Living life 52 minutes at a time

I have enjoyed lots of cool times in my short 41 years.  Every part of my life seems to have it's own pace, too.

A few years back, when I was home with the kids full time, one day seemed to melt into the next. We all just sort of cruised from weekend to weekend.  We had a lot of fun on Mondays through Fridays, but if you had asked me the day of the week on one of those, I likely wouldn't have had a clue.  But I always KNEW when it was Saturday.  Sometimes known as "Go play with your Mommy day!"

When I was previously working for the man, at the city owned recreation center, the days counted.  A lot.  I had a co-worker that I hoped would die in a fiery crash was not fond of.  Any day that I did not commit murder start a fiery crash drop some arsenic in her drink completed with only a little hassle was a good day.  There weren't many of those, so I cherished the few.

Now that I am fully into this new teaching career, I find that I live 52 minutes at a time.  Why 52?  'Cause that is how long our middle school class period is.  Every 57 minutes a new herd files in.  Then they go away 52 minutes later with the knowledge that I have masterfully imparted unto them. The 5 minute passing period usually gives me enough time to police my room for left-behind supplies and school work for other classes.  But sometimes I spend the 5 minutes sitting at my desk, pondering important questions about life.

I think about things like "How many 52 minute class periods are there between now and Spring Break? How many 52s between now and Summer?".  These are the eternal questions of a teaching mind. 

One of my many, varied jobs over the years was also my first foray into public education.  When I was 22 I worked at a public school Outdoor Education Center.  We had 5th grade students come to our center from Houston ISD elementary schools and stay on a 3 night, 4 day field trip.  They were learning about science, math and history while we incorporated environmental studies into all of the lessons.  Yes, Hippies were teaching your children.

One of the other cabin leaders (who still works at the Outdoor Education Center) was the master of "Camping 10 minutes at a time" as he named his sanity program.  When he had a particularly tough crown to work with for the week, I would hear his watch alarm chirp every 10 minutes, as an audible reminder that the weekend was a little bit closer than it used to be.

I have not gotten to the point where I need a 10 minute alarm several times each class period.  But that bell at the end of the class period does sometimes sound like angels singing to me!  And I MAY have been shopping for a new set of batteries for my nicest watch.  Time will tell.  Ba dum bump...

For the record, I dispensed with the usual "it sure has been a long time" blather.  I know it has been a long time since I actually wrote over here and you don't really care.  So we will deal with it.  I will also skip over the required "I promise to write again soon."  If you saw my schedule right now, you would know that I am not committing to anything else.


See you later.  Probably.