definitely a monday

I figured today would be the better of the two days (on the two-day job), but I was sadly mistaken.

For one, I was still quite sick, and if I had any sense at all, I would have stayed home. But I was feeling optimistic, so although I was better rested than before, I still spent most of the day sucking down cough drops, coughing, and just generally living in fear that my digestive system would plan some poorly-timed uprising.

Another problem was that the lesson plan for the second day was rather murky compared to the first. I had to improvise on several things, and I felt bad about it, but how was I supposed to know what they were supposed to be doing? I'm not psychic.

The other problem of course was the kids acted up a lot more today and I had to do way more babysitting. The first group was overly talkative, but bearable. In other words, I had to spend a lot of time on getting people to quiet back down, but at least they were civil. The next class was just obnoxious to the core. I don't know what was wrong with these guys but they were just snotty and downright mean--like all the worst kids I've ever had together in one room. I didn't feel like playing their game though--and I told them straight out I didn't care how hard they tried to get on my nerves, I wasn't going to give in to their demands for more free time and cellphone usage. After class was over, I asked a straggler if they were always that horrible, and she said that it wasn't just me, they act like that for their regular teacher too. Nice.

Fortunately, the end of the day was a breeze, it was just a free period homeroom type of deal, and I spent most of class helping a couple of students with their homework, grading some papers, playing hangman with some girls, learned some Russian phrases from some boys that came to visit from who knows where, and just generally enjoyed life with a more relaxed group of kids. Kinda made up from the group from hell...and generally the kids at this school are a lot of fun when they're not acting like jerks (something I know from being here on other occasions in the past).

So all in all it was a pretty typical day of subbing--the roller coaster ride between boredom and fun, productive and hellish with some lighthearted moments stuck in between. It's an alright way to pass the time I suppose, but the thing that makes it hard is that you never get to know the kids well enough to remember their names--and for me that's hard.