Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Late

I was late to my first class today.

Let me explain why: I had dropped by a convenience store to grab some breakfast, because I was too tired/lazy this morning to make it myself.  So, that put me a few minutes behind, and I was a bit late for work.

This is normal for me.  I'm always late.  Ask anyone.

Last school year, I was late so often that they stopped scheduling 1st-period classes for me.  I would be late up to an hour, but I'd stay after two or three (or often actually more) hours, so it MORE than balanced out.

This school year, however, I have many more classes, so my schedule is pretty full.  I can't afford to be late regularly anymore.  That's fine, I can make it on time if I try.  But today I didn't have any 1st period classes, so I was taking it easy.

This week, for some reason, we are on 45-minute lessons, and the schedule is pretty random, so when I got to the school, I checked the teacher's schedule board.  If classes are rearranged, it will be reflected here.  Last school year, this would even indicate whenever I had a Team Teaching class, because it was kind of a special class (each class would see me only once every two weeks).  Every Team Teaching lesson would have a big " T.T." written on it in yellow chalk (which stood out clearly against the normal white chalk).  This year, since I see every freshman class at the same time every week, my lessons aren't so special, so they are not indicated unless there is a change.

So anyway, I checked the schedule board, and there were no "T.T."s, so I knew my schedule hadn't been changed, and I wouldn't have class until 2nd period.  I went upstairs to my desk and sat down to enjoy my breakfast.  While I was eating, I noticed a note on my desk from the teacher I would be Team Teaching with 2nd period saying that the schedule was changed.

To 1st period.

I looked at my watch.  Class had started 10 minutes ago.  As I'm running through the halls with my stack of worksheets, I couldn't help wondering "WHY WASN'T THIS ON THE SCHEDULE BOARD?"  And, why didn't anyone call me?  My cell-phone number is on a piece of paper, taped to the bookshelf by my desk, in clear sight.  How could you miss that?

Anyway, I got to class (JUST as the teacher was about to start an alternate lesson, after having apparently waited for me for 10 minutes), apologized for my tardiness, and rushed the lesson.  It went OK (I plan flexibility into my lessons for a reason), but I was still upset at being late.

I was so mad at whomever wrote up the schedule today.  Immediately after class I went back to the schedule board to confirm that there was NO indication that I had a Team Teaching lesson 1st period.

And that's when I noticed that, next to the kanji for "English" for that class and that period, was a small " T.T." in white chalk.

In clear sight.  How could I miss that?

No comments:

Post a Comment