"Wait, Which Bell Just Rang?!!"

Tuesday, January 18, 2011
10:30 AM in Kolonia, 3:30 PM at home


Monday-Thursday:

6:00 am: Get up, grab a sweater (yes, it is cold at night!), do devotions, lesson plans… Most productive hour of the day.

7:00 am: Alternate wake-up time if previous night was later than usual, get breakfast, get ready for the day… Least productive hour of the day.

8:00 am: Staff worship, then back to the apartment to prep for classes (I don’t have a first period class), alternate breakfast time if previous hour was really unproductive…

9:25 am: Second period Chemistry, all 10 of them.

10:09 am: Third period, and I’m free again, which works really nicely, because I get to prep before physics… unless someone is sick, in which case, I’m subbing this period.

11:03 am: Fourth period Physics, my second biggest class (14), and definitely my brainiacs. They keep me on my toes.

11:47 am: Lunch period and halfway through the day! Unless I’m on lunch duty, which happens every three weeks. Then I get sick of pb&j or egg salad on white bread, and don’t get to prep for ES, my chaotic class.

12:38 pm: Fifth period Environmental Science. Once this class is over, it’s smooth sailing the rest of the day. They’re getting better. I’m proud of them for that. But they still have their moments. All 27 of them.

1:27 pm: Sixth period Chemistry. Probably my best chem lectures, because I get to fix things from the first go round, but I’m not tired of repeating myself like I am in seventh. A challenging class just because my highest and lowest students are together in this class of 8.

2:16 pm: Seventh period Chemistry. Have to keep motivating myself for this one, but there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. This is the hardest class to focus (even though there's only 7) sometimes, because people who are done for the day congregate in the hall, and it can get really noisy.

3:00 pm: FREEDOM!!! Just kidding. On Mondays, it’s staff meeting. On Tuesdays through Thursdays, it’s classroom time, which can be really productive or really unproductive, depending on which students show up.

4:00 pm: Now I get to be free. Mondays and Thursdays are shopping days if we need them. Often I’m still in my classroom working, or collapsed in front of a fan recouperating.

The rest of the day: varies a lot, but usually involves a lot of grading, lesson planning, and getting ready for the next day…

Friday:

A lot like Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays, but periods are only 32 minutes long (more like 20 by the time everyone’s settled and focused), and there’s a chapel period after fourth. But school gets out at 2:00 pm. Unfortunately, I always seem to forget about Friday schedule until the first bell goes off at 9:02 am instead of 9:20 am, which usually involves a 15 second panic session. We have high school vespers and elementary vespers every other week in the evenings.

Saturday:

Church in the morning, lunch, Kapinga, and skyping home in the afternoon. Going out to eat or uno in the evening.

Sunday:

Play day, grading day, laundry day, catch up on sleep day, or pretty much enjoy the eerie quiet of campus day.