The Early Bird Doesn´t Get the Worm!

This is a new lesson that I have learned while here in Honduras...just because you have planned and are well prepared doesn´t actually increase your odds for success. In fact, it might even hinder them....

November 10-14 is exam week at our school (because it is the end of our first quarter). Each day the students have 3 exams, and following compeletion of the third class, they have a 20 minute recess then they are are dismissed for the day (they leave at 9:30am). Every grade (First through Eleventh) is required to take the end of the term tests. In preparation for exam week, the school´s administration asked teachers to turn in a copy of their test in advance (about a week before) so it could be approved. Then the administrators pass the tests on to the librarian to make the alloted copies and then we pick them up all ready to go in the library the morning of our sheduled exam. I get all nervous about deadlines, so I hurried up and got my test turned in early. Well Greg, on the other hand is totally a ´last mintuter.´ So last minute in fact, that he alarmingly jumped out of bed at 5am on Monday morning (November 10, the first day of our exams) remembering that he forgot to make his tests (let alone actually turn them in!) So he scrambled around and just in time was able to write his tests before school. Now the next challenge was to get them copied! Our librarian (who operates our school´s only copier) is usually swamped during exam week - especially on the first day! As soon as devotion ended, Greg rushed in to be the first to request copies. Well, lucky for him he beat the crowd and was able to get his tests all copied. He ended up only being a few minutes late to the first period class. I was happy it all worked out for him. Following his success, I lazily strolled into the library and ask our librarian for my tests (I was in no rush as I figured it would be a 30 second exchange at most). She walked back to a table covered with copies and began searching. Every minute or so she would hold up a pack of tests and say, ´Are these yours?´ I kept repeating ´No, nope, not those, still no....´ until I finally got the picture that she didn´t have my tests. By now it was 7:20am (my exam was to be administered from 7:10am to 7:50am) and I was getting a little irritated. The librarian asked me if I had another copy, but I told her no, that I had turned my only copy into administration the previous week. Well, it just so happened that my friend, Jenny, said that one of the administrators gave her the 5th grade language arts test. She wasn´t sure why, but she informed me that she had a copy if I needed it. Thank goodness for that because I was able to get it from her and have the copies made that I needed. I showed up for class at 7:35am, giving the students only 15 minutes to take my 4 page test. I was so upset! I told them to take their time and that I would be sure they would have as much time as they needed to complete the exam.

Fortunatley, in the end, it all worked out. Don´t get me wrong, I am glad that Greg was able to get his tests made and copied at the last minute. I was just a little bummed because even though I was actually prepared in advance somehow I ended up with the short end of the stick! I can laugh about it now, but I was pretty furious a couple days ago! I guess I should learn my lesson by now, as a similar thing happened to me a couple months ago when I ordered food from Pizza Hut for a classroom party. I met with the manager and confirmed our order 5 days in advance of the event. Well apparantly that was just too much time because on the day of the acutal event, they never showed up with the food! All the other classes received their food (even the other fifth grade classes´food came - that I ordered at the last minute) but the one that I actually prepared for, nothing! After multiple phone calls, they finally delivered half of the order! An hour later they returned with the other part. Yet another time preparation in advance came back to bite me! In fact, I can think of several other incidences when this has happened too! Oh well, I guess if it happens again it is my fault because by now I should learn my lesson!