My day starts with yesterday. I subbed for a high school math class and then drove up to Big Bear and back. Yes, you read that right. A friend of mine needed to go pick up her children from Big Bear but was terrified to drive up the mountain, so asked me to drive for her. We stopped for dinner in Redlands around 7, then went up the mountain to pick up her kids and come back immediately, and I was so exhausted coming back I knew there was no way I'd be able to sub with these 6:50a calls, so I figured I probably wouldn't be subbing at all. Somehow, there was an assignment for a 9:00a call time. It was 3rd grade, but that seemed negligible to the joy of starting so late.
Ohhh third grade. What a grade. Today I really put on my game face.
I had been talking to a friend about the joys of improv, and how much I loved it. I loved the spontaneity, the teamwork connection, and the challenge of having to really take seriously things that are not at all serious. When a scene escalates to the point that you are talk show hosts worrying over a Red Bull granola bar crisis, and you have to act like it's the most pressing issue of the day... or you're playing a tourist in a Rome featuring five Coliseum's and you have to pretend it's the most normal thing in the world... that's part of what I love about it. So, today I was going to pretend like I was patently concerned about their issues.
"Oh my goodness. Your paper got scribbled on while you were at lunch? I am so sorry to hear that, but thank you so much for letting me know."
It was new, and hard to do for 34 students. Still, I had a much better day because of it, they responded better. It also reminded me of the Neil Gaiman tip that he gave a friend nervous about an audition because she wasn't someone who could do this.
He said: "pretend that you are someone that is good at auditions. Then, do what they would do."
I think about that a lot, and I love it. It's gotten me through a lot of things ever since hearing it. Think about it.
Now the moment you've all been waiting for: exactly why I would probably be fired as an elementary school teacher:
We had to review proper vs common nouns. We read the common noun, then had an example of a proper noun, then needed to think of our own proper noun. For the common noun "country" we had the example "Mexico" and needed to think of another country we could list. Tons of hands shot up.
"California" was the first guess. Which was fair. That gets confusing. Then I got Texas. Well, way to think outside the box. But, no. Then, the over-eager baby-faced glasses-wearing boy falling over in his desk because he was waving his hand so hard offered the best answer. "Yucaipa."
Oh, I wanted to start laughing right then. He was so earnest, and I really wanted it to be true. If there weren't curriculum to follow, I would have taken that and run. If I were a teacher, I would have said, absolutely yes. And we would start saying the pledge of allegiance to the United State of Yucaipa. And we would create the flag, write out the national anthem and all get dual citizenship passports. But I had a lesson plan to follow.
After school, I went on my weekly Mt Rubidoux hike with my old high school sista Marisa, then got drinks downtown with an old friend of mine. She is a photographer for a few different newspapers and magazines and had recently photographed the owner and his wife for a piece on their restaurant, so they ended up comping our entire bill! Yeesh, not a bad system, thanks Mission Martini!
Tomorrow I have a job interview for a job in LA and I'm still very conflicted about the idea of going to LA or staying in Riverside! Eek. But I figure I'll just keep my options open for now. I'm not sure yet what I even think about the job, but I'm willing to interview and try to move forward and see what happens. It's hard to be drawn to the city but also feel so content in little ol' Riverside for the time being. Definitely wondering when that's going to fade. But it's been great to be so busy lately, I can't even keep up with myself. Hence these way-too-long entries that don't catch up on half of it. Welp.
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