Several Paragraphs of Rant Which None of You Actually Have to Read

4-25-13
This might be TL;DR, so be warned.

I have realized that I don't really like subbing. It's not the terrible afternoon I had in a second grade classroom, or the crazy day I spent with kindergarteners. It's not even the fact that yesterday I stepped in between two fourth-graders after one of them punched the other so hard that the other kids in the class were commenting on the 'pop' it made.

I just don't like being tied to my phone and other people's schedules, I've realized. I had two half days of work, and then I spent three weeks after being fully hired waiting for phone calls and never getting a call. Three weeks, in which I developed an actual schedule and routine. Then a week of spring break, during which I knew I would not get a call, so that was fine.

So when I started getting calls two weeks ago, I was actually excited. I'd be making some money, at least. But I've only had one call the night before, but it was at 9:30 PM. I mean, seriously, now I can't go to bed earlier than that because what if they call and I miss it? I'd get more guff from Mom. The rest come an hour before I'm supposed to be at whichever school I've agreed to be at.  I've been lucky enough to usually have rather well detailed plans left behind me, and I've enjoyed working with elementary students, I suppose.

I definitely remember why I had been planning to teach high school instead of elementary school. Being a teacher all day (or half a day) drains me by the end of the day, and then when I get home I'm still expected to the chores I've picked up on doing. (I don't mind the chores, I suppose, and I plan to do that sort of thing when I've actually got children, etc., but I am not my siblings' or parents' mother and I don't think that if I've worked a full day that I should also have to make dinner and run the dishwasher and do other people's laundry. If that's selfish, so be it [at present].)

I am happier staying home and creating order there as well as working on trying to find my housing for the fall than subbing. Mom just gets upset when I get a call that I turn down, like today. If I get called tomorrow, I'll work, but I was told (by Mom) that I got to create my schedule with this job, but if I actually get to do that (like this week, I've worked two days and stayed home two days and will work tomorrow if I'm called), then why do I keep getting the feeling that I don't really have the ability to choose my schedule? I suppose my undergraduate adviser was right when she said  she didn't really see me being in an office because I was brilliant and independent enough to be my own boss.

This semester (see how recently I graduated? everything's still in semesters and summers and breaks) hasn't been what I thought it could have been, or what I wanted it to be. I wanted to earn money, but the job I was hired for basically didn't call me for a month and now I'm trying to not see it as an interruption of my life. I really don't like have been basically put back in the roles that I went to academy and then college (as well as part of why I love working at camp so much) to get out of, and I don't like not being able to be emotionally honest here. I wish Mom would actually talk to me about stuff instead of implying things or making faces or dropping hints.

 Frankly, I wanted to be in Tennessee, with my friends who feel like family and a community that I actually felt a part of. But I had no way to make money and still pretty much don't. I wanted to be where I felt like an adult and seen as an adult and treated as an adult. But I'm not, so I suppose I should just deal with it until I get to camp the first few days of June. Hopefully I'll have my fall housing worked out. I really hate the unknown, but I suppose that God can't show me great and mighty things that I didn't know (Jeremiah 33:3) unless I didn't know about them. I guess that's the lesson I'm learning by being here.