The Thing About Teaching . . .

It's been a long couple of weeks. This past week, the last in a series of long weeks, was the worst. It's like this.

Monday mornings I wake up at 7:00, I get to work around 9:00, and am out the door, heavy laden with two bags of teaching materials, a rolling cart of computers, and my lunch bag, by 9:15. I drive 20 miles south to the dot-on-the-map town of Fuquay-Varina, unload the computers, lunch bag, and one of the teaching materials bags, and proceed to have class -- ESL/Family Literacy/Computer Literacy -- from 10:00-12:30. (I'll save the description of the frustrations and joys of teaching multi-leveled classes for another day.) Then it's a hurried affair to clean everything up, woof down my lunch in the breakroom of the church where I teach (or outside, if it's a nice day), and be out the door by 1:00, headed back up 401 to the county jail, where I teach from 1:30-4:00 p.m.

I'm back in the office from 4:15-5:00, trying to summon the energy to prepare for the next day's lessons, answer all the calls I missed (I'm on the only one in the office who speaks Spanish), and make sure students' files are updated. Around 5:15 I head upstairs and sit with a cup of tea and whatever I brought for dinner, enjoying half an hour to read and play Words With Friends. But at 5:45 it's out the door again to teach my final class of the day, from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

I get home around 9:45 or 9:50, meditate to slough off the stresses of the day, and go to bed.

Tuesday, ibid, without the night class or the computers.

Wednesday, a repeat of Monday.

Thursday, like Tuesday.

My no-night-class-days should be my time to hang out with friends or go grocery shopping or something, and I do, even though what I'd really like most weeks is to come straight home, do some yoga, and sit by myself and watch a movie. Those nights are the best.

Luckily, this past week saw the end of two classes. I finished my afternoon jail class on Thursday, and my Monday-Wednesday night class on Wednesday night. The Wednesday night presentations/international party lasted until almost 10:00 p.m., but was fun times. I won't go back until the 21st. On Thursday, we watched "Big" and ate flautas and tortilla chips in our white cinder brick classroom. Then I have a vacation from Wake County Detention Center until the 28th, when a whole new set of students comes in.

May stretches out before me like a long grassy field . . . three glorious weeks of only teaching one class a day and having every single evening free. The afternoons at the office will be spent doing quality lesson-planning (no more hurried, ten-minute affairs), and the evenings full of 5:00 jogs around the park and happy solitude--well, at least until I get lonely. This weekend, though, I'm going on a personal retreat to recover from the past four months of my harried lifestyle. Then it's off to Greensboro for five days one week, Indiana another week to see my family, then lots and lots of time to relax.

Here's the thing about teaching: I love it, but I need a break once in a while. Luckily, that time is now!