I haven’t talked much about my private life in this blog, and that has been to protect my family’s privacy and to keep my adult writing life separate from my children’s literature writing life. But, like for most folks, this year has been…well, a YEAR.

My husband lost his job due to the pandemic last spring and I lost my part-time temp position. I was a substitute teacher when the schools closed. There wasn’t any need for subs when all teachers were working from home. If one needed time off, they just assigned their students asynchronous, offline work.

Here’s where some lemonade comes in. A French teacher I know decided to take a leave of absence for this school year, as of the end of November, and I was hired as their substitute. So, now I have a job again, which is awesome. And it’s teaching French to high schoolers – again, awesome (okay, maybe this wouldn’t be awesome to everyone, lol).

More sweetness related to this job:

• great, supportive, helpful colleagues
• a relatively short commute
• I’ve subbed in the building before, so I’m familiar with it
• reasonable Covid precautions and high levels of compliance among the students
• if we go all remote again, I’ll still have a job

Some tartness related to this job:

• Teaching students in person and online at the same time is not as easy as it looks. The ones at home are harder to engage, rarely keep their cameras on, and rarely participate in class. It’s so much harder to get to know them and to build relationships.
• The students in the classroom are scared and subdued and they also barely participate in class discussions. They’re wearing masks (a good thing) and also hoods or hats, meaning that I only see their eyes. It’s a lot harder to build relationships with them, too, in these circumstances.

I’m counting my blessings at having a job at all, but I often come home wanting to cry.

How are you holding up? Feel free to vent below.