Life During Wartime: When You're Mining For Coal And You Forget What Coal Is (And You're Sure To Be Fired Because That's Your Job)

I am not good at blogging when busy. Which doesn't bode well for this particular blog come work-time.

You see, in addition to attending two classes this semester and temping here and there, I have secured some bitchin' part-time work at a Head Start preschool which just happens to be down the block from where I live.

I am SO. PSYCHED.

The basic gist is this: There's a 3-year federal grant that USM is administering to 9 preschools in the Portland area. This grant is designed to provide relief to preschool teachers (6 hours per week) so that they have time to plan and prepare their curricula.
I would basically step in for those hours and act as a substitute teacher. Since there are several classrooms with several teachers in each room, this will keep me busy several afternoons a week. Did I mention how excited I am? (Did I mention I just downed a cup of exxxtra strong yerba matte?)

This is exactly the work I want to be doing right now. And both the woman who interviewed me and the head teacher of one of my classrooms mentioned that this is a great way to get a full-time job at the site! I can't believe my luck!

It comes at a particularly awesome time, too, because:

It has become clear to me that the time for unemployment has passed, and the time for employment is now.
The brand-new childcare center that I was all-but-hired at (and which I notice I haven't mentioned in quite a while) opened two days ago. Without me in it. After emphasizing how excited she was to have me on board, the director realized that she was nowhere near the 40-child enrollment she had banked on. Thus, no reason for me to be in the classroom, and definitely no reason to pay me anyway. I've been advertising the school on craigslist because I would like to work there at least part-time, but so far I've heard nothing. Thus, I am treating the opportunity as "falling-through."
In this spirit, I jumped on another employment opportunity mentioned by one of my classmates at SMCC. The center she works at needs more hands, and, well, I have hands. So I drove out there and got lost and finally found the church the center is located beneath and filled out an application (including the two free-response questions about God) and had an awkward interview with the director who appeared to have never really thought about early childhood (though she undoubtedly loves children) and, long story short, went home very conflicted about the whole thing, ultimately convincing myself that I ought to just take the job because it was experience and even if it was not a high-quality place then at least I could make it better for my kids and even if it was long hours in a basement with people I didn't connect with, well, the children don't have the option of not going there so why should I and even though it would make me late for my classes and have me commuting an hour every day, well... I was generally feeling very down and unenthusiastic about the whole thing.

So now I don't have to take that job. And I couldn't be pleaseder. I'm going in on Monday morning to observe for a while, which should be enlightening, and then starting work on Thursday. (Wednesday I'm temping at the very same insurance company I temped at last time, so you can expect maximum blogination.)

Now all I have to do is find another part-time job (at least until such time as I can wiggle my way into working full-time for this Head Start center). Easy, right?

Riiight. I'm applying to be a substitute teacher at Portland elementary schools (the largest of which is also just down the street from me.) And maybe I can swing a morning slot at the brand-new childcare center, if they ever get some more students.

In other news, I started experimenting with that rug idea I had a few days back. It was all going well until the Kool-Aid. The Kool-Aid dyeing didn't so much work as leave a huge mess everywhere and make me weary of the whole project. Modified project idea: Knit/Crochet/Otherwiseconstruct a rug out of strips of sheet and t-shirt, then dye the whole thing with RIT (inconspicuously, in the laundromat) when it's done. That seems a bit more manageable.