One of the things I don’t like about subbing is cancellations, especially those of the last minute variety. That happened this morning, but here is where the drama comes in:

Waking up several minutes before my alarm clock goes off, I look at the clock and see that it’s too late to try to go back to sleep so I decide to just get up. I do my morning business and go to get the paper. I open the door. No paper. But what’s that I see? Fresh snow! So I decide to go outside and do a quick shovel job. Fortunately it was only about an inch or so. I finish, grab the paper which was by now delivered, go inside, and pour myself some breakfast. As I’m putting the milk in the cereal the phone rings.

What? The other districts should have me down as unavailable.

I look at the caller ID and it’s the district I am signed up in today. Heart falling, I answer the call expecting “this job has been canceled.” But as I listen the computer voice is offering me a position for today!

What?

I scroll through the caller ID and I see that they called about five times this morning, once while I was outside shoveling snow! Perhaps I should have had the phone in my bedroom so I could have heard it, but instead it was in the office where I left it last night. Well, no harm done- I still have a job.

So I sit down, read the paper while eating. About 10 min later the phone rings again- same district! This time it was the dreaded “your job has been canceled” notice. Understandably upset at this point I hang up before hearing it all and go to the online substitute site to see for myself. Job still shows up.

What?

I shrug, finish getting ready for work, check again and the job is still safely intact. Just about ready to walk out the door the phone rings again! This time I listen to the cancel message further, suspecting the reason why, and sure enough the system is still trying to let me know the original job has been canceled, not the new one. One would think my accepting the new job would serve as my notice that the first one was canceled, or logging into the website… Well I must say the district is nothing if not thorough.

Oh, apparently that was not the end of it. After I left I guess they called again. Maybe not so much being thorough as a bug in their system? Sigh.

How ’bout them Cubs?  Ok, it’s only been one game of spring training, but they are undefeated!  Whoo-hoo!  I am so ready for baseball season; especially with all this snow – had ANOTHER snow day today, by the way.  Which means we have 2 make-up days now in the summer, and counting, probably since I’m sure with the way the snow has been falling out of the sky that it’s not done yet…  but that’s ok, because come June, when the kids have their extra days of school, I will be at home, sitting on my very pregnant behind, watching the Chicago Cubs WIN some baseball!  GO CUBBIES!

Ok…. so last night was dress rehearsal for Murder with a Silver Spoon to be presented Saturday night at Orchard Hills Country Club in Bryan, Ohio. Let’s just say it was an interesting rehearsal. To begin, our stage was cut from a huge space which was three smaller rooms minus retractable walls to one small area. Apparently, we were sharing the club with a group who was having a banquet. The space was not the important part. While waiting in the hall for their entrances, a few actors were told by the other group to keep the noise down… seriously. This proved to be very difficult especially for one performer who is full of energy and found it hard to keep the volume down while maintaining his energetic persona. He had to be constantly reminded to tone it down so we would not disturb the other room. Following the dress rehearsal, the director jokingly commented that she had trouble hearing anyone and that the energy was lacking. It was a good thing that Wednesday night’s rehearsal was such a success.

Hubby and I watched this movie last night.  Plot inconsistencies aside – it is a horror movie after all, so we weren’t expecting much – it was actually better than I thought.  I really enjoyed how they let the main characters keep slipping away from the Hitcher, the bad guy, only to be back in danger…  but I kept wondering, ok they’re safe now, but the movie can’t be over, so how are they going to get back in The Hitcher’s clutches?  The answers to these questions are an entertaining combination of extremely stupid and horrible decision making on the part of our “heroes” and also some pretty good plot manuvers on the part of the script.  There was also a lot of police involved in this movie, which, for a horror movie, is pretty rare.  Usually once the main characters encounter the police, they are safe, but without spoiling TOO much for you, this film is different from the norm.  Like I said, it was better than I expected.  Not super-great, but I was never bored or grossed-out, both of which I can’t say during my recent viewing of Saw IV – now that was an awful movie.  I think part of it is the pregnancy, but I just couldn’t handle the gore.  It never bothered me before, but I always did find it annoying when they use lots of gore just for shock value.  Now it’s both annoying AND so gross I can’t even watch it.  And what was with the casting of Saw IV?  They chose 2 actors who look exactly alike!  Even if I was making a serious attempt to follow the plot of the fim, which I wasn’t anyway since I constantly had to divert my eyes and ears from all the gore, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the movie because of the 2 identical actors they cast who were not supposed to be the same character but looked like it!  Anyway, back to The Hitcher – I liked it better than Gone Baby Gone, but then again, it’s a totally different kind of movie.  If it weren’t for some plot unbelievabilities and some of the STUPIDEST decisions I’ve ever seen main characters make, the movie would have been better.  In review, if you like horror / suspense movies, see The Hitcher.  By the way, I’m talking about the newer version, don’t know anything about the older version, maybe I should give it a try.  If you like pointless gore fests, I still wouldn’t recommend Saw IV – I wouldn’t recommend that movie to my worst enemy.  If you want to sit through a terrible movie, try The Night Listener – at least it has Robin Williams! 

