The Adventures of a First Year Middle School Teacher

Sweet Agony

From the moment that Sandra left the school to the moment her head hit the pillow of her bed, she was finished. She had worked hard before but not like this. She was mentally and emotionally drained. The first day had been as she had imagined it. She knew she would repeat herself for seven times that day. She knew that she would have an easy time with the students because of their new surroundings.

She knew what to expect from the students and of the day that ended with her in agony. What she had not expected was how drained she would be. Though she enjoyed every moment of it, she was exhausted and that in itself made her feel a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. The day had been long and full of mishaps here and there, but at the core of it all was a part that made her glad of choosing to be a teacher.

It went beyond anything she had ever done. She was glad that Nick had told her of the position and had encouraged her to interview for it. She meant to let him know how her day had gone, but when she arrived home she went straight to bed and did not wake up until 9:00 pm only to go back to bed an hour later.

The next day, almost as soon as she woke up, she texted him to let him know of the wonderful yet tiring day she had at school. She never thought that she would set foot inside a middle school after graduation, but the reoccurring dream she had of being back in school made sense now. She knew that she belonged there, and that her talents would never go to waste there.

Her text to Nick was short and to the point:

Sandra: I am sorry for not texting you yesterday, forgive me?

Nick: Of course! Was it that hard of a day?

Sandra: I would not say hard. Busy is more like it and draining.

Nick: I understand. How about I go to your house when I get off work today, so we can talk about it.

Sandra: Sure! I just hope I don't fall asleep again. I slept all day when I got home. I am sure my parents were a bit worried. 😆

Nick: I am sure they were. I will be there as soon as I can get off. See you then.

Sandra: Sounds like a plan.

Nick: Have a wonderful day.

Sandra: You too!

Sandra was getting ready as she texted him and got ready within forty minutes, ate breakfast and said goodbye to her parents and Laura before heading out to work. It took her exactly eighteen minutes to arrive from home to the school. As soon as she got there she went into her room. She hoped to figure out how to fix the projector and was sitting up on a desk and fidgeting with the cables to figure out why the picture from the computer was not being reflected on to the board by the projector.

It had all the cables it needed and were all hooked to the spot that it needed to be hooked to. She clicked in several buttons to make sure it was in the correct settings and even clicked on the menu bar to find if it was in the correct display setting and all that checked out. While she was still on top of the desk and looking and hoping to get it working, someone walked in through her door.

It was him again- Mr. Buchanan. Her insides were doing strange things that made her feel excited and nervous at the same time.

- "Do you need help with that?" He looked up a her and she met his eyes with hers.

- "No. Unfortunately, there is no hope for this projector. I have checked every cable and every possible setting. I have no idea what is wrong with it."

- " I am sorry about that." Sandra began to lower herself on to the desk. As she did he stretched out his hand in aid. She took it and something about his touch made her hand tingle.

- " It's okay. Maybe I can get another one." He was only a few inches taller than her and looked into her caramel brown eyes that he liked looking into since they met that first day.

- " Oh, I am sure you can. Just let Mr. Delaney know. I am sure he will get you another one for your classroom." They stood closer than an arms length apart and they could both sense that something drew them to one another.

- " I will definitely be doing that before the end of the day. Thank you for helping me." Sandra knew she was smiling more than usual because her cheeks were in pain, but she did not mind it. Once the bell rang the students walked into the classroom, but both did not know how to say goodbye to one another.

Sandra did not know whether to say goodbye or see you later. If she had thought about it properly, she would have said see you later. But her judgement was a bit clouded by him; his sparkling blue eyes, charismatic smile, and good looks made her feel a little too much like a school girl. Not only because of the way he looked at her, but because she did not attract the kind of guy he was while a student in school. Not that she knew of.

Mr. Buchanan's natural human instinct told him to say goodbye, but he knew that it was not goodbye. Not yet anyways. He planned on seeing her again before she left for the day. There had to be some way to get her to talk to him again.

Even for just a few moments. He had not felt this way in a long time. He was excited about seeing her, yet nervous and aware of himself and his actions around her. When he wanted to say later as he naturally would, the word did not come out. Instead, nothing came out of his mouth and he walked on in shame.

They did not see each other again for the rest of the school day as Mr. Delaney had many things for Mr. Buchanan to do during his planning and during lunch only found and saw her briefly from far away as she was sitting on the table where her class was sitting instead of sitting in the teacher's table in the middle. He had been counting on talking to her then, but she was too far and only watched her as he got himself some food from the lunch bar.

On the lunch map she was given, Sandra did not see a teacher's table. She did see her name and another seventh grade teacher's name on the table where their students were to share tables. She presumed that she had to sit there along with Mrs. McMullins and did so for the rest of the year because no one told her to do otherwise.

Mrs. McMullins was a Math teacher and like Sandra was from a Hispanic family with the exception that she did not speak Spanish. The best part about meeting her was that they spoke easily from subject to subject, neither one interrupted the other and neither one dominated the conversation.

Each wanting to hear from one another and speaking with as much energy as the other. At some point Sandra imagined that Mr. Buchanan, whom she noticed come in as soon as he walked through the lunchroom doors, was looking at her. But she silenced those imaginations.

Mrs. McMullins and Sandra left the lunchroom at the same time and each headed to their classrooms. The rest of the day went on just as the morning had. Busy. During her planning period, Sandra finally looked over the papers that she received at the end of the day of that teacher work day. All papers were of the duties the teachers were assigned.

During the morning all teachers had a spot they needed to be at and her morning duty was the seventh grade hallway on Tuesdays and during break she had the snack store for that first week, break detention the second week, and outside duty during the the third week. Another paper was of the reasons for break and the other was a discipline essay for the students to write.

She headed to the snack store as some of the teachers along with Mr. Buchanan huddled at the end of the hallway, and after ten minutes of selling snacks went back to the classroom. The huddle of teachers had disappeared and she was quietly working on planning next week's lessons until the students came back from snack time and her last period began.

She went over the classroom procedures as she had been doing all day until five minutes before the bell rang. She let the students pack up and clean up the room before they ran out the door like a stampede in a jungle. She stayed for thirty minutes afterwards until she realized that she told Nick that she would meet him after school. She quickly took her phone and purse and ran out the door.