Subbing is going well. Unfortunately, I've mostly been getting half day jobs lately. There have been a lot of meetings and testing going on so teachers have needed a lot of half day help. At least it is getting me in schools. Most of my jobs have been in Birmingham which is one of the richer areas in Oakland County. It pays best, second to Farmington, but Farmington is almost an hour drive on major rush hour highways so the time/gas put into getting there and back would probably just use that extra pay anyway. Although, Oakland county itself is known for being the area least touched by the economy issues in Michigan. The worst thing about subbing so far has been having jobs cancelled last second. I worked with a class I loved for a nice teacher on Wednesday. She was in the building doing testing and going to meetings. She said she needed a sub for Thursday because she wasn't going to get the testing done. I told her I couldn't because I already had a job at another school. So she found someone else. When I got home, I had an email saying my job for Thursday was no longer needed. GRRRR. Oh well.

Friday, I had a full day position with my most difficult class thus far. Mind you, they weren't bad. It was a Friday before Halloween weekend, they were a class of 1st graders and they had a sub. They were described as a "chatty" group and that was an understatement for a sub. "Chatty" with their regular teacher means "nonstop talking" for a sub. They did participate in lessons and every lesson was completed in less time than the teacher thought it would be. They worked really well for me, even the two kids that I was warned tend to refuse to work. But I felt bad for the connecting classrooms, because although the kids were more than willing to listen to instruction and do their work, the one thing they were not willing to do was whisper/not talk during independent work.

The "Jobulator" app has actually been really helpful in finding jobs. It is a desktop application that connects to PESG's subfinder website. It refreshes ever minute and dings when a new job has been posted. They are working on a mobile app that should be out sometime the school year. All of my jobs have been found online instead of with early morning phone calls. This seems to be the way PESG prefers it to be done too. They post all the jobs online first (even in the morning) and if no one takes the job, they start calling. Usually jobs are taken within a few minutes. They are gone within seconds the night before/the morning of the job though. There are a lot of subs out there right now. Last night I grabbed a full day LRC Para job at Bingham Farms for next week. That will be my 3rd job at that school and all of the positions in the special ed areas. I really enjoyed my last sub job in the ASD room and look forward to being there again on Wednesday.

Friday,Ryan, Scott and I went to a Halloween party thrown by the Young Professionals group at Chrysler. It was in a private room at a bar in Royal Oak. More people came than were expected. It was a great turn out. Unfortunately that made it crowded and hot but it was still a good time. Ryan took a lot of pictures and we noticed they would make a good flip movie.



On our way home, we hit a man hole. Michigan is absolutely horrible at road repair. Not only are the roads torn up every year by the ice and ice removal, but it takes them the entire year to fix the roads. That is only if they fix them at all. They recently ripped up Adams Rd (the main one near our house) to do resurfacing. It is much needed. However, they did not mark the drops/holes/bumps or the man holes that are at least 6in off the ground now. So driving home at 11pm in the dark, Ryan notices one that is not marked and tried to swerve around it. We straddled it with our front 2 tires but it caught the edge of the right rear tired and sliced right through it. So Ryan called the city at 12am and reported it. Then we had to buy a new tire yesterday ($100 down the drain). The roads and drivers around here are just horrible.


I can't believe we'll be back in MO in 3 weeks!