Aaaaaaaaaaand Moving On . . .

To a new job that is. I have officially worked at Ellis Elementary for two days now. Well, at least I think it's official. Yesterday did not start off very encouragingly. I show up about ten minutes early, and the secretary, who gave me quick tour last week, gave me a time card, and showed me where my mailbox was going to be (I get a mailbox! So cool!) had no idea who I was. Ummmm . . . awkward! Lucky for me the principal showed up right then to see if I was there yet and she reminded the secretary who I was . . . but I don't think she actually remembered, because she told me all about timecards again, and showed me where the mailboxes were, and was looking for an empty space to put mine when I pointed out that she'd already labeled as mine. I'm hoping sh was having an off day as opposed to an everyday thing. Because that could make things interesting - especially since I haven't seen or heard anything about direct deposit slips or W2s . . . W4s . . . W42s . . . 24s . . . whatever those papers are that you fill out so they can send you the other ones for taxes. I don't speak government-ese. I just hope I'm getting paid.

Again, moving on - I spend the last hour of the official school day with one of the second grade teachers - who knew I was coming, but nobody told her I was starting yesterday. Ummmmmm . . . awkward!! The good news is she's really on the ball so today she had a full schedule made up for who she wants me to pull out each day and what to work on with them. It should be fun. The kids I worked with today were all really sweet. And I totally saw my own little Mini Me while I was watching the class yesterday. There's this cute little girl named Hanah, who looks almost exactly like I did in second grade - well, except her hair is straight instead of curly - and I'm willing to bet she's one of the smartest in the class. She always had her hand up first to answer a question, and she was always right when she got called on. And she kinda freaked out a little at the other kids at her table when they wouldn't be quite and some of the other tables got to put their stuff away first. That was sooooooo me back in the day!!! Yep, she appears to have all the traits of a classic elementary school over-achiever . . . and I should know. (I always felt kind of sorry for my siblings, especially Ashli for getting compared to me so much academically, both at home and at school.) I have to wonder what will happen to Hannah as the years go by. Will she figure out, like I did, that it's not "cool" to be so smart and teacher's pet-ish and shut up? Or will she keep rockin' the Hermione-style-show-off-gene? Because half the pleasure in getting the answer right is knowing that most or all of your classmates didn't. :-)

Anyway, for the last hour and half I'm working in one of the myriad of after school clubs they do. And can I just that holy crap kids these days get a lot more supervision and structured time, and I'm kind of glad I didn't. Anyway, as I understand it the after school clubs are for the kids who's parents aren't home right after school so they stay at school until their parents are off work so they don't have to be at home alone. Now go ahead and juxtapose that with the fact that nobody knew or cared that a lot of the time in 4th/5th/6th/7th grade is was wearing a copy of our back door key around my neck so that we could get into the house after school because nobody was home. The times, how they change.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway . . . I'm in the fourth grade after school club. And basically I'm one of the supervisers making sure everybody's getting their homework done. And then at 4:00 they all go somewhere else and I go home. Officially I'm in charge of six kids, and the other aides have their own groups, but we all mix and mingle when the kids need help. I wouldn't call it fun per se, but I have enjoyed the last two days, and my six kids seem to really like me already - yay!

So far the only real downside is that I have to correct math worksheets. Fourth grade math worksheets. The good thing is that that's about the last level of math that I understood. The bad news is I haven't had to do that sort of math mentally since . . . about 4th grade. Crap. I hope I'm correcting them correctly. And when they start bringing in long division . . . I'm so screwed.

But all in all, things are looking good. :-) Yay!!

P. ost S. cript
Okay, this one is really only for the Stargate junkies. But seriously - cracks me up.