An animal. With claws. Fiercely clutching at me.

That's how I'm beginning to see teaching. I keep trying to distance myself, assure myself and everyone else that I'm on my way out of this career and headed into a new direction. But then it grabs hold of me again. I kind of feel like George, trying to break up with Susan, to no avail.

When I left the sweat hogs it seemed all too simple. It was so excruciatingly hard to leave them. But to leave teaching? No sweat. I gave away all, and I really do mean all, of my teaching materials, training manuals, books, stuff. All of it. It was so much, more than I could fit in one load in my car. And I left it all with one teacher or another. And I walked away feeling lighter.

Then I start substitute teaching down here and I get a new group of sweat hogs that I also loved and enjoyed. That was, obviously, a temporary gig though and I left it with no problem. Then, I started subbing at my old school, on a semi-permenant basis. It has been so good being back - almost like I never left. I love seeing my old friends again and picking up where we'd left off. But this is where things started to get difficult too.

First, a teacher approached me about her retirement at the end of the year. Would I like her to recommend me for her job? Then I am chosen substitute teacher of the month - for the whole district. What an honor! It was so nice to get recognized in that way. For real. But it did make me pause and ask myself, what are you doing? And on a pretty regular basis, I get a chance to connect with a kid and that feeling floods back. Why am I leaving this? I love this? Am I crazy? The alternative school will have at least two job openings next year and they'd love to have me. They'd like me to start there teaching and then eventually slide into a school counselor position (which, unfortunately, I won't be qualified to do). Then, just this weekend, I get a call from a principal who wants me to step in for a teacher that is leaving mid-year. Ahhh!

But then, when I'm up in front of a class of 35 eighth graders trying to keep them busy with just a word search that their teacher has left for them to fill an entire 90 minute class period (true story, what the heck?), I remember. I do not love working with 35 kids. Give them to me in small groups or one-on-one. Let us completely forget about fractions or the solar system for a while and let us talk about what's real. Like their lesbian mom and how she says that there must not be a God since the bible says that He hates gay people. (Which it DOES NOT say, just for the record. But true story, again. This just happened recently in an art class I was teaching!) Then I'm in my element.

Still, this has been a part of the transition that I did not anticipate. And it's been tough. My friends look at me like I have two heads when I talk about it. How can anyone complain about loving their job (which, to be fair I do, but only about 49% of the time.), getting an award or multiple job offers?

But its because it makes me question my steps in this process. Steps that I was, and am mostly :), still sure were led by God and NOT my idea to begin with. I want to be a counselor. So teaching, let me go!

Change, change, change...

Haha. I feel like this could often be an appropriate title for one of my blogs. It's always the case. Things change and just when you get comfortable, they change again! At least that's the way it seems to go for me. I'm a part of that though. I kind of like it. At least I like the idea of it. Sometimes in the midst of it, I hate it but before and after I'm always glad for it.

So things have changed. You know I started this blog as an outlet to tell the hilarious stories of my adventures in teaching "sweathogs" and to process some of the tough things. Of course, I didn't do a great job at keeping up with it. Now, here it is another school year and my role has changed. I'm not teaching full time anymore. Instead, I'm substitute teaching. The thing that hasn't changed, sweathogs. :)

Almost immediately after school started I got a job that is VERY much like my last one and was estimated to last 2-4 weeks. It's officially now up to 4 weeks and I'm 2 weeks in. I love it. I'm have a blast. But everyday is an adventure!

Let me tell you a couple funny tales. True stories though the names have been changed... yadi yadi ya.

This school is small and the population is "at risk" but not really very diverse. There are two groups, a younger group and an older group, and we teach them various courses during the same period - depending on what they need. So I'm teaching math and I have kids in all kinds of different levels of math. Anyway, the younger group (they're 12-15 years old) are kind of annoying and joke around too much about stuff they shouldn't. Last week they decided it would be funny to say some inappropriate stuff to one of the older boys, who happens to be African American, about his race. Of course they're wimpy so they do it while running (and I mean flat run) toward their parents cars after school. The older boy doesn't hesitate but instead takes off after them and grabs the boy who actually called out the comment by the neck of his shirt and flattened him. Just laid him down on his back. It was swift and rather smooth and kind of funny! He then proceeded to the bike rack to unlock his bike as if nothing had happened!

This week, they're picking on him again. I don't know if they think we can completely protect them from him or what but they're in for a rude awakening. He's not going to put up with much more without some serious dealing. Today, they were making comments toward him at lunch (though the two groups are required to sit far apart in the cafeteria). He stands up and points at them in a threatening way. Then the littlest one stands up, pulls his pants down to just below his rear (a mocking gesture at the older boy who regularly wears his pants sagged) and sits back down. Again, ridiculous and hilarious.

