First Day of School

Every morning I take Max for his morning stroll; we'll walk around the apartment complex, occasionally venture off a couple of extra blocks, but usually he's only up for the minimum first thing in the morning. I've been a morning person for as long as I can remember, so the morning stroll works out well for me.

Today is the first day of school for a majority of school districts. Unfortunately, this put into light something that I've been dreading since May - I'm not going back to school today. One of the reasons I was able to move to New Jersey so easily (well, not easy, as it's a 12 hour drive, as the Minstrel...er...drives), is that Michigan's school districts are in a state of chaos. Well, without going into details, I was the low man on the totem pole.

Anyhoo, I'm getting fingerprinted on Thursday; after that, I'll be set up with a subbing company that works with dozens of districts, so it'll be easy for me to work every day. While I sub, I will continue the paper-work quest to transfer my certification to New Jersey. I took the Praxis exam in August, and after that, I just send in the box of paperwork to the Department of Education. All in all, pretty simple, if a bit time consuming. One of the good things about subbing for a while is that I'll be in various districts, so I'll see who has openings, where I'd like to teach, etc. Unfortunately, I will not have my own room, my own students. I'll just be filler. I'll be watching a lot of videos, handing out a lot of worksheets, and acting pretty much like a day-to-day babysitter.

And that leaves me with today. I'm not waiting in my classroom, lined with old textbooks, maps, and other things you'd expect to find in a history class, for the first batch of teenagers to come in. I don't have a syllabus ready to hand out, I don't have lesson plans ready to go. Truth be told, it makes me feel a little lost.