I Did a Thing. . .

I've been thinking about substitute teaching for a while now. With Rosie headed to kindergarten in the fall, I've been thinking about it even more. So with the new year, I started looking into how to go about becoming a substitute in our school district. Well, as I searched I found that all you needed now was a bachelors degree. No substitute license needed anymore. Then I found that my local middle and high schools use a specific platform for hiring subs, so I looked into that. It looked easy enough, so I started the application process. I figured it would take a while, right? Wrong! By Wednesday, I was hired and by that evening, requests were popping up on my phone like crazy! I couldn't believe it. Right now I only wanted to work on Fridays, so I changed my availability so I wasn't getting crazy texts all the time. I figured there would be some come in Friday morning for last minute requests. I woke up at 2:30 am, kind of freaking out. I mean what was I thinking?? I have no idea what I'm doing! I tried to sleep but I really didn't at all and after dropping kids off at seminary at 6:00, I came home with halo visions, knowing a migraine was coming. So I took some meds, ate, and lay back down for about ten minutes, then took the rest of the kids to school. I was still freaking out because of the unknown and I knew if I didn't take a job request that day I would be worrying all week until I could take another one. So then a request came in for just the afternoon. 3 hours, I could handle that, right? So I clicked "accept" before I could talk myself out of it, and then proceeded to totally stress out. I called my sister and she helped a ton! Then I called my oldest at college and she told me I'd be great. I could barely eat anything for lunch and I arrived a half hour early. When I checked in, the office told me that it was actually the teachers planning period for the next hour, so I just familiarized myself with the classroom and emergency procedures. Then the kids started coming in. I'm sure I did a lot of things wrong, but I did it! During the second period class I had, one kid said I was the best teacher ever and then proceeded to write "Mrs. Coleman is the best sub ever!" on all the white boards. (I tried to erase them at the end of the day, but you could still see it a bit.) At the end of the last period, one sweet girl came up to me and said, "You are the best sub I've ever had in my entire years of going to school." Wow! That totally made my day! (She was the sweetest and when I saw she had the book Renegades by Marissa Meyer on her desk, we had started talking books for a while. I loved her!) All is all, it went really well, though I have, of course, gone through everything in my mind and replayed how I should have done things better. I guess you live and learn. Hopefully I won't be as nervous next time!