Welcome back to your life

Monday, January 5th, 2009, break is OVER

6:15 am Oh god. The alarm goes off. Time to wake up. I manage to pull back the covers by 6:32, and I leave the house by 7:06. I'll be a little bit early to work.

7:47 am I walk into my classroom. Holy Moses, it's a lot messier than I thought it would be. There is a pile of notebooks sitting on a table that I was supposed to grade the week of the blizzard, posters have fallen down, and the desks are askew. On the bright side, I can tell that my carpet got shampooed.

8:40 am The kids walk in, I remember most of their names, and I quickly get rid of them at 9:05 because that is our class's PE time. I prep for the morning and check my e-mail. Only one piece of semi-hate mail. Good. A bunch others that I ignore because I don't have the time.

10:35 am We're doing word study and I'm with a group sorting words that end in CK. We have -ack, -eck, -ick, -ock, and -uck words. I'm always very careful of pronunciation when I introduce the CK family. Especially the -uck group and the -ick group. I don't want to say anything that will cause an uproar.

12:05 pm It's the kids' lunch time and I am supervising them in the classroom while I try to scramble for the afternoon's literacy block. I'm tidying the room, telling kids to finish eating their vegetables and to mop up their milk spills, while trying to get stuff together for after recess.

12:35 pm It's my lunch time. I spend most of it in the classroom trying to figure out why the ghetto tape player won't work and where the heck I put that stack of books. I manage to get seven minutes to eat, three of which are spent standing in front of the microwave in anticipation. After my seven minute break it's time to pick the kids up from the playground.

1:15 pm I'm explaining our new literacy schedule since I introduced it right before break, answering a zillion questions and giving very explicit directions. Oh god. It's the principal standing in the doorway. She already popped in once during the morning (and everything was going fine and it was utterly silent, I might add). I stall, blubbering about poetry and alliteration, then it hits 1:35 and it's time to actually start the reading rotations. I briefly go over my expectations again, set the timer, pray to God, and give the kids one minute to get at the station they need to be at. She's still watching me. I feel my face get warm. The timer goes off, most kids have settled in, and I start teaching my reading group. The principal leaves about ten minutes later.

2:15 pm I'm sitting on the floor with my second group when a surprise walks in through my door. It's Kaitlynn! And she's holding two cups from Starbucks! This is the first time she's visited my class, and I totally wasn't expecting it. She observes some of my obnoxious children and laughs at the cute ones. After the kids leave at 3:30 I finally get to sip my Starbucks. Isn't she a sweetheart, Kaitlynn knows I hate coffee and got me a yummy tea latte thingy instead.

4:00 pm I leave school frantically. My classroom is an utter disaster. Think small hurricane. I figure I will have to get to work by 7:15 tomorrow so that I can put stuff away and prepare myself. I leave in a hurry to get to Keizer. I have some dumb once a month class from 4:30 to 7:30. I get to the other school late, try to get in (it's locked), and then another teacher opens the door for me. Together we waste twenty minutes of our time calling a variety of teachers and school district personnel, trying to figure out where the class is, because clearly, it's not here. Oh, they changed the date. Well thanks for e-mailing me ahead of time.

5:10 pm Pissed that I left school early to drive to East NoWhere just to turn around, I am comforted by the excuse I have to stop by Panda Express and use my gift card to purchase dinner. I go to Target first because I am an addict.

5:25 pm. I totally want this teal leather purse in Target for $27.99. I consider it, but then am realistic with the fact that my current brown purse coordinates with everything except black, whereas a teal purse will only match 45% of my wardrobe (because 45% of it is teal). Instead, I settle on buying two new pairs of sweat pants and some running shoes, even though I don't run (see previous blog about my effing dislocating knee caps). I have this fantasy that I will join a gym by the end of January. It's not a New Year's resolution by any means. I've been meaning to join since November, when my teaching goal was to leave work by 4:30 three days a week. Like that ever happened. I figure, if I pay money for a membership, it might be more of a motivator to leave work on time (by on time, I mean an hour after school gets out). But I'm not cutting the tags off of anything until I've actually joined the gym and gone for a week.

5:32 pm My sister calls me, telling me plans of her new idea to open a Wedding Coordinating business. Jeez, you get married once and then all of a sudden you want to plan other people's nuptials. I tell Jess we need to create a business together, one that we both want to do/are good at, because even though I had an okay day at school (considering my favorite kid was absent and my least favorite was present), I'm not sure if I want to surround myself with children everyday for the rest of my life. Working with adults can be equally as fun. And I mean really, I should apply to be a manager somewhere. If they try to tell me I have no experience, I will scoff at them. I have been managing a staff of 27 for months now. And it's no easy task.

5:40 pm I move to the office supply section of Target. I did have an objective. Even though I'm an addict, I don't just walk into Target for the fun of it. I came because I needed to buy a really huge dry-erase board for my classroom. I'd explain the complexity of it but that won't interest you.

5:52 pm I go to Panda Express and get delicious fried rice and veggies. Sure beats that crusty burrito.

6:12 pm Stuck in traffic. I thought that if I dawdled in Target and got dinner, rush hour traffic would be vanquished. Not so. I finally get over the bridge at like, 6:58.

7:24 pm At home, finishing this blog, then going to do teacher crap. And seriously, Kaitlynn, you totally made my afternoon. It was a very nice surprise. = )