Happy Half Days and Sliding Seagulls

Always look on the bright side of life?

Yep, that's me. I see the world through rosy glasses, my cup is half full - I am an optimist. But lately, things have been up, and they have been down. You see, I am one of the fortunate ones to have been recently hired to the Halton District School Board in Ontario as a day-to-day Supply Teacher. Although heavily despised by the existing lot Supply teachers, I was one of 240 hired to the Board, out of 2700 applicants. The pool of teachers is now quite large - many teachers are squabbling over a few jobs However, I have been quite successful in acquiring teaching jobs. I have made a few contacts in different schools and have only had a few non-teaching days.

Nonetheless, a lot of the teaching days I have had are half days. This means that the regular classroom teacher may have designated planning time, a meeting, a conference to attend, and are entitled to the morning or afternoon off only.

I see lots of positives and negatives in working this way.

Negative
I get half pay.

Positive
I get to sleep in.
Or, I get to beat the traffic on the way home.

When I work only in the afternoon, I like to use my mornings. This morning, I went for a run.

Negative
It was cold outside. Like, really cold. Like, frost on the ground kind of cold.
I hadn't run in a couple of weeks, so my legs were heavy.

Positive
I recently bought some winter running gear and could try it out.

Positive
The new gear worked! I learned that the long sleeved dry fit top has longish arms and little holes to poke my thumbs through. Bonus - the sleeves cover my gloves, meaning no chilly air flow up my forearms.
The tights are longish too, meaning my ankles stay snug.
My fluffy head band is wide and covers my ears. Bonus - it keeps my clip-on ear phones in place.

I ran on the sidewalk, and then took my route to a nearby park, where a bitumen path forms a track.

Negative
I discovered black ice.
I slid.

Positive
I now know what black ice is and will avoid it like, well, the black plague.

But do you want to know the best positive of all of this?

On my second lap around the track, a small flock of seagulls landed on the same black ice. And they slid and skidded, way worse than me.

Half days aren't so bad.