I am trying to cut down. Too much makes me pee a lot. Sorry, TMI?
Posted by Lynn on 10/28 at 11:18 AMWow, your regular readership is disciplined. NOBODY tossed in a Van Halen reference, despite the clear expectations shown by the post title.
I’m not going to break up the perfecto myself, though I do suspect that I’ve jinxed it.
Posted by nightfly on 10/28 at 11:57 AM“It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.”
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/28 at 12:47 PMNOBODY tossed in a Van Halen reference, despite the clear expectations shown by the post title.
Maybe I should have mentioned how many kids needed to borrow pencils.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/28 at 03:07 PMGreat news.
When I was substitute teaching, I had a coffee pot ready for the morning and a clean thermos bottle together with a snack bag of things like granola bars in case food choices were limited.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/28 at 05:01 PM[stupid spam removed—The Management]
Posted by stupid spammer on 10/29 at 03:12 PMWell, now we know what the mystery code does. ^
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/29 at 03:45 PMYeah that’s going bye bye.
Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/29 at 04:21 PM
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