"What do you do in your free time?"

FABulous question. What do I do? I ... uh ... I watch "La Femme Nikita," "Alias," or "Lost." I bake things for my students or walk the aisles of our local grocery store pretending that I'm NOT hoping to bump into that tall, dark, and handsome stranger I danced with once upon a dream.

I do not go to the gym.

I rarely read for pleasure, as articles on curriculum, instruction, assessement, or discipline monopolize my reading. Tonight, I will spend my evening organizing the STACKS of papers I've got piled up, and hopefully doing some laundry. Tomorrow, my roomie's parents will be in town and I think we'll go out to dinner with them, but that's about as exciting as it gets.

I signed up for the Charm City Swing group recently at the Fells Point Festival, but I'm not sure my back can handle the excitement. Officially speaking, since my skiing accident last January, I've not been allowed to run, jump, dance, or do just about anything exciting.

I eat candy and chocolate and everything else I've bought to bribe my students into doing some work. I repeat, I do NOT go to the gym.

I also do not sleep very well. I feel old, boring, and lonesome. Hopefully this funk will end soon as I begin to attend my church's small group and figure out a way to get into my gym routine again. Twice in the past two weeks, I made an effort: I wore some makeup and put on some snazzy (relatively speaking) clothes. Immediately, my students began asking the inevitable questions, such as, "Ooh Miz ___, you goin' to see your MAN?!" I didn't know how to respond, so I simply implemented the patented "Rock eyebrow," which used to be MY eyebrow before a man who refers to himself as a stone patented it. Hmpf.

So to answer my university supervisor's question: What do I do when I am not teaching? Nothing terribly exciting. I have truly become Miz Teacher Lady, and that thought terrifies me.