A Day or Two in the Life of a Substitute Gym Teacher....

1) Get to a school (the first day) and find out that you'll be teaching gym not in a gymnasium ('cuz that'd be silly, right?!), but practically in the main front hallway area of the school.... without any gym equipment whatsoever.... having endless variations of "Tag" in the back of your mind can be a lifesaver.... Freeze Tag, What Time is it, Mr. Wolf?, T.V. Tag, Toilet Tag (not as gross as it sounds), 4 Corners, Olly Olly Octopus, etc., etc., etc.

2) Get to the school (the second day) and find out that once again, you do not have a gymnasium to teach in..... Remembrance Day assembly, this time. Have to go play Heads-Up 7-Up in a classroom for 20 minutes....

3) Spend a combined total of a 1/2 hour wandering aimlesslessly around the playground during recesses breaking up fights over bouncy balls and whether it is fair to take the swing of someone who jumped off mid-swing just for fun and plans to get right back on.

4) Decide that "You know it's a good day when.... you ony get told to 'Leave me the F&*% alone' by a 9 year old, ONE time in a day."

5) Spend approximately an hour blowing up basketballs, volleyballs, and soccer balls only to discover that 1/3 of them are so old and leaky that they are flat 10 minutes later.

6) Befriend the secretary and the custodian.... they'll be some of your most useful alliances should you ever get a job there.

7) Discover that playing a combined total of 6 hours of Dodgeball makes you more sore than you could have ever possibly imagined....

8) Realize that, because subbing is on a fluctuating, as-needed basis, you still have to work your second job for several hours each evening and weekend, even after long days of teaching.

And somehow, despite all of these things.... and probably even because of them.... I continue to love the job.