Sometimes, when big boys make decisions, they have to deal with the consequences of their decisions. Last Sunday night, I made a very big decision. I spent almost $400 on a plane ticket and I reserved a week that I could potentially have worked for purely recreational purposes, all in the name of adventure. You might say that I took a gamble and that my wager was financial stability. As I tried to put it in my last blog, I prefer to think that I got my priorities in order and acted accordingly. And as I did this, I recognized that I was taking steps that I could not retrace and that I would have to face whatever life threw me as a result.
Fortunately, the god of Fun decided to step in at this point and reward my decision. Though I didn't get a subbing call on Monday morning, I did get a call from the principal of Goshen Middle School asking if I had some time to come in to talk today. The subject of our little meeting: an aide position that needed filling and whether I could and would fill it. [Thank you Fun God!]
The Back Story: About a month ago, I was still job searching and happened to be playing post-church pond hockey. When the subject of my search for employment came up, one friend (an English Language Learners (ELL) aide at the middle school) told me that one of his co-workers would be student teaching for a few months in the spring and would need someone to fill in for him temporarily starting in March. I sent in a resume right away, and emailed the appropriate assistant principal. And I didn't hear anything back.
Soon I started subbing, and it looked like I could make it on my subbing pay alone. Plus, subbing afforded flexible time off and meant I could maybe go to the Grand Canyon with my friends. I forgot all about the ELL job.
The Present, The Event and The Implications: So, today I had my conversation with the principal (don't quote me on this, but perhaps the first time I've been sent to the principal's office in my life...). She liked my resume (experience tutoring, albeit tutoring college kids), the fact the I knew Craig (my friend) already and my immediate and temporary availability. In fact, my schedule fit almost perfectly with the period of time the other aide would be absent! Except for one little hitch. I brought up the matter of the plane ticket I had just purchased and how if I went through with the trip I would miss the four days prior to Spring Break. Consequences time. [Cue god of Fun intervention!] The principal smiled and in effect said that if I could take the job, then we could probably work something out for those four days. That sure sold me. We talked a bit more about the job description, but it sounded like it was more or less a done deal, pending some paperwork and reference calls.
So what does this teach me? Funny. I typed this rhetorical question, yet I still don't have the answer after staring dumbly at the blinking cursor for several minutes. Okay, put the rhetoric aside and do some soul searching, Matthew. I guess it's satisfying to know that things worked out okay, even though I put myself out on a limb. It could have been different. I might have lived the next two months squeaking by on scant sub calls and living on nothing but the essentials. Or I might have found myself with a good job, but without the allowance for vacation. I'd like to think that I would have stuck to my bold stated principles about prioritising adventure, but I can't honestly say that I would have definitely turned down a great job offer like this...
Maybe I'll just wrap up the lesson I've learned in saying that my friend Christy would quote to me when I was being too realistic and pessimistic about life: "Do what you love and the money will come." The realist in me never liked that phrase because what happens when the money comes too late or there's a day when the money doesn't come? The uncertainty bothered me as did the presumed (by me) permission to blow off responsibility. Now I see that saying in a slightly different light, saying something more like: "Concern yourself most with doing what you love. If your primary concern is money, you will find yourself unhappy and unsatisfied, especially if you are not doing what you love. If what you love to do brings you money, then you are all the more fortunate. If it does not, then you will ultimately have to find a way to survive, but at least in surviving you will increase your capacity to do what you love. And should you perish in pursuit of doing that which you love, then at least your life will not have been wasted on anything less than what was most meaningful to you."
I know that the maxim doesn't always hold. What of the people who have to start surviving right from their birth? Where is their break? How do they even know what they love when all they know is survival?? I have no idea. But perhaps this is the topic of another post. The point I was making above is that I feel good about my priorities, and feel even better about them when life gives me the occasional lucky break.
CONGRATULATIONS! You made it this far in my already-lengthy post! Reward time: Stories! I had a first grade class full of trouble makers today. Rough day but good story fodder... [Note to future potential employers: the use of the word "fodder" in reference to school children was used for comedic purposes only and does not represent my actual views on children.]
-My first task of the day was to help take the class on a field trip to Dominoes Pizza! Yay! Fun times AND I got to make my own 8" pizza for lunch. Downside: the kids were extra wound up when we got back. Furthermore, one little girl thought she would get some attention by downing her entire pizza plus several slices from other kids and then making claims of being "sick" and attempting to throw up all over her table. Fortunately, all she could muster was a bit of regurgitated Sprite, and I called her bluff and let her lie down inside for recess. When we got back she was miraculously cured.
-These kids were baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad today. I take plenty of credit for not laying down the law enough early enough, but I think there were also just too many troublemakers for one me to take care of at once. Some fires I failed at putting out in time: a fight beginning in the hallway, a minor marker war involving both clothing and "teacher [i.e. permanent] markers," several kids pulling structural nails out of a bookshelf, plenty of writing on other kids' papers, and much much more. One teacher said at the end of the day that she hoped my experience didn't deter me from coming back. Don't worry about that. I just hope that my inexperience doesn't deter them from asking me back!
-There was so much to do today that I never got around to writing my name on the board. I got called all sorts of interesting things as a result, most of them close but not quite right. The best I found out from a secretary in the main office, later in the day. Apparently a little girl I sent down to the nurse had informed her that "Mr. Rodent" had said she could come down.
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