Internet baby-sitter

Because I am such a wild and crazy kid, I decided it would be economically beneficial to baby-sit on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, I am in Hometown, and all the people who I used to baby-sit for have either grown too old to need a baby-sitter, or have found a new baby-sitter since I left Hometown to go to college.

As I was perusing Craig's List, passively looking for a teaching-type job, I happened to came across several requests for baby-sitters for New Year's Eve. I responded to one request, from a neighboring town, and the the poster called me a few days later.

So now, I am going to baby-sit for someone I found on Craig's List. Is that sketchy? I'm not sure.

I am kind of over-charging them. However, I figure, they're posting in a public forum, less than a week before the date, begging for a baby-sitter. I am responsible, have experience working with children the age of these children, and am currently unemployed. If they need a sitter that badly, I'm charging New Year's Eve rates. (And really, although they baulked a bit on the phone when I stated my price, it really isn't too extreme - considering the fact that I am a college graduate and it is a high-demand-for-babysitters night.)

We'll see how this goes.

On the job-seeking front, I am hoping to actually send in the job applications I have half-filled out. My main obstacle, as of now, is that my letters of reference (which I have at least a few of, after finally asking people to write them for me) and my college transcript are being held hostage by the Office of the Registrar and the Office of Career Development at my college. (And by "held hostage" I mean that the offices are closed, and will hopefully be open next week so that I can access these materials... This was quite poor planning on my part.)

Adventures in Elementary School

On the last day of my student teaching experience (because it certainly was an experience) we had an adventure.

That afternoon, we were scheduled to have an intruder drill (is that what they’re called? - the drills where there is an alarm, and you must turn off the lights, lock the doors, close the blinds, and hide under the desks in the corner of the room, so as not to be seen from the doorway.

We were given the exact time that this was scheduled to happen, and had it planned into our day. We had warned the children ahead of time that this would be happening, reminded them how they had participated in the same drill in school the year before, and talked about how they were expected to behave during the drill.

About 20 minutes earlier than expected, an alarm went off. We assumed that there had been a time change for whatever reason, so we closed the blinds, herded the children to the floor, turned off the lights, and went to close and lock the door.

As my cooperating teacher and I directed the children to the corner, the paraeducator went to close and lock the door. She went out in the hallway for a second, then came back in, confused.

“I think it’s a fire alarm…” she said. And, it was.

So, after being told that they must quietly hide under the desks and in the closet, the students were then told that, “actually, we have to quietly, calmly, and quickly walk in a line down the hall to our class’ fire-alarm meeting spot outside. Upon exiting the building, we realized that it was snowing, quite hard. And the children were mostly wearing thin long sleeve shirts, short-sleeve t-shirts, or the occasional tank top. (They don’t always dress weather appropriate.)

For a few minutes, it seemed that we were missing half of the school. Because we were. The students and teachers in one half of the school were, apparently, still locked in their classrooms, hiding under the desks, waiting for further instruction. They hadn’t realized that there was actually smoke somewhere in the building, which had caused the fire alarm to go off, instead of the intruder alarm. Someone ran to get these well-hidden classes, and moments later they came filing out the doors of the building.

Finally, 20 minutes after the whole ordeal had begun, and 15 minutes after the children had begun standing, freezing, in line in the heavy snow, we were told that the smoke had been isolated and we could return to our classes.

Later, the truth was revealed. Someone had burnt popcorn in a personal microwave, which prompted the fire alarm.

Needless to say, we did not end up completing the intruder drill.

My theoretical future.

So, I may never get a job (see previous post), but I have written out a life plan.

I hate making New Year resolutions or personal goals.

However, I absolutely love making life plans.

The final thing on my list, currently, specifies that around 2019, if I have taught at least 5 years over all, and 4 years in the US, I can start thinking about applying to PhD programs (as long as I have already gotten a masters. I think that's listed as being begun by 2013).

But seriously, none of these things are going to happen if I don't get a job first. Basically, the thing that's holding me back from applying is that I need letters of reference, and it's around final exam time, and I feel bad asking my professors for recommendations now. Can I ask them now, though? Because I can't get a job without a letter of reference (three, actually), and I need a job.

(Also, I'm working on a research paper and presentation about specific methods I used during student teaching, and I'm seriously having a blast writing this. It's hard. I've done a lot of research, read/skimmed quite a few books, read many articles, reviewed things I have read in the past. So far, my paper is more than twice the length of anything else I've written, and it's just kind of neat to create something that's relatively long. I'm not done writing yet - I have more to add, and things to cut out - but it is fun to get the chance to do the field research, the literature review, and write it all up in one big pile of papers (or actually, one big pile of megabytes).)

How to not get a job.

I've been half filling out online job applications. I've half filled out four online job applications.

Unfortunately, half filling them out is equal to not filling them out at all.

(The semi-completed job applications have been happening in between spurts of working on a research project/paper about specific methods I used during my student teaching and the outcomes of those methods.)