I will survive

Today certainly was one of the more interesting days I've had as a sub. And for once it really wasn't because of the students...

We are in the middle of some kind of winter storm, but the school district, in its infinite wisdom decided not to cancel classes despite all the ice on the roads and sidewalks. Granted I need the money, but at the same time there's no way I'm driving in this, so that means I had to take the bus...

I haven't been riding the bus as much lately. I used to be a real bus aficionado back in the days when I had my subsidized pass, but it's really not so compatible with substitute teaching. For one, I rarely know where I'm going to be going in advance, so by the time I get called, it's usually too late to even think about taking the bus... The other problem is that the commute times to some of these schools would be mind boggling-an hour and a half one way? I think not. And let's not forget that some of these schools in the suburbs are nowhere near bus lines.

So I had to plan ahead. I added an extra half-hour to the suggested commute time just to be on the safe side. I walked out extra early and stood out there in the cold howling wind, just to make sure I didn't miss the bus. I knew the buses were going to be running at 25mph so I went out 2 buses earlier than the one I needed. What I didn't count on was the driver pulling over for 15 minutes to call dispatch to decide whether or not to tackle a hillier portion of our neighborhood...

I assumed the steep road out of the transit center would be an issue so I took the train instead of the normal connecting bus, but when I got off, I discovered that the other connecting bus wasn't coming for 30 minutes. I ran into a student at the bus stop, and watched him take off down the road on foot in disgust. I decided to do the same. It's about a 10 minute walk to the school from there on a good day...and I was hampered a bit by all the ice and all the stuff I was carrying.

So I was pretty late when I arrived at the school office. Past start time. Way past contract time. I left my house at 6:15 AM and didn't arrive at the school until around 8:15. That's just sad. Fortunately, my counterpart made it there on time and there was adult supervision in the classroom. Another huge surprise was that most of the kids were there. Even the ones who usually skip school were there. You'd think for sure they'd rather be out playing in the snow with everyone else that blew off school, but no. They came to school instead. And stayed there. I couldn't believe it. Another surprise is that they handled the snow-related drama pretty well. We talked about it a bit first thing in the morning, then after that tempers cooled, and people were fine and ready to move on with a normal day at school. I was impressed actually, how well they handled the total disruption of their normal routine. I only had a couple of problems, and they were pretty minor. For the most part everyone was really on track. It went way better than I would have predicted, and I had a lot more fun and way fewer headaches than I was really expecting.

I had to do some stuff after school though, so I spent more time traveling around and being out in the cold. And I paid the price for it. My relatively mild cold blossomed into something much more menacing and severe...I'm glad I managed to get one job packed into this crazy week of weird snow/ice fronts because I think that's it. I don't feel well enough to do anything else...