So the joke still hasnt gotten old for me. It goes something like this:

Someone Rachel hasn’t seen in a while: “hey! hows the job hunt going?”
Rachel: “oh yeah i got a job! I’m going to be a teacher!!”
Someone: “oh really? Cool! So…did you go to school for that?”
Rachel: “haha no. I’m going to teach at a private Christian school….”
Someone: “youre going to…wait what? have they met you before? I mean…isn’t your personality…um…a little “big” for teaching at a private Christian school?”
Rachel: “…I’m going to teach Latin, Spanish and Drama! So awesome. For a Junior High. Such a cute age.”
Someone: “How much Latin do you know?”
Rachel: “None. I know absolutely no Latin! Isn’t that funny??”
Someone: “Wait, Junior high? That’s like the worst age ever!”
Rachel: “I know, right? So awkward. I’m so excited.”

Haha. It never gets old. I’m going to have my kids act this out with sock puppets for my Drama class. Watch for it on YouTube.

I mean yeah, to be honest, a lot of this doesn’t add up to a whole lot of sense, or what I’m sure 99.99 percent of you ever thought I’d be doing. I never thought I’d be doing something like this either. But it turns out, especially in an economic recession, you can’t pay for groceries in smiles and clean jokes. Believe me, I’ve tried! And no one is hiring Professional Party Starters. Or Professional Sleeper Inners. And one can only wait on so many tables before one loses her ever-loving mind.

The other disappointing factor is that I know I promised myself I would only accept a job that allowed me to be dressed in sweats 24 hours a day. And I’m going to have to break that promise. Private Christian Academy definitely has something of a dresscode…and all of my shorts are about a foot too close to my girl parts, and my tank tops reveal way too much bosom. So a wardrobe makeover is in order. Its my own personal weekly “What Not to Wear,” with the teacher discount at Old Navy and frequent trips to Target on my good-natured mother’s credit card. It is a little bit of a bummer to knowI have to start wearing real shirts with sleeves, but on the bright side, I’ll have a better excuse to not shave my crazy armpits.

So yeah, teaching without a credential, subjects I totally don’t know! LANGUAGES OF THE ANCIENTS I totally don’t know. So, like I said, its funny. I mean, I went to Latin Boot Camp in June. I learned some stuff, I know, but I have forgotten almost all of it. But I’m not too worried. I keep reminding myself that no middle school student in their right mind is going to complain if we spend most of our time playing “Heads up 7up” or helping Miss Weight find the funniest YouTube videos or making holiday decorations. I mean, if we have a cupcake eating contest and I announce the winner in Latin, I’m pretty sure that counts as a legitimate lesson plan, right?!

My main focus right now is making sure my room looks AWESOME. Lesson plans, a yearlong curriculum map, sniffing my new Mr. Sketch markers, all this can wait. But I want to make sure my bulletin boards just blow those 11-13 year old minds aWAY with all the knowledge presented in pictures of me standing in front of buildings somewhat related to our subject matter. And some sweet costumes and props I dug out of my garage for Drama class. The staff waited until this week to confess that my room was actually designed to be the storage closet for the school. Which explains why its half the size of everyone else’s room. But I like to remind myself that this means I have half the space to clean, and that we’ll all be nice and warm during those notoriously cold California winters.

To make the room beautiful, I have enlisted the help of Avery and Drew, who I hypnotized into cutting thousands of pieces of paper this afternoon, and mostly my aunt Carol, who taught junior high for several years, has since entered the world of Parenthood. She’s all amped on helping me decide how to color code my weekly planner and debating the importance of many different sizes of Post-it Notes. She’s also doing a very good job of keeping me supplied with Slurpees, Starbucks espresso drinks, and chocolate. I bribe myself with peppermint patties to get through each stack of paperwork.

Ive learned lots of other cool teacher secrets, like how to laminate! (seriously, this act of awesome deserves its own blog post. Look for it in coming weeks. When I finished my first poster on my own, I almost fainted from happiness of accomplishment. So warm and and shiny and crisp and amazing.) and techniques for using overhead projectors without ending up with ink all down your forearm, writing on dry erase boards without that annoying upward slant, and most importantly, capturing and recapturing the minuscule attention spans of junior high students upwards of fifty times in one fifty-three minute class period.

My name, “Miss Weight” is on a plaque outside my room, and the first real day of school is next week, so, I guess its too late to back out now. And although I’m scared out of my mind, I think I’m just going to go for it. I figure its like being an informational stand up comic. And Lord knows I love a joke. So here’s to the new school year! wooooweee!!