My life these days.

My life has been insane lately. Like, utterly and completely filled with work like never before in the history of me. I didn't work half this much last year. I never worked this much in college. And lord knows I didn't work this much at Grosvenor. (Ah...the days of a true 9-5).

Basically, my days go something like this:

5:00 - Alarm #1 goes off (switch phone to vibrate and hit snooze)
5:15 - Alarm #2 goes off (hit snooze again)
5:30 - Get out of bed, boil water for tea while I brush my teeth (I always seem do multitask those two things), throw on clothes that barely match, put my hair in ponytail because I probably didn't shower yesterday, contacts in, grab my external harddrive, throw a yogurt in my lunch bag, make my mug of tea, and rush out the door by 5:45.
6:05 - Get to school, dump my stuff, walk across campus to sign in, make 100 - 400 copies, write stuff on my board, post lesson plans on the door, queue up my powerpoint, set out papers for kids to pick up on the way in, and get ready for kids to walk in the door at...
7:00 - ...when the 'go-to-class' bell rings.
7:11 - First block starts. Teach until...
12:17 - ...third block ends. Eat lunch in the faculty lounge, savor the adult company, inappropriate jokes and swearing for 30 minutes, come back to my trailer to work from...
1:00 - 2:10 - Grade work, enter grades, send emails, enter attendance, make more copies, print off stuff for tomorrow, work on lessons until...
2:10 - 2:20 - ...afternoon duty. Walk back across campus, stand in the courtyard, catch up with students from last year on their way to the bus, encourage everyone to keep moving towards the bus lot.
2:20 - 4:00 - Work at school, meetings, more printing or copying, more grading and entering grades into the computer, more emails, more lesson planning.
4:00 - 6:00 - Drive home, eat something, change my clothes, check my gmail, check facebook, read some online news so I'm not completely clueless about the world outside West Meck, run (if i'm lucky to have the time), shower (if I'm lucky), put off doing dishes/laundry/cleaning because I have no time for such luxuries.
6:00 - 10:30- Plan lessons, type up lesson plans, make worksheets, make quizzes, make tests, make guided notes, make graphic organizers, make powerpoints, make warm up exercises
10:30 (if I'm lucky) - Sleep!!!


My recent conclusion? This is not working. It leaves me with zero time to like, oh, live my life like a normal person. So...I have come up with a plan to get ahead and actually get my weekends free. It doesn't really involve me doing any LESS work, as best I can figure, but it does involve doing it on a schedule and working ahead. Basically, doing more work on the weekdays so I can at least have weekends off.

Isn't it beautiful?!! Okay. It is to me. What's most beautiful? That green circle there? It's a weekend. Notice anything about it? Oh yeah....it DOESN'T HAVE ANY WORK WRITTEN ON IT.


Knock on wood. Next semester my life will be 10 times easier, because my Civics classes start over again, which means I get to use all the plans I've made already this year. And I am being obsessive about naming and organizing files as I make them, so I can find them next semester. But meantime, I'm just trying to figure out little ways to cut down on the work so I don't have to wait until January to have a life. I think my beautiful calendar plan is a good first start.


Also...I still actually kind of love my job. But I need it to be something I can love...that doesn't um, you know, make me go insane and lose all my hair.

"Oh my god Stalonda"

We learned about diversity and multiculturalism the other day in my Civics and Econ class. As part of their homework, I asked them to imagine they were moving to another country and then write an email or facebook message to a friend, telling them what parts of their culture or identity they would change or keep when they moved. I told them to imagine going someplace very different than America. These were some of my favorite responses:

“Oh my god Stalonda, down here the girls suppose to cover up everything but their eyes. I’m like so we can’t show our legs or arms. We not even suppose to speak to the male. I feel like this is a situation that you can get killed if you don’t follow this rules. I will follow the top rules, but as far as my mother cooking changing that not happened. Were not going to be be sitting down here eaten goat when we can still it hamburger. The boy are fine but to bad I can’t talk to them. Well girl I’m out and home to hear from you.”

One girl drew the facebook logo, and then wrote this:

“Heey girl! Smh. Ima miss you! I’m probably gonna have to wear those long body covering things they have those girls wear in Afghanistan! Lmao. I’m lying! I’m not wearing that! But I think I have to learn a different language & change how I act! Man, I don’t wanna go! Text me!”

“Hey, I’m leaving tommorow and I just wanted to remind you. I can’t wait to get to Congo. I plan on just remaining the same fun-spirited person that I am.”

“So I’m going to Saudi Arabia. I guess I’m going to have to learn Arabic. I’m not gonna change how I dress…hopefully the Taliban won’t come after me. Maybe their culture will be really cool.”

“Okay so living here is so strick…I can’t even ask a girl out without paying here parents 10,000 dollars 'as a gift' I cant really express myself as I did in the US. So I must of corse learn arbric and not use curse words…not that I ever did (like once or twice). I miss the USA.”