Glimmers of light echo across the sky
seeming to come from out of nowhere.
The birds are already chirping,
helping the parents
to wake the kids up on a Monday morning.
Households suddenly alive with the
hustle and bustle of morning routines.
The sun peaks out from beyond
the horizon now.
Golden rays mix with red
and orange undertones as they fill the feshly lit sky.
School busses,
on the roads in abundance,
picking up and dropping off barely awake students.
Long after the first bells have rung,
yawns still circulate the room.
The suns is bright and burning
outside of the windows sending beams of warm light
onto unit tests, worksheets and the faces of still awaking.
Two more bells ring,
and the student body is now mostly awake.
Announcements attempt to alert them of
upcoming places to be and events they missed.
Teachers threaten and yell,
turning the volume up so that the handful
of students listening can hear.
Another two rings and
the teachers have "had it up to here"
with the noise,
but it'll be another thirty-five minutes
--and a ring of the bell--
until finally,
they're released into the halls again.
For twenty-eight minutes the teacher
tries to keep the attention of
her class,
who's eyes linger on the clock hands
watching them tick-tock
in anticipation of three little words;
"You can go."
Stomachs full from lunch,
the class is now slightly
more willing to cooperate.
Notes and group work fill the rest of
the time, rushing through the
homework assignment,
before another bell.
Last class for the day,
and concentration levels are
barely there.
Phys. Ed. classes escape
onto the track, tennis courts and fields
where the sun is blazing overhead.
Twenty-five minutes to go
and the classes inside
are persistently watching
the clock couting down with it:
five, four, three, two, one,
freedom!
Strolling around the nearly empty school,
long after the busses have left,
the sports teams prepare for practice
or games.
Setting up before the other team arrives,
socializing and warming up.
The game starts with a
tweet from the referee.
Back and forth, the points go,
like the volleyball.
Back and forth, back and forth,
with a tweet from the ref
to end the game.
Homework time, for some
while the varsity team finally gets their turn
to play.
Working lines and eating food,
the junior varsity and freshmen teams
watch varsity.
Attempting homework and
studying while
socializing.
Finishing any work is a
lost cause
as the varsity game heats up.
Long rallies and loud parents
distract from the packets, problems, and practice
that was assigned earlier in the day.
Two wins and two losses
and a referee making bad calls
makes for a stressful fifth game.
Point by point
the game drags by.
When the final point is scored,
the J.V. team tears the net down
and cleans out the bleachers so they can get home.
It's pitch black outside by the time
the cars exit the parking lot and the
visiting team's bus pulls away.
A shower and some leftovers from dinner
proceed a rush to finish homework.
The street is quiet and
porch lights are starting to be flicked off.
Homework still isn't finished though,
so, another hour is spent fighting
to stay awake.
All of the lights in the house are out
except for one.
The lab has to be finished for tomorrow
and there's still five math problems to do,
plus a global test to study for.
The moon is out and it illuminates
the textbook through the window
and the sleeping face on top of it.
I went to elementary school at Lynnwood and every year the fourth grade classes did a variety of special days that had to do with the curriculum. One of these special days, was actually a week in October where the fourth grade built a time period accurate, very small, longhouse and village in an open area on the side of the school. The week began with an opening ceremomny, after which we started building the village in shifts, with lots of help from the parents and teachers. We spent the next few days finishing the building and learning as much as we could about the Iroquois Indians, who were the native group to our part of New York. We also got a clan mother-the oldest girl in each class, a chief (a boy chosen by the girls in each class) and we were put into clans at random. On Thursday, The rest of the school came out ot see what we had accomplished. Each clan took turns giving tours and being the experts at each section of the village. On Friday morning we had a closing ceremony, where we all sat around the fire the teachers had started in the fire pit (it was a cold week) and waited for futher instruction, when four teachers came out of the woods and declared themselves the British and that they were willing to trade their technology for "our" land, but if we didn't trade, they would fight us for it. Then we got time to think it over and make a decision. We decided we would take their things and and then fight them (we were smart fourth graders). Then once we'd had our fun, we had to take down the village and so ended our "Longhouse Week". 
