Paying off my student loans, one sub job at a time

Today I was in a 6th grade Language Arts class. The students were taking a quiz, so it wasn't a really hard day. But sometimes it's the little things that make me feel exhausted at the end of the day. It probably didn't help that it's a Friday and that the students have a long weekend, but sometimes I just wanted to look them in the eye and tell them to "grow up". Just a thought.

For example, I had one student come in late to class. I had just handed her the quiz and she looks at me and tells me that I have "puffy hair." Puffy hair?! Seriously?! I'll admit that I didn't have a great hair day today. Part of that is due to the fact that I accidentally bought two bottles of shampoo and didn't have any conditioner...so I'll give her that. But why would you say that to a person, especially a person you didn't know?

I had one table of students who had a fit of the giggles. I asked them to stop. They didn't. I reminded them they had a quiz that they needed to focus on, and also that they were disrupting the concentration of their classmates. Didn't matter. So I split them up. This of course set off a whole litany of complaints and didn't solve the giggling problem. Meanwhile, the rest of their class is sitting around glaring at them or awkwardly trying to ignore them. If it was my own classroom I would have taken their quizzes from them and given them an incomplete grade on their work. I would also have put them in the hallway...but it's hard to do that kind of stuff as a sub.

So like I said, it wasn't a terrible sub job, but is there really such a thing as a good sub job? At any rate, I don't generally like to sub. But, for the time being, it is what is helping me pay off my student loans.

Nannying is generally more fun for me, but still isn't what I want to be doing long term. Which leads me back to the same place that I find myself every couple of weeks. Do I want to hold out and hope to find a teaching job next year? Or, do I want to start looking for something in a completely different direction? But if I decide to do that, where do I start looking. I joke about being a dog walker, but I'm only partly joking.

My motivation is lacking and my sense of direction is disappearing. Hopefully, I'll find some motivation soon.