So, Paul, What Did You Do Yesterday?

I got up Friday morning at 6:00 a.m., ate breakfast, took a shower, got my stuff together and left the house at 7:00 a.m. I got to school right at 7:30 a.m. and immediately went to my meeting with Mr. Ward, the principal.

We were done with our meeting at 8:00 a.m., just enough time for me to run back to The Fishbowl and log 20 computers in to the network as "techlab." Kids start coming into the classroom at 8:10 a.m. I have three straight classes from 8:15 a.m. until 12:39 p.m.

It is then lunchtime. I get together with John Cochrane, one of my fellow teachers, and we head over to the cafeteria for Chimichangas. These are known to be one of the best meals served at the school, so the place is packed. Teachers get a double helping of everything, so by the time I am done eating, I am stuffed.

I head back to my room. I have an electronic stack of writing papers to grade, as well as syllabi signature slips to note in my electronic gradebook. I work on this until 2:48 p.m. I then have "Homeroom" duty with Mr. Donaldson in the room across the hall. Homeroom is sort of a studyhall. The kids watch "Channel One," a 10 minute news program for schools, on TV, then they have 18 minutes to study. Most of them doodle and talk. At 3:22 p.m., class and school are out for the weekend.

I head back to The Fishbowl to grade more stuff. A couple of kids want to come in and use the computers. Two want to try "Blokus" online. Another group of young women want to look at their Senior Pictures on the computer. I work on grading for about an hour. I kick all of the kids out at 4:30 p.m., so that I can get some real work done. Then I work on reading ahead in the AutoCAD book and trying some of the practice problems until about 5:30 p.m.

Then John comes over. He wants to head to the local Subway-In-A-Gas-Station to get some dinner. We do and we wait in line for almost 20 minutes and then give up. The older ladies that are preparing sandwiches at the shop are taking almost 8 minutes to make each sandwich and we are 7th in line. We run into a Middle School Teacher on the way out the door. He is heading to a restraurant in town and says he can bring us some sandwiches.

I head back to the Fishbowl for a minute. I gather all of my stuff and take it out to the car and grab my coat. John and I head to the football field. We are the announcing crew for this evening's big football game against the Wiggins Tigers. We start plugging the machinery in and gathering all of our information at 6:30 p.m. Announcing starts nine minutes before the 7:00 p.m. kickoff.

John is excited to do the announcing, me much less so. We agree that I will do the spotting and he will announce. Spotter gathers all of the necessary information for the announcer to say into the microphone. I have to figure out who carried or caught the ball on each play and who made the tackle, what the penalties are, and so forth. I tell them to John and he says them to the crowd.

It is hard work, you have to be attentive at all times to the game and watch for numbers and compare them to player rosters, etc. It is fun, though, and I enjoy myself.

The Highland Huskies do very well, winning the game 34-6. There was some last second razzle-dazzle trickery at the end of the first half, where the Tigers thought we were just kneeling the ball down to run out the clock with 5 seconds left. The QB pitched the ball to the Running Back, who throws a long pass across the field to a Receiver, wide open for a touchdown. The QB and the RB are both in my classes. Kind of cool to have that connection.

Game is over at around 9:30 p.m. We muscle all of the equipment back to the school office to lock up, then I hit the road and get home at 10:10 p.m. I am asleep by 10:30 p.m.

Just another 15 hour work day!