The craziest story I have right now would be about another of the younger kids. Apparently he brought a fire arm to school and wasn't expelled, as other kids usually are, but instead was enrolled in the special program. It's crazy. He's silly and kind of dopey and I really do wonder what kind of lesson that "break" may have taught him. I don't really think he has any idea how serious that kind of act is and getting special treatment may have taught him that it isn't such a big deal at all. I hope we don't have to see.

Leaving my old sweathogs was very difficult. Leaving other things there wasn't, like the inappropriate boss or the beast of a roommate, but leaving my kids was excruciating. I still get sad thinking about it.

Girls. Boys. Ridiculous.

So today the girls talked me into letting them work out in the weight room. At my school the weight room is on a mezzanine between the classroom level and the gym and there are windows that look down from it into the gym. Here's a rundown of what the boys did and what we did. Girls are so freaking ridiculous. :)

Chad leads the guys in practicing blocks and hits in some sort of martial art...? This was our view from the windows of the weight room.

While the boys do actual exercises, the girls strain their necks trying to see out the blinds to the boys.

embarrassed that she got caught!

soon gave up and just let me take the pic!

I was just begging them to not get caught!

You think kids say the darndest things? You should hear the things sweathogs talk about....

"You'd look so wonderful dead." ~ Dude

"I'm sure if people started bleeding butterflies, murder wouldn't be illegal." ~ Collins

The facts of life!

One fact of life that I've learned in my 30+ years is that things that should be easy never are. Well almost never. Here's a great example. And perhaps this will be the last art show-off entry. Perhaps not. We'll see.

So I dreamed up this idea to do mobile's made from painted CDs because I've got stacks of these old CDs that you used to get in the mail with a free trial offer for dial-up internet service. Remember those. They were so annoying. And they weren't recyclable back then so I started collecting them, sure I'd use them somehow, someday. So my idea was to paint them and then hang them in mobiles. Well, it sounds easy anyway. But they came out so awesome. Check them out:

They hang in the hallway, just under the open rafters and skylights (I know, brilliant, right?).

Another shot of them, lit from the bottom and top. I LOVE how they came out!

One team chose "Disney Characters" as their theme. Each student on that team chose a specific story and then designed a CD for the hero, heroine, sidekick and villain. Here are their CDs up close!

Aladdin - by Crawl & Rhoda

Peter Pan - by Mary Anne

The Incredibles - by Marcus

The Lion King - by Dorthy

The other team chose "The Elements: Earth, Wind, Fire & Water" for their theme. They were able to be a little more abstract with their work.

You take 'em both, and then you have...

We've got plenty of both. Here's some more art work. I'm like a proud mama when it comes to this stuff. I try to teach the kids that the only fair way to judge art is in whether or not the artist got what they intended to get out of it. Beyond that, and certainly once the artist is gone, there is no fair judgement on art. It is what we want it to be and how we feel about it. Completely subjective. So in their art, I really only grade them on their efforts. Some of them get more than they hoped for out of their work, others don't quite make the mark. It's all in fun though and it's really therapeutic I think. Here are some more of their masterpieces.

Crawl's Shrek Piñata

Addison's Princess Fiona Piñata

Mary Anne's "Up" - Hot Air Balloon Piñata

Lillian's Lady Bug Piñata

Ned's Sun Piñata

Argus' Penguin Piñata

Dorthy's Simba - The Lion King Piñata

Kaleigh's Coke Bottle Piñata

Rhoda's Pig Piñata

A display of all our work.

Painted Eggs

Crawl's Humpty Dumpty

Addison's Flowers

Ned's Fiery Night

Hillary's Eyeball

Mary Anne's Mouse

The Sesame Street Gang

Rhoda's Bert, Big Bird & Ernie

Rhoda's Oscar the Grouch

You take the good, you take the bad.

In an attempt to add electives to our very limited class schedule, I teach art. Now, I like to play around with things and be creative from time to time but I'm certainly no artist. Still, we have a pretty good time and the stuff they produce is pretty awesome. Of course, with the good .... you have to take the bad. I know that teachers aren't supposed to have favorites and are supposed to think everyone's artwork is genius, it's own way. Well, I'm not that kind of teacher I guess. ;) Check out some of these:

Lillian's Surprised Panda statuette

Mary Anne's Buck statuette

Argus' Graffitied Brick Wall statuette

Addison's Cheshire Cat statuette

Ned's Surf's Up Wave statuette (Blue Crush, hahaha)

Crawl's Super Mario statuette