Deschideti usa!

On Tuesday, I was the first teacher at the school and the last one out. My 7:40 class guaranteed that I was first, and a locked door guaranteed that I was the last.

I set my alarm Tuesday morning for 5:30 a.m., since part of my morning routine is standing up and pressing the snooze button on my phone for at least 45 minutes. I shaved, got dressed, ate and left the house at 7:20. Not all of my sixth-grade students knew about the "zero hour" class, since the schedule had been posted after most of them had left the day before. I had called as many of them at home as I could, but since three of the students don't have phones, several others didn't answer Monday night and one girl is still in Moscow with her family waiting to get a plane ticket home, I wasn't expecting great attendance. When I started class at 7:40, I had three students, and more trickled in over the course of 45 minutes.

When my sixth-period class ended, I stayed through seventh period so that I could write out lesson plans for the next day. I have more desk space and fewer distractions at school than at home, so this year I plan to work as much as I can in my classroom. Seventh period ended and I continued working for another half hour until 3:30.

At 3:30, I packed up and looked out my window to see Maria, the head custodian, leaving the school with her son. I finished packing, locked my classroom and went downstairs to leave the building.

The school door was closed. I hadn't seen this door closed at all week. I was worried. Two weeks ago, my school principal had joked that I worked so quietly in my room at the end of the second-floor hallway that they might accidentally lock me in one day.

Now I tested the door. My principal had been right. I was locked in.

I called out, "Alo?" hoping someone would respond. No luck. I was the only one around.

If this had happened in my first year, I would have panicked, especially since the door to the secretary's phone was locked. Luckily, I knew where the school's second, unlocked phone was. I called my house, where my host mom answered.

"Maria, it's Peter. I'm locked inside the school," I said with a laugh. "Could you please call someone to come open the school?"

Maria called the secretary, who then called one of the cleaning ladies who lives near the school. I only had to wait about five minutes before the cleaning lady came, took the key out of its hiding place outside the school and opened the door for me. In that time, I helped a fifth-grade girl who had come to the school to find out her schedule for the next day of lessons.

I left the school at 3:45 after spending over eight hours at school. As I walked part of the way home with the cleaning lady, I joked with her, "Maybe this is God telling me that I'm working too hard."