Improvements and changes at Sertoma

I made a trip up to Sertoma for the weekend to work on some summer planning, while I was there I drove around (it was raining, so I didn't walk) and took some shots of some of the new things going on.

The Flying Squirrel, ready for lift-off, and now has a mulched landing

The Giant Swing, still giant, also mulched in

A view of the new low-ropes area, currently in development and going to be ready for the summer

Here's another view, that's a bridge across the stream right in front of you

Where the old low-ropes course used to be, now has a maintenance shed!

High ropes course, still high, bordered in with 8x8's and ready to be mulched the same way the giant swing and flying squirrel are

The road to the horse pasture, now graded and less treacherous-looking

Path to chapel, looks much nicer now with the 8x8's and the rocks, the parking area in front of the classrooms has also been "rocked out," this should help keep mud from getting tracked in when it rains

New windows in the rec hall! Soon they will be made soccer ball-proof

Windows from the outside

Improvements being made to the pool

New chairs for the conference room! Well, not brand-new, but they're new to us, and definitely an upgrade to what we had before.

What I learned this semester

After spending two years away from the world of academia I made my much anticipated return to college life at a new University in a new state. It's been an interesting semester, so in order to celebrate it's ending (finally), I'm going to jot down a few things I learned since August.

• I don't miss Utah's embarrassingly ridiculous liquor laws

• You can try to take the South out of the University, but you can't take the University out of the South

• Refereeing a flag football game is more difficult than most people would think

• Frat games are definitely the worst to officiate.

• Cutco knives are very sharp. I almost lost the tip of a finger to one

• Kneffel is filling
  

• Deep-fried pecan pie is delicious.

• A deep-fried Snickers bar isn't worth the money.

• Clark Dining Hall is the red-headed stepchild of the NCSU dining halls.

• The NCSU Volleyball team would cut off their nose to spite their face.
  

• Wood Hall is the red-headed stepchild of the NCSU Residence Halls. On the edge of campus, no convenient bus routes to North Campus, basically an afterthought.

• Getting drunk at 10 a.m. isn't as much fun as it sounds
  

Why I’m in My Current Job

I may not know what I want to do with my life, but I know what I don't want to do with my life, and that's spending every day in the same office, shuffling the same papers, putting up with the same stupid boss, and trying to appease the same asshole customer every day for forty years. I tried doing it for six months. I was good at my job, I was efficient at it, but my soul was dying inside.

Between that and finding out what I want to do next I have right now what may be the perfect part-time job for my situation. I have no boss, I don't have to "work the phones", if I don't want to work one day then I don't, I spend most of my days reading magazines and books, I work with students, and every once in a while I get to try and teach them something. I'm a substitute teacher, and it beats the hell out of being a receptionist, working at an ice cream place or a video rental place. It gives me something different every day I work, and it's very flexible.

The application process is a pain in the ass, you have to take a physical, fill out eight-thousand forms and get three hundred letters of recommendation, but it was all definitely worth the time spent. I'm not completely sure I want to be a teacher after I finish school, but in the mean time I'm really liking this job.

Staying awake in class

This week I'm taking a substitute teaching course at Wake Tech. Not because I want to learn how to be a substitute teacher (Put your face close to the mirror, does it fog up? The job is yours!), but rather because if I finish this class I'll get paid an additional $9 for every day I work as a "Guest Teacher." That's more than a $1/hour raise, sweet.

It's hard to stay awake, but it's been interesting sitting in a room for five hours a day, surrounded by a bunch of ladies older than my mom. And the instructor is a loon. She knows everything, and you are stupid. I do a good job keeping my mouth shut, as much as I want to argue it would be more productive to waive around a pistol in a European airport.

Anyhoo, these are the thoughts I have during the class, along with some slightly humorous anecdotes from the instructor:

• "...There's no incorrect way to answer this, just raise your hand if you think this woman should get her home life fixed before she gets her job priorities straight... (this is her stopping to count hands)... the four of you that raised your hands are wrong!"


• When counting the cities/states you have visited, I vote that it shouldn't count if you never actually left the airport. A layover in an airport terminal doesn't count as a tourist outing. I've been to the Minneapolis airport twice, but I don't count Minnesota as a place I've been because well, I never left the terminal, and an airport terminal is rarely an accurate representation of the city outside.


• I could never be an idealist, I'd get frustrated all the time. Lots of things sound brilliant in theory, then real life happens.


• "You will get forty-five minutes to teach as a group individually" -that's verbatim from the instructor, I'm still trying to figure out what the hell it means.


• I have so many great writing ideas when it's late and I'm exhausted, but during the day when I'm energized I have a hell of a time getting those ideas to fruition.


• It's sort of comical to see a well-dressed late-thirty-something Italian woman sitting next to a mullet-clad woman named Pennypacker from West Virginia that uses ridiculous amounts of light blue eye shadow and a black t-shirt with a unicorn on the front. What an awkward juxtaposition.


• It's downright hilarious to listen to a Backwoods North Carolina woman with a twangy southern accent and an Englishwoman from Chelsea argue about society's demands on today's woman at home and at the workplace. Talk about accents on opposite sides of the English-speaking spectrum.


• I hate it when I'm getting to know someone (not romantically, just in general) and I fall into one of my rambling spells where I carry on about any random thing that comes across my mind. I think it makes me come across as a complete nerd, which is accurate, I just don't want it to become so blatantly obvious right away.


• You know what's kind of gross? Eating your pre-lunch snack in the men's room. It's a fairly clean restroom, but please don't talk with your mouth full while I'm washing my hands. I hope you don't get hepatitis.
  

A Tip for Herding Cats...

Okay, so this isn't really about herding cats, but that's what substitute teaching feels like sometimes. Still, here's some advice for people that don't have a lot of experience with large groups of teenagers. If you do have experience with large groups of teenagers and/or substituting, hopefully you'll laugh because it's so true.

When you're a sub, the simplest way to know if a group of students are up to no good is if they're looking at you. It sounds ridiculous, but most middle and high schoolers will never make eye contact with you unless you're talking with them one-on-one. However, if they're breaking the rules they will look right at you to see if you're looking. I don't think they are aware that they do this, but it sticks out like a sore thumb when, out of a class of 28 students that are doing their own thing, a group of three suddenly stop talking and look up at you. It gives them away every time. Even if the culprit (and it's almost always a boy) is smart enough to look away, those around him aren't, and they always go silent which is conspicuous when they're the loudest group in the room. So the next time you see a group of students stop what they're doing and give you the 'deer in headlights' look, stay alert, something is going down.