Yes, Jesse finally got his Jeep, and as I'm sure you can tell, he is pretty happy with it. This is the third time he has taken the doors off in the past week, but the first time we've gotten to roll with the top down. It was about 60 when we left for church, and windy windy windy, like always. Jesse kept making fun of me the whole way to church, because the wind was coming from the south, which meant when we were driving east through town, the wind was hitting me full on the side of the face and going up my nose, so I kept plugging my nose because it felt like a tornado in my sinuses. We had barely gotten onto the highway on the way home (now headed west, so the driver's side had no windbreak), when Jesse started laughing and plugging his nose...this really is not capturing the comedy of the moment. His eyes were watering, and he kept blinking and looked so surprised...
"You didn't say it was suffocating!" "I told you there was a tornado in my nose, what did you expect?"Anyway. We got a laugh out of it the whole way home. Jesse was even drooling by the time we made it onto our road. He had a leg stuck out the side, hair standing on end...He got the dog look down pat. We did decide that the doors are going to stay on until it warms up a little more, though.
Side note. Baptists really like the word "amen". They holler it out at random and I don't understand it.
Pastor: "Every one of those guys had a child dead at home!"
Various congregation members: "Amen!"
Pastor: "I just get worked up about this."
Various congregation members: "Amen!"
Pastor: "Snack Packs were made for me."
Various congregation members: "Amen!"
Inigo Montoya (in my head): "You keep saying that word; I don't think you know what it means."
I felt like I had so many things to share with you, but now I seem to be drawing a blank.......
Last Sunday we drove out to Strawn and looked around at a couple houses. We didn't go inside any, but we poked around a couple. There's a little white one just around the corner from Jason and Mandy's place that is cute and cheap, but from looking in the windows, it looks like a hobbit house. Like the one Frodo got in Buckland. The ceilings are super low and the windows almost come to the floor. It's odd. But Jason says it would be easy to raise the ceilings, so we will see where that goes. They're asking around for us, seeing what else is available. I'm not in a huge hurry to move that far from work, or to add house payments onto everything we have going on, or to give up $250/mo rent, either, but it's good to know our options. And it would be nice to live in a place that doesn't let snow come under the door, or have pipes burst once a month, and such.
Having house payments would be much less stressful if I had a regular job. I love working at party planet, and I love subbing, but it's hard not knowing how much income I'm going to bring in from month to month. However, all last week and all of next week, I was booked to sub for one Mrs. Gray, the first grade teachers' aide. Basically I spend 45 minutes a day in each of the first grade classrooms, make copies, run errands, grade papers, give tests to obnoxious kids that make fun of my shoes (I've never had 6 yr olds make fun of me before. There is a mean little group that I got stuck giving tests last week. We don't get along super well.), stuck pieces of velcro to laminated words, kick the copier, and play Super Duck with Skyler.
Skyler and I have become friends. He's in Mrs. Brooks' class. I feel bad for Mrs. Brooks. I subbed for her once, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. She definitely has a tough job. Skyler is one of her two special ed kids, and he is just the sweetest thing ever, but he needs a lot of attention, so whenever I have spare time I've been heading over to her class to try to keep him occupied. He's a smart kid. He's great at math, but has trouble focusing long enough to get any reading done. Anyway, he's been my companion, and I will be sorry to leave him next week.
But back to where I was going with this. My first job of the day as Mrs. Gray is to help with breakfast in Mrs. Underwood's room. Mrs. Underwood is a very nice lady. She's been teaching for pretty much always, and she's very thorough in her explanations of what she needs done, which is fantastic, and she decided pretty much the first day that she liked me, I guess. Like everyone does, she asked me what if I'm going to school, if I have a teaching license, and if I want to be a teacher. Like I tell everyone, I'm not sure I want the responsibility of being a teacher, but I love being in the schools, and I'm still figuring out what I want to do with myself here in Texas. And that was when she asked me what I thought about the idea of being an aide. I've said before that being an aide would probably be the best job ever, and after a week of doing it I'm even more convinced of that. Come to find out, Mrs. Gray is retiring this year, which means there will be a position opening up for an aide next year. Mrs. Underwood has been very insistent that I ought to look into it. She has told me countless times now that working as an aide would be a great way to decide if I wanted to become a teacher, that the district would help me pay for school if I was an aide, that as an aide I would get benefits, that I would just be so good at it, that I really need to talk to Mrs. Johnson (the principal), that it's just something to think about, but that she really encourages it. She is quite the salesman.
By my second day on the job Mrs. Brooks had asked me the same questions. She had some different answers, though. I told her about my former plans of developmental psychology, and she told me about one of the counselors there at East who is fantastic and would love to talk to me about going into something like that, if I wanted to. She said that her daughter always wanted to be a teacher, but after talking with that counselor has decided to go into family psychology.
"You know, she's seen me as a teacher all her life, but I keep telling her 'you are so smart, you could do anything! They will take advantage of you, they will not appreciate you, you are too smart to be a teacher.' I have forbidden her from becoming a teacher."and then in almost the same breath
"You really should be a teacher! You would be a great teacher."I've decided to just see the compliment in that...She meant it as one, I know. When I told her that I was thinking about applying for Mrs. Gray's job she started to say something about how she's "just an aide", and then she got really excited and said "Oh yeah! Come be Mrs. Gray and save my life!" It seems I have at least two teachers as my own personal cheerleaders.
Mrs. Johnson was gone for a couple days, but I managed to catch her in her office Friday as I was leaving, and asked her about the aide job, and whether it really was going to be available and all that. This is getting really long and my computer is dying, so I will wrap it up by saying that she also made a comment that she would love to "be selfish and keep [me] all to [herself]", and printed out an application for me on the spot. The position hasn't officially been posted yet, because Mrs. Gray hasn't officially retired yet, and once it is, who knows how many people will apply, but I have a feeling that I have a decent shot at it, since I already work for the district they know me, they say they want me...all that jazz. So hopefully soon (well, in September) I will have a real, full-time job, and buying a house will be much easier on my conscience. Plus, I'll get to play personal assistant to a bunch of teachers. Pretty much the best job ever.
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