Working 9 to...6?

It has been quite a week! If you don't have me on Facebook then you may not know that I now officially have a job! I am working at a Pre-K through 8th grade private school in the Sugar Land area. I actually had my first day last Friday but it was a lot of paper work and shadowing so now I can say that I have survived my first full week on the job!

Reppin' our Fighting Dolphins!

When I was hired, I was told my job description would be Substitute/Extended Care Programmer, and that is what I did on Monday and Tuesday. I was a substitute in a kindergarten classroom during the day and then during dismissal I would have to prep for working in the extended day program that went all the way until 6:30pm! Yes, they were very long days, but I enjoyed every minute. I will not lie, I wasn't super ecstatic about being a substitute again. HOWEVER, I was happy with it because I was an employee to this one school rather than an entire district. Therefore, no matter what I would be coming back to the same school and the same students every day.

On Tuesday night during ECP (Extended Care Program), the Student Activities Coordinator-my boss-called me out into the hallway and offered me a job helping the IT Specialist edit the morning news broadcast and assist with her broadcast journalism students. She came off a little hesitant and told me that I was allowed to say no, but it would be consistent full time hours instead of depending on teachers needing substitutes during the day. Considering the substitute aspect was the only thing about this job that left me slightly unsettled, I immediately said yes! Now, my days consist of aiding the IT Specialist with the DNN (Dolphin news Network) broadcast videos by day and working the Extended Care Program by night. And I love it.

I love my job.

I haven't been able to say that in a few months. Honestly, I got seriously burned out from substituting during the last few months of the school year. I loved my long term substitute job and I never really recovered from it. I was with the same kids every day as basically their teacher for two months. I built relationships with them, the faculty, and the parents just like any full time teacher would. It was harder than I thought to go back to the day to day substituting after that. I learned that job consistency was something that was very important to me. And now I have that.

I am excited for another week of work. I am consistently with the 3rd/4th grade group in the ECP and I am starting to plan some fun activities for them. My husband also gave me the idea of coming up with themes for each day of the week. I already have the obvious Fun Friday because we don't have to have our usual homework time so I just show fun movies and give them coloring pages to go along with the movies. I'm still trying to figure out the other days though.

I work from around 9am to around 6:30pm every day. Not getting home until 7pm is still something I am trying to adjust to. I'm used to being in bed by 8pm! I am so excited to be working with kids though. I have already been asked things like "Do you live with your parents?" (I didn't have the heart to say "yes" haha), "Can you floss?", and "What is your favorite type of fly?" and I wouldn't have it any other way.