Much Ado about The Mundane II: 30 Eve Edition

I wrote the first Much Ado about The Mundane from a different place in my life.  I was still in my first teaching job (holla, Heritage Crusaders!), I was toying around with fitness but hadn't quite found my thing yet, and was somewhere in the vicinity of either still waiting on or having just gotten confirmation that a new employment opportunity I sorely wanted was not going to happen.  I've been watching a lot of YouTube morning routine videos lately and felt both an inclination to make one myself and a more pragmatic realization that in video form, it will be interesting to exactly zero people.  When a famous YouTuber does it, the fanbase gets to watch the YouTuber do normal people things and listen to their funny narration.  But my "audience" watches me do normal people things (or, what passes for normal in my universe) all the time, so the best I can do is the narration.  Which is much more easily accomplished on the blog.  Therefore, I give you the sequel to Much Ado about The Mundane.

Morning Routine, 2016 Edition
1. Begin stirring awake about 15 minutes before your alarm is set to go off because between teaching, helping with Saturday rehearsals/events/whatevers and church on Sundays, you now get a wake-up call from nature.
2. Do not spend this extra time starting your morning activities earlier to build in margin.  Browse BuzzFeed instead.
3. When your alarm does sound ("Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke), get mad because it interrupted your quiz that will tell you which Django Unchained character is your spirit animal.
4. Stagger toward the kitchen to get your cup of coffee.  If you or someone else in your household remembered to pre-set the coffee so that it's already going, today will be a good day.  If not, fires will be set and heads will roll and wi-fi networks will give the little exclamation point that means "limited access."  If you thought those were not equally distressing scenarios then YOU JUST DON'T GET IT, MAN.
5. Take your cup of coffee and set it on the edge of your bathtub and start the shower.
**Sidebar: let me speak for a moment to the magic of Shower Coffee.  When you're trying to wake up with just a shower, the warm water makes you sleepier...until you step out of the bathroom and get that shock of cold air from the hallway, which at 6:15 AM feels like knives.  When you're trying to wake up with just coffee, the juxtaposition of the warm coffee in your tummy and the less warm environment gives you jitters and shivers.  But put the two together, sipping your coffee as you shower, and you leave that shower warmed up, alert and certain that today, you'll only say unkind words when the other drivers really deserve it.**
6. While the shower water warms up, make your apparel adjustments and spray your hair with dry shampoo for the fifth straight day because the powdered-wig look is the pinnacle of sexy.  Twist that irresistible mane up in a clip, slide your shower cap over it and go test the water.
7. OMG STILL COLD.  Twist the cold knob back a little.
8. IS THIS COMING FROM MY FREEZER?  Twist the cold knob back a little.
9. THIS IS APPROACHING ABSOLUTE ZERO.  Twist the cold knob back a little.
10. I JUST SCALDED THE SKIN OFF MY FINGERS.  Tap the cold knob from the other direction as though you're trying to get its attention.  The water is now the appropriate temperature.
11. Wash what needs washing, pausing periodically for Moments of Appreciation.  The scent of your soap, a sip of Shower Coffee, the lines of tile grout up toward the top of the shower that aren't yellow...these are things to savor.
12. Finish up, dry off, dress, and consider cooking yourself breakfast.
13. LOL, JK, inhale a chocolate-chip protein bar.
14. Put on your makeup, mugging and talking to your mirror like you're a beauty guru using Sephora's finest rather than whatever you could find at the Publix when you were out getting hummus and tampons.
15. Brush your teeth, gather your 80 billion things because you decided to stop carrying around giant purses that just accumulate straw wrappers and old receipts, and tune your car radio to The Bert Show as you head to work.

Attacking the To-Do List
1. Make the To-Do List on your official To-Do Clipboard as you go through your morning classes/rehearsals.
2. Once planning time arrives and it's time to cross things off that list, discover that you or your student leaders have already completed one of the things.
3. Reward yourself by spending 30 minutes playing the accompaniment to whichever piece you're currently teaching that you like the best.
4. Or finding a karaoke track to the big showstopper from the musical you're helping teach, mess with it in Audacity to make it a key amenable to Alto IIs and perform it to your empty chairs.  Dealer's choice there.
5. Realize that you just frittered away half your planning time.  Now you must PRIORITIZE.
6. Apply numbers to your list in order of their due dates.  1 will be the thing that needs to be ready in half an hour, 2 is the thing that needs to be done by the end of the day, etc.
7. Hastily and haphazardly work on the things that have to happen today.
8. Amend the definition of "things that have to happen today."
9. Realize that, under your new definition, you only have one thing left for today.
10. Make a student do it.
11. Reward yourself for delegating and for providing additional leadership opportunities to your indentured servant advanced student by getting a bag of Doritos from the vending machine.
12. Give a Dorito to the student.
13. LOL JK you bulldozed through them in record time.  You should have Vined that.

Checking Your Teacher Mail
1. Consider whether checking your teacher mail is really necessary because it's, like, all the way over there at the office.
2. Consider making a student do it.
3. Realize that sometimes you get things in your mailbox like IEPs or disciplinary stuff that your student can't have access to, so the student can't do it.
4. GROAN SIGH WHINE KICK THE PODIUM
5. Begin to make the journey to the office.
6. Get distracted by the super fun music coming from your friend's classroom.
7. Refocus, continue making your way to the office.
8. Fix your posture and smile winningly when you cross paths with someone higher on the totem pole than you.
9. Get distracted by the fact that another teacher posted your concert dates on his door.  Like, almost weep for joy openly right there in the middle of the hallway.
10. Make it to the office, only to be stopped by the office lady (we all have one) who reminds you about the 7 or 8 things you're required to do that you haven't done yet.
11. Do not argue with the office lady because you know in your heart that her job trumps yours in stress and complexity, largely because part of it is babysitting you.
12. Arrive at your mailbox to find it empty.
13. Make the "no mail is good mail" joke for the 100th day in a row because it is COMEDY GOLD.
14. Drop by the teacher workroom on the way back to see if anybody brought donuts.
15. Nobody brought donuts.  Grab some sugar packets to down in front of the kids in order to disgust and amuse them.

Welp, I made myself laugh.  Mission accomplished!