One Day in the Life of Charlie

It is Thursday. School is about to start, but Charlie is still in a deep slumber at his house. As he sleeps, freshmen, sophomores and juniors at Phoenix Country Day School rush to their lockers and to class, trying to avoid a tardy. Teachers stare at the clock as class time nears. Some make in time right before 7:50, but others are not as fortunate. Charlie's alarm goes off, but he refuses to get up and presses the snooze button. On Thursday's, Charlie is one of the many seniors that have a free first block, so there is no need to get up yet. His cell phone begins to ring, and he answers it without knowing who it is. It is Bruce, and he wishes to know where Charlie is and if he would like to grab some Jack in the Box before second block. Charlie, who is still half asleep, is not in the mood for fast food yet and tells Bruce that it would be better if they went to Jack in the Box during lunch. Bruce agrees and hangs up. Charlie gets ready and drives off to school.

He makes it just in time for second block. There is a variety of expressions on the faces of all of the anatomy students because Dr. Crane had said yesterday that she expected to be finished grading all of last week's tests. And she did. Everyone nervously stared at the pile of sheets on her desk. Slowly, with a smile on her face, she picks up the stack and begins to return the tests. Charlie is the last student to have his test returned. Dr. Crane placed it on his desk, facedown. Charlie took a deep breath and flipped it over: B-. Charlie was neither disappointed nor glad, nor was it what he had expected. On his previous test, he had gotten a C-. This last test was obviously an improvement; however, he had studied exhaustively for this test. But at least he was improving.

Everyone goes to Dorrance for third block. There are no speeches today, so Charlie takes a nap.

It is now fourth block and Charlie has photography. But he has already finished tomorrow's assignment, so Mr. Cook allows him to leave early for lunch. He realizes that Bruce has a free and quickly reaches for his cell phone in his left pocket. He waits for Bruce to answer as he walks toward the upper school office to sign out. Still no answer. Charlie enters the office and sees Bruce signing out; his phone is in his backpack and it was out of battery. They walk down to the student parking lot and drive off to Jack in the Box. They each order the usual: crispy chicken strips with medium curly fries and a medium sprite. Fourth block is now over and they decide to spend the rest of lunch at school in the student center.

Sixth block is AP Spanish. It is Charlie's worst class. Sra. Gilbert walks over to her desk and picks up a stack of papers. Is it a study guide? Is it a work sheet? No, it was much worse. It was a quiz. Charlie had forgotten about it and did not study yesterday. His heart is pounding franticly against his chest. Sra. Gilbert hands Charlie his quiz and he begins to examine it. The quiz was not on vocabulary, which relieved Charlie a bit. It was on yesterday's video, which Charlie remembered quite well. He finished his quiz feeling very confident he will get a decent grade on it. Class ends and Charlie walks over to seventh block: Statistics.

This is most likely Charlie's favorite class. He enjoys math and he loves Mr. Guthrie's sense of humor. Time quickly passes by as Mr. Guthrie teaches his students about standard deviations. As Charlie sits in class and takes notes, he wonders what time it is. He refuses to look at the clock because time always seems to go slower when you want it to speed up. He is persistent and class ends somewhat faster then it usually does.

He leaves Mr. Guthrie's room and walks over to the computer lab. He drops his backpack by the door and joins his peers in Rock Band club. Charlie is extremely talented at playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero. He is so talented that he sometimes wishes he could play the real guitar, but he is too lazy to actually take lessons. He waits in line for others to finish playing. Half an hour later, Charlie finally gets his chance and performs well as he usually does. One song was enough. He walks out of the computer lab and walks toward to the student center and buys a Powerade. As the electrolytes and potassium quenched his thirst, he notices that there five minutes until class is over. He walks back to the computer lab to pick up his backpack. Charlie walks down to the student parking lot and drives back home. Nothing special or interesting happened that day; it was just one day in the life of Charlie.