Get out the fork, it's almost done.

Is it weird that I spend most of Friday watching the clock tick towards three pm, and then stay at school until four, doing "just one more thing"?  

I didn't think so.

So it also isn't weird that when my head is supposed to be turned off of school, relaxing on the weekend, the ticks are tocking loudly in my head with ideas for the following week.   I spent part of last evening speaking with Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan, the foremost authority on the Culper Spy Ring.  Our primary focus was discussing when in her schedule next week suited her best to be interviewed, and recorded, by one of my students headed to state NHD competition in a bit over a week.

There's something magical about unencumbered time that becomes encumbered on the weekends, in a relaxed sort of way that gives hope and promise to the upcoming week -- maybe even weeks!

 Get out the fork, it's almost done.

When I was a kid, my father would grill in the driveway.  My sister and I would run through the house and down the stairs, between the kitchen and the grill, carrying messages between our parents, perfectly timing the meal.  Certainly nobody wants cold corn on the cob while the steak is still grilling, or melted ice in diluted iced tea, when the platters hit the table.

Timing is everything.

In retrospect, I now think that the running was a sly ploy on the part of our parents to keep us busy, and out of the kitchen.  We were focused on doing a job to completion, with an ultimate reward of dinner on the screened in porch.

It's officially May.  The weather is beautiful, the courtyard at school is open to students, and everyone is itching to be somewhere other than inside -- yet there are less than five weeks of school left to complete projects and papers prior to the bewitching week of finals.  Pacing is important for teachers, this time of year especially, as we motivate our students to do their best, keep on track, and finishing strong -- yet not so quickly that we wind up with an empty week of nothing to do.

Ha!  Like THAT will happen!  I've already announced that I will be grading a stack full of research papers over Memorial Day Weekend, primarily as a martyr-style bribe to actually GET the students in my Info. Lit class to hit the rough draft deadline.   

The clock is ticking, the briquettes are hot.  And the exercise of running steps between the kitchen and the porch can't hurt, right?