>Not bad, for a Tuesday.

Tuesdays are my Yucky Days with a capital YD. My schedule has no breaks in it, I often have meetings with other teachers before school, and it’s just an exhausting day. If it weren’t for recess, I wouldn’t even make it to the bathroom.

But there are ways of seeking relief. There is a bright side to Tuesday – sometimes.

My colleague takes advantage of a strategically scheduled prep time to pick up Starbucks.
Starbucks mixed up my order. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the Pike Place Blend I usually get. The note on the cup said BU. Bland Usual? Boston University? Boring Underwear? How did they know? It smelled like good strong coffee, so I sipped it anyway.
Whoa, Nelly, that stuff was STRONG. I wiped the sweat from my brow, blinked a few times, thanked the 6th grader who’d delivered, and growled “Get back to work!” at my class. If I start growing hair on my chest, I’ll blame the B.U. coffee.

Let’s summarize the day so far: awards assembly, three of my students honored, parents attended, kids behaved well in the audience. Plus.
Ordered coffee. Plus.
Coffee was wrong. Minus.

So on we go —
That Student (every teacher has one) had major attitude problems after recess and during reading class. Another student is bouncing off this one and causing troubles. Reteach behavior, reteach, reteach. Tomorrow, these two shape up or else; they’ve had their second chances. Minus.
Somehow, I managed to teach reading strategies to a few groups; that’s a plus.
Then a few trustworthy students told me they were supposed to get out early for lunch. What?! I had no information, no communication, so I said no. Oh, my goodness, you would have thought I was the Worst Evil Teacher in the world. Minus for the confusion.
A good number of my kiddos attended the Service Club meeting and signed up to help with a school fundraiser. Plus.

Later on, sixth grade students made an announcement for a special fundraiser. A group of children found out about Water for Africa and decided it was a cause worth supporting. They did their homework, put together a plan, and got it going. Major plus.
Someone or several someones are giving them grief because they should be raising money for Haiti. Epic minus.
I remembered a post on the Art of Non-Conformity regarding seeing the changes in safe water supply on a visit to Liberia. To encourage the students, I found a way to connect them with this post. Plus for the post, plus for the kids, plus for all.

Well, fellow working minions, what is your bad day of the week? And what do you do to make it better? I splurge on (usually) good coffee. How about you?