Another day in paradise

5:15 a.m. Alarm goes off. Wonderful Husband gets out of bed to make coffee, let the dogs out, and pack my lunch. I relish in the fact that I still have twenty minutes of sweet slumber. 

5:35 a.m. I'm pulled out of sleep by the sound of dogs clumsily racing up the stairs. I throw the blanket over my head just before the light corrupts the room. Kindest Man in the Land says, "Time to wake up" and brings me coffee in bed. He has mixed it with vanilla almond milk, and it softens the blow of the fact that it is morning. Sometimes he brings a side of granola with chocolate covered soy beans and almonds. I dream of being able to sit in bed like this all day with a book or Netflix and crocheting. I dream of May. 

5:45 a.m. I stand up and assess the situation. Did I bathe the night before? What clean clothes are available? Do I need to iron? I attempt to find a balance between the path of least resistance and being presentable and hygienic.I check my e-mail to see if any of my Santa Fean leads for next year have responded to me. No. I look at pretty things on Pinterest. 

6:00 a.m. The day's on. The six o'clock hour is here, and in 35 minutes I will get in my car! Time to fake it to make it. Time for pump-up music: Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" today. "The children don't grow up...Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up." That's right. You're connected to these kids. Sixth grade sucks, and you survived. I manage to arrange clothing in an acceptable way on my body. Can I do anything with my hair today? Eh, ponytail. 

6:15 a.m. I go downstairs for breakfast. The Sweet Man has eggs waiting for me on the table today as he does most days. Orange juice is served in a wine glass. We bid each other a good day before he runs out the door to go to the gym. 

6:35 a.m. I get in the car and begin the 20-minute trek north. This morning I see a shaggy dog in the median of 78 desperately tearing away at a dog carcass. This is Hell, I confirm. On my way home I expect to see that dog, too, dead on the side of the highway. Every day there are new casualties.

7:00 a.m. I arrive at school and manage to clock-in before 7:05. I smile and put on my Good Morning Face. 

7:10 a.m. Children start freewheelin' off buses. They're ready for another day in paradise! I will either report to the gym for morning duty or prepare my classroom, alternating each nine weeks. When I have morning duty, I make sure students are sitting in their appropriate grade level section of the gym and grouped by homeroom. "Scoot all the way down on the bench," "No, ALL the way down," "You can't get up once you sit down," "Leave your backpack down here," "Only walk up the aisles," "Take your hood off," and "I know that's not your homeroom" are my refrains. I hope my comments will be received with minimal eye rolling, sighs, shrugs, scowls, and verbal protests. But someone always wants to make a small problem a big problem. When I don't have morning duty, I prepare my board, read the Daily Bulletin, and re-align my desks. 

7:30 a.m. Voices of children echo down the hall. I take my tea out of the microwave and take my post at the door. I smile and put on my Good Morning Face. Homeroom means 30 minutes of Sustained Silent Reading. I take attendance and then check the progress of the Accelerated Reader goals of my homeroom. Announcements time. Since it's February, we get to hear students bring us "A Moment in Black History." 

8:05 a.m. I teach with my Whole Brain. It’s the first period Trial Run for my lesson. At the end of class I take kids on a mandated class-wide bathroom break and then walk them to activity.

9:00 a.m. Planning Period. I eat lunch with Mr. Gioia, and another sixth grade teacher comes in to use my microwave. We chat about the prospects of the day, then run some copies, visit the office, walk the halls, and 9:50 comes too soon. 

9:55 a.m. I teach with my Whole Brain. 

10:35 a.m. I eat lunch with my third period class, my honors class. It’s mostly girls in that class, and I don’t bother censoring their conversations. It’s pretty much the only time in the school day they get to talk freely to their friends. They can talk about boys all they want. That’s what my friends and I did at lunch in sixth grade. 

11:15 a.m. I teach with my Whole Brain.

2:10 p.m. 7th period electives. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I get an extra planning period. On other days, I’m the esteemed Tier III Reading Interventionist in the 6th grade, so I meet with the lowest 16 readers in groups of 4-8 at a time, depending on the day. We work on sight word recognition and reading comprehension. I monitor their progress. 

3:00 p.m. Bus duty. I walk behind the buses and make sure no one’s doing anything fishy. I herd elementary students. First load puffs off, and I stand around talking to teachers about “those lambs.”

3:16 p.m. Second load bus duty. I try to keep students under the awning while the elementary students get on the buses first. I try to avoid confrontations with any of my students from last year. They still infuriate me at times. We get the signal, “Middle School Students, WALK,” and they come charging. They’re on the buses in no time, and Mr. Gioia says, “Another day in the bag!” as we walk away.

3:30 p.m. I go back to my classroom and prepare my Powerpoint and handouts for the next day. I dabble with some grades and some Big Ideas for future lessons. 

4:30 p.m. Ahh, time to drive home. This is what I’ve been thinking about all day. 

5:00 p.m. I immediately change into pajamas when I get home. I get in bed and watch mindless TV on Hulu and Netflix. If I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll crochet at the same time. If I’m feeling committed, I’ll put on a movie and piece fabric for a quilt. 

6:00 p.m. Dinner with the Sweet Husband. These days I don’t do a lot of talking about school when I’m at home. We talk about our future, the Land of May. We make plans for our move and our Spring Break and post-Teacher Corps vacations. Life after Teacher Corps looks like one big vacation from where I’m standing. 

6:30 p.m. We do dishes, maybe talk to roommates, and then I get back in bed to watch more Internet TV and to call my family. 

8:00 p.m. It’s wind-down for bed. Some nights I’ll take a bubble bath or shower. The Adoring Husband and I may take in an episode of a “dark, understated” feature such as Mad Men, a “cerebral” show such as Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, or a “dark, cerebral” series like Downton Abbey. 

9:30 p.m. Lights out. I drift into a forgetful sleep, part of me eager for the next day because it brings me one day closer to the end of the Corps.