You will never guess what time first hour starts at Eau Claire’s public high schools. 7:35am. I can guess what you are thinking as you read that startlingly early time – “That Eric, he sure knows how to add humor to a piece of writing by ridiculously exaggerating the facts.” But I assure you, this time, there is no joke. 7:35am. And it’s not like other jobs, where employees can kill the first hour of a work day by checking their email, getting coffee, leaning on co-workers’ cubicles and shooting the breeze, or whatever. No, when that 7:35 bell rings, I have to metaphorically grab my students’ hands and lead them on a Peter Pan-style journey to the magical land of learning, dodging the pirates of inattention and side conversation, no matter how late into the previous evening I was up crocheting or doing Tae-Bo or any of the other fascinating and uncharacteristic things I often do.

    Please pay special attention to this next declaration – I am not complaining. As a teacher I enjoy a ridiculously generous vacation schedule, and I know it. But, as nice as time off in the summer is, the transition back to school is quite challenging. The tectonic shift in schedule that accompanies my reacquaintance with a 5:30am alarm always puts some strain on my mood and my health, as evidenced by the whopper of a head cold that has already set in. I am happy to do it, as I love my job and genuinely enjoy going to work. But it’s still tough to become a worthless, whiny, snot-laden puddle every night at 7 just when the dishes need to be done (seriously, honey, I swear, just one or two more weeks and I’ll be adjusted and I’ll do the dishes every night through Christmas. Really.)

    Now, after typing the previous paragraph, I feel really guilty. Sure it’s early, and yes, a 24-minute lunch period seems pretty short, and absolutely, as an adult I don’t relish the inability to use the bathroom when I want (teachers follow the bell schedule too), and yeah, correcting papers into the evenings and on most Sunday afternoons is never any fun, but summer vacation is really nice. I am very careful to avoid expressing any woes about my job around any non-teachers, because the yearly schedule is so enviable that any gripes about the daily and weekly schedule make me sound like a lazy, entitled butthead.