Live. Love. Laugh.

Time for a little update...

In just four short days, my schedule has been filled with a maelstrom of responsibility. My lovely alarm clock starts bleating at me at 4:30a. I'm at school, trying to find the lock on my classroom in the moonlit darkness, by 6:00. The little monsters come in at 7:55 and the chaos begins. I have three 90 minute periods with a teeny-tiny 10 minute break. Then, the pitifully small lunch period for 29 minutes. Lunch has been interesting, though. A fairly large group of kids come eat with me. We listen to music and I turn my teacher ears off. After lunch, it's one only more 90 period, but my worst bunch of the day. I spend a few moments after school tidying up and running back and forth to the office.

Next up at 4:30, is my second job, which is reduced hours with Anthem. I go in for a few hours a day and attempt to work my way through a laundry list from my boss and an inbox full of emails from instructors who are used to working with me, and only me. I leave Anthem and try to make it home by 7:00, in the thick of evening rush hour. By the time I get home, it's time to wash the face, change the clothes, pack the lunch, load the coffee pot, answer personal emails, prepare for tomorrow's teaching, set the alarm, and, before I know it, it's time to go to bed. Crazy, crazy, crazy.

So, now I'm sitting here trying to figure out how I'm supposed to prepare for class, write lesson plans, track standards, grade papers, get to both jobs on time, and spend time with my AZ homies. I'm trying to figure out how to connect with my students, who all have iPods glued to their ears, cell phones glued to their hands, portable game players in their back pockets, cuss words falling out of their mouths like me at 3:00a in Brewsters after too many shots, and tattoos and piercings in places you wouldn't believe at the tender age of 15. I'm trying to figure out how I'm suppose to do all of this without adding hours to the day, without dropping of exhaustion, without neglecting my friends, and without missing out on my own, young life.

Live. Love. Laugh.