On an unrelated note, for those of you who have read my Walmart rant, during my weekly visit today, the “magic price increase of the day” was yogurt – up from $.44 per container to $.46 each.  By the way, have you noticed that computer keyboards do not have a cents sign?  If I’m mistaken, let me know, I have actually gone to use them before!

When one thinks of 8th grade, it is often associated with hormonally-challenged, impossible to control young adolescents, and indeed I have found this to be the case in several classrooms.  Add learning, or especially behavioral disabilities to the mix and… well, I’ll leave it to the imagination.  There is one school where I just refused to take any more positions last year for the older kids (7th and 8th in fact, this year just 8th so far at that school).  The school district I was in today I consider to be the best of the local districts I work in.  Besides the money spent on education from a funds-not-so-challenged village, the kids tend to be far better behaved than in other districts.  I would place the reasons at better family life.  In many areas there are low-income families which causes family struggles due to not enough money and parents who are always working and have no time for their kids and so pretty much leave the raising of the kids to the schools.  This town really doesn’t have any low-income families (it costs too much to live here!).  Of course there are other factors influencing family life and behavior, but this I think is number one.  In any event, these 8th graders were not so bad to deal with at all.  Well, the fact that I always had an assistant helped more than a little as well.  As with other special ed teacher situations in a middle school, I had many of the same students all day.  I taught two language arts classes (4-6 students in each!) and watched over two tutorial (study hall) periods.  Additionally I had two science “co-teaching” classes.  Like one time last week, one of these “co-teach” classes had two subs!  Fortunately the main teacher left the other sub clear plans.

Interestingly enough, the regular teachers for myself and the other teacher I mentioned were actually in the building, just in meetings all day.  Something that it somewhat common with special education actually.  The teachers have many meetings throughout the year, so it is only logical that some of those meetings would be in the school rather than an administration building.

One of the neat things to see was one of the science classes created electric quiz machines- the type where you use a wire to complete a circuit with a correct answer (multiple choice or true/false) and light up a bulb.  The quality and size of these quiz games greatly varied, and some were even quite creative.  One student took a shortcut and used an Operation game as a starting point, but most did theirs from scratch.  Some used one wire (true/false and multiple guess) and some used two (matching).  One boy used a motor instead of a light bulb that would shoot up a spinning helicopter-disc.  They were very interesting to try out.  Actually, the class didn’t get to try them out as other classes apparently did due to poor treatment of a substitute teacher yesterday.  Yes, I got to watch the aftermath of a bad substitute report.  Apparently they lost out on playing a review game yesterday as well as not getting to try each other’s quiz games.  Hey, just because it’s a good town doesn’t mean the kids are always good.  I guess maybe I just lucked out today, but what I said about this district generally holds true.

Any family who sees themselves as dysfunctional needs to watch the movie Little Miss Sunshine. The Hoover clan gives new definition to the term. At the head of the household, we have the motivational speaker (played by Greg Kinnear) who is himself a total loser. The frazzled, chain smoking mother (Toni Collette) whose idea of a home-cooked meal is a bucket of fast food chicken…. cleverly disguised as NOT KFC. The clinically depressed, suicidal uncle (the brilliant Steve Carell) who lost the title of #1 Proust student to the new lover of his ex-boyfriend. The rebellious, teenage, Nietszche follower who has taken a vow of silence (Paul Dano). FINALLY, we have the fun-loving, expletive shouting, drug addicted grandfather (Alan Arkin). They all pile into the family VW van in order to take little Olive (Abigail Breslin) from Albuquerque to Redondo Beach to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty contest.

While on this road trip, the Hoover’s learn some valuable lessons. You should never apologize for yourselves no matter how dysfunctional you are. Little girls who eat ice cream may or may not get fat. AND (strangest of all) pornography can be viewed as a sign from God; or at least be useful when pulled over by the police.

While the film contains a magnificent ensemble cast, one character in the movie deserves extra credit. The poor van that almost seemed to have a personality all its own. It should have been given a screen credit. Its broken horn gave voice to the pain it must have been feeling as it continued on the long journey with a bunch of kooks. Not since THE ORIGINAL Herbie the Love Bug has a Volkswagen been as memorable a character as any human.

Well, I really have to get to bed as I will be working at a middle school tomorrow and they start over an hour earlier than their elementary counterparts.  8th grade special ed- so I am sure to have something to write tomorrow.  As for today, I was in a multiage room, 4th and 5th grades specifically.  This is the second time I have subbed for this class and there is one thing a bit unusual.  There are not one, not two, but three students in that class who are really big for their age.  They are fifth-graders, but they look like they would physically fit right in in seventh grade.  So were they held back a year?  Well, that was what I was wondering, but nope!  The teacher just happened to have a list with their birthdays (well one wasn’t on the list- she must have transferred in after the start of the year) and the two boys at least are the right age for fifth grade.  Now of course I have encountered the occasional large or small student for their age, but three in one room is just pushing the odds.  I would have to check if they live near power lines or some such situation affecting their growth.  They drink the same water as I do so I know that isn’t the reason…

On another note, the classroom is in a new section of the school and so is one of the few rooms that are air conditioned (no big deal this time of year of course) though the district has finally approved air conditioning for all the schools now starting next year.  The classroom was also quite large and had a widescreen LCD TV.  Nice.  Of course the LCD TV is wasted on them as they have the DVD player/VCR connected only through ordinary video- someone give them some component cables, please!

