A Beautiful Rainy Day

Today was a beautiful day, even though it was rainy and I had to get up early. I agreed to sub for Olivia, my brother's girlfriend who teaches at Madison Central. Since it decided to not snow this time, I actually got to sub for her today. I was a bit nervous when I woke up since it was only my second sub job, the first time I've taught in a high school since Thanksgiving, and Madison Central is huge. My first sub job was at a middle school and I was utterly bored since the student teacher did everything. Today was totally different without being overwhelming. Olivia was still in the building; she just had to run the sound in the auditorium all day for an event. She met me at the front office and showed me around the building. Since she's the assistant choir director, she has classes in a couple different classrooms. It was fun to be in front of a classroom again even if I couldn't do direct instruction since I don't know music theory well enough. Some of the students were friendly, even. I especially appreciated that Madison Central has thirty minutes set aside each day for what they call Silent Sustained Reading. In theory it's a great idea to encourage students to read. If I were a teacher, I would use that time to read to my class, but since it wasn't my class I had to follow the protocol of letting the students read a book or their phone as long as they were quiet. It really saddens me that most of the students chose to browse the internet on their phones rather than read. I wonder what our society is coming to when students just don't love reading because they are so attached to their phones and devices. But that's a rant for another day. I just take solace in the fact that one student read a real book out of the 15 in the class.

After school I visited Four Sister's Tea Emporium and Soap Shop. It smelled wonderful when I walked in. I liked that it wasn't crowded in there like coffee shops generally are. Kudos to Martha S. for the recommendation. I was going to go back to Purdy's but I have a feeling that it was crawling with high schoolers at that hour since I know I heard a group from Central talking about going there after school. This little shop and tea room was perfect to have some tea and read. I enjoyed a chai tea latte made with real chai tea instead of that nasty powdered stuff that coffee shops tend to serve. Maybe it's the tea snob in me but I appreciated that they had at least 30 varieties of tea without any coffee selection. I have nothing against coffee drinkers, but I always feel a bit jipped when I go to a coffee shop with friends and have no choice for tea or am only offered a store bought tea bag and water for the price of an entire box of tea bags at the store. (I will give Purdy's that. They do have a small selection of loose leaf tea, but I didn't appreciate that my tea was room temperature when I got it there.) I was alone but it was a pleasant experience. I imagine it would be more pleasant with friends. Also a plus was that the tea is all organic and fair-trade. I know those are words thrown around to attract people these days, but it still sounds nice whether it's true or not.

Now I'm going to curl up with a book and maybe a movie for the night. (I heard recently that your health improves if you can read for at least 30 minutes a day without any technology distractions. Who knows if it's true but I like the theory!)