I think I'm okay now. As opposed to when I was feeling really depressed.
I finally got a job at the school my mom teaches at, I'm "teaching" in an elementary school ESE (Special Ed) class, and as far as i know i'll be there until the end of the year. I put the "teaching" part in quotes, because I am actually teaching, but technically I'm still a substitute teacher, because my teaching certificate expired last year and I can't get it renewed until next school year. So until then I get paid as a substitute (which is still four dollars an hour more than I got paid at Disney), but I really am the teacher, making lesson plans, doing the paperwork for the kids (there is an abundance of paperwork to do for each individual child classified as ESE).

The kids are EMH (educable mentally handicapped), which means their IQs are somewhere between 50-65, or somewhere around there. They're mentally handicapped, but they can be taught... as opposed to the TMH kids (trainable mentally handicapped) which can only be trained life skills and PMH (profoundly mentally handicapped) which can't be taught much ....

They're all in either first or second grade, but academically and emotionally and mentally on about a kindergarten level. Let me tell you, I'll take these kids over "normal" 8th graders any day... you can get a general overview of the kids I used to teach here. Twenty to thirty kids in each class (150 total), five classes a day, a headache and a sore throat every afternoon. There are eight in this class, and they are absolutely the most adorable things you've ever seen. Snotty noses all over the place (one with Down's Syndrome who likes to blow bubbles out her nose), attention spans of fleas, don't know a rectangle from a triangle or how to color in the lines, some you don't understand unless they repeat what they're saying three times, some don't have any speech at all and just grunt and point or wave their arms around. But I've only been there a week and already they love me, want to hug me and hold my hand and I have to wipe their snotty noses so they don't wipe it on me, and if the principal wants me to stay the rest of the year (and she's already pretty much said she does), then I'm there.

And of course, getting a paycheck (after two months of not getting one) is nice.

last - next

I can't believe - 11.22.2006
life sucks - 11.19.2006
alone and unhappy - 11.14.2006
please don't let it end - 10.15.2006
nothing to wear - 08.28.2006

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