The last abnormal thing for this class I was in was they have a special foreign-language program there- they were learning Japanese!  This made for an easy morning for me since before Japanese they had music and gym.  I even learned how to write my name in Japanese (Katakana I believe it was called).  Pretty neat.

You think you know where I’m going with this, but it’s actually not a complaint.  A lot of places have their own smell.  I’ve driven through towns in Georgia that smell like peaches.  Gary, Indiana smells like what I can only descibe as “burning rubber french fries” – a term I invented as a kid, and I haven’t been able to think of a suitable replacement description that doesn’t involve a 4-letter word.  A place in Idaho I visited one time smelled like mint – there was a mint field nearby…

In the town where I live, we have a number of factories.  You might think because of this, our noses would meet the same fate every morning as the poor residents of Gary Indiana, but fortunately for us, one of our largest factories manufactures CANDY!  So, our town literally smells like candy almost every day.  Chocolate some days, unidentified sweetness on the others…  it is wonderful and really puts a spring in your step!  Ahh, now there’s a post that’s short and sweet! 😉

From time to time, I will be talking about what it’s like to live in various places throughout the midwest because I have a lot of experience in that area.  We’ve lived in central Illinois, northern Illinois, and various suburbs of Chicago.  We also lived in Lincoln, Nebraska and rural Ohio.  Of all these, I love rural Ohio the best!  But it is really interesting how different things like dialect and attitudes can vary from place to place, even places that are only hundreds of miles apart and in virtually the same climate.  One thing I’m still getting used to in rural Ohio is their attitude about weather.  I spent my childhood in Illinois, specifically the suburbs of Chicago, so I am used to the attitude of snow days being a rarity.  I wonder what the average is there, but I would guess it’s one per season or even less – they will not cancel school unless the schools are buried.  There was one time when my mom’s car was snowed in, she couldn’t get it out of the driveway, and so she wanted to take the school bus with me to school – she worked at the same school I attended.  So I did what any mature 12-year-old would do – I cried.  Foolish, maybe yes, but I figured I had suffered enough with her working at my school – why should I have to face the humiliation and ridicule of her riding my bus?  It had nothing to do with how cool I thought I was; it was more about how MEAN kids can be…  I was so afraid of what the kids would say or do once they found out my mom was riding the bus!  So anyway, lucky for me, she got her car out, and I was saved.  But my point is, her car was stuck in the snow, yet they hadn’t cancelled school.  Here in Ohio things are MUCH different.  We are on our 6th snow day already this season!  And I’ve lost count of how many 2 hour delays we’ve had – which luckily (for them, not me) the kids don’t have to make up.  Coming from Chicagoland, I had never even heard of a 2 hour delay before we moved here – they don’t exist there.  But in Ohio – they are quite common, most of the time because of fog – FOG!  We actually have fog days!  School has been CANCELLED because of fog…  it was really hard for me to get used to at first…  you’d think we live in a swamp or something!  Oh, wait, – that’s just it…  this area used to be the Great Black Swamp before it was turned into farmland a few hundred years ago.  So I guess that explains it…  but I would be willing to bet that if Illinois had a fog problem, they still wouldn’t cancel school.  I don’t know anything about Nebraska’s attitudes about weather and school since we didn’t have a school-aged child while we lived there.  I don’t really have an opinion about who is right or who is wrong – it’s not that Ohio devalues education or anything like that…  they are just over-sensitive about childrens’ safety when it comes to weather (is there such a thing?), and the school days and curriculum are made up in the end so they’re not behind.  I’m just enjoying my role as an amused spectator observing the differences in weather attitude between different regions.

Returning to the genre of superhero franchise movies, one of the most successful series of movies in the last decade has been the three Spider-Man films. I believe that what has made these films so special is that they each retain the same core cast: Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane Watson), and James Franco (Harry Osborne). Plus, Sam Raimi has been the director of each of the movies. So many times a franchise fails because it goes through multiple directors. The four main people involved in these films have each stated that if any of the others were to leave then they would also. I do not think a good Spider-Man movie could be made if any of them were to step aside.

Each of the films develops the three characters in new ways, primarily the main character. The original film shows how Peter becomes the webslinger and begins to accept the sage advice of his Uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Spider-Man 2 finds the hero attempting to find a balance between his life behind the mask and that of Peter Parker. Spider-Man 3 takes Peter on a journey of his dark side and forces him to see how far his power can take him.

So many times action/adventure movies are just that: action, adventure but no character. With a director such as Sam Raimi who really cares about the characters he is putting on film, the three Spider-Man films thrived. Not only do audiences thrill to the escapades of “your friendly neighborhood superhero” but they also see into the life of Peter Parker and the characters around him.