Should I stay or should I go now?

I haven't been feeling well lately. This is mostly because I'm a sub and every single kid I meet with germs shares them with me over his or her elbow. I've been trying lately to sleep more than usual and I decided that maybe I wouldn't even work this morning, that I would just sleep. About 9 am I couldn't sleep anymore, and I got a call to sub at a school not so far from my house, half day. I accepted, and the computer that was calling me told me to check for the "written special instructions" on the website. Now, as I've mentioned before, these are usually ridiculous if not worthless, but I decided for that teacher-who-thought-herself-meticulous's sake that I would check. The written special instructions were hardly worth the effort of finding and stealing wifi.

"pre-k class"

Ugh. Did I really agree to that? (toss the beanbag!) I don't know if I've mentioned before how my preference lies with the older students. Then I remembered that at this school, pre-k gets out an hour before the rest of the school. Score.

So I grab an apple and drive over to the school. I figure it's pointless to pack a real lunch as I probably won't be having any real breaks anyhow. We spend most of the day at lunch or on the playground (it was such a nice day!) and when we're heading back in, the TA is updating me on the rest of the day. "...and then they go home, and then we have to stay [for another hour.]"

Wait.

Wait. Wait.

They made me do this my first days of subbing LAST year. Not in this district. And the pathetic thing was, ALL the students had gone home and ALL the teachers were required to stay for an additional hour. I was told by a long term sub. But what do they need *me* to stay for? I'm assuming this end-of-the-day time is reserved for meetings among the teachers, and what in the world would they need me there for? The first day I stayed, fuming. The second day I just left.

So, yea. I usually bring a book with me, but I didn't bother to grab it because I assumed there would be no downtime. I suppose I understand the staying-till-the-end-of-the-day, but the TA has a duty that I don't think I have. And seriously, I'm a sub. They hardly know my name. THERE IS NOTHING FOR ME TO DO.

SO I said "Is there anything else in here that can be cleaned, straightened, organized?"

So I said "I think I'm going to go to the library and help shelf the books"

So that's what I did...but then no one was in the library. No librarian, just one scared looking little girl. So I went to the computer lab and used the internet.

To type this blog.