2005-09-13 - 8:50 p.m.
So today was rather odd. Last night I was called to sub at a place WAY on the West Side known as Valencia MS, which is nowhere near Valencia Road in location. When I got there, I noticed something: It seemed rather peaceful. "This is merely a ruse," I thought to myself. No middle school could be this orderly, except for when I went to my own middle school, but those days are gone.
I checked in and the office staff was rather cheerful, as if they were happy to be there, and they kept telling me that all the staff were helpful and that the kids were, for the most part, respectful. "Ha!" I thought to myself. This is a school about two or three miles down the road from Pistor. Middle school kids? Respectful to a sub? We shall see.
Well, I was eventually proven wrong. Plus, they were eighth graders, so they were marginally more mature than seventh graders, but not by much. They were still kids. However, aside from the restlessness of the last period and the anticipation of the class before lunch, the kids were respectful and on task. I don't think I had to raise my voice once today.
"I have entered the Twilight Zone," I thought to myself throughout the day. And if that wasn't enough, I was looking through the lesson plans earlier in the morning and noticed that there was some vital information concerning a student with diabetes. It had his schedule, contact information, and what to do in case he went into a diabetic coma. He was in my third period, and so I decided to see what other kinds of classes he had.
Art, Language arts, English, History, Math, Science... standard stuff. I almost disregarded it until I recognized a name of one of his teachers. I shrugged it off, then I looked again. There it was, in plain Arial script: "P----r, Moira."
I took a step back and let myself recalibrate my mindset. Was it the same girl? It had to be! I don't know very many girls who have the name "Moira," much less a match to the same Moira that I knew. So this was the fate of one of my old fellow preceptors. It seems so long ago that I've seen her, or even thought about her, that it kinda hit me like a punch in the dark. I always knew that she was going to be a teacher, an art teacher no less, but I thought she would go on to better things up in Phoenix. At the very least I thought she would be married and would have had her maiden name changed.
I debated popping into her class for a brief moment just to say hello. I thought about seeing if she looked the same. I even planned out a time when I could "accidentally" run into her. I thought about a lot of things in a short period of time. In the end I came to this conclusion: Unless I couldn't help it, it is probably better that I didn't see her.
Yeah, call me a spineless chicken, but I had other things to worry about, like setting up for my own class and making sure my own class went well. Besides, if we were meant to run into each other, it would have happened during a passing period or during lunch. Regardless, it's nice to know that she's doing well with her life. Still, I'm a little envious that she has a contract and I don't.
Wow! You never know what's gonna happen from day to day as a substitute.
