"Today is B.I. Day"

Every Wednesday, Kiwi Teacher and Berry Teacher (me) teach science and cooking to the morning kiddie classes. These days are known in Banana Island as "B.I. Days." Certain recipes (i.e. pork meatballs or cookies) require advanced preparation and testing before we give them a go in class. Science usually does not require any sort of pre-class jump-start to allow the kids to complete the experiment during the allotted 30-minute class period. Wednesday is a different day of teaching than the rest of the days, and I usually feel beat at the end of the day. Today is Tuesday.
I went to teach morning math to Bana Star Class. The room lay empty with the light (as always) left on. "What!?" I hear Kiwi Teacher (Gena) exclaim. At this point, I knew today was "special." Maybe a video or some other group activity? She turns around, white as a ghost, mouth hanging loosely, eyelids nowhere to be seen, looking directly at me. I knew the scenario just before she began to speak. "We're doing B.I. Day today!?" She saw my heart thumping away in my eyes. It was 10:05. I needed to have cookies baked and ready for my first class at 10:30.
"Yeah, I told you guys!" says Jane, the Korean-American teacher from California who usually does translations for us when Mrs. Lee (the boss) wants to tell us something. I looked at Jane and Gena in disbelief. Then I ran to the office room/copy room/storage closet to grab my black apron with the yellow neck strap.
The previous week, Mrs. Lee had several times called us to talk after school about some intended schedule changes. She would tell us in English "schedule change," then explain to Jane in Korean, who would tell us in English "there is a schedule change." Gena rolled her eyes. "That tells us nothing." Jane would ask Mrs. Lee once again, who'd say "these classes are together" and explain to Jane in Korean, who'd tell us, "I don't know, I think these two classes are together now."
Headache. "Write the new schedule down for us, I have no idea what these pen circles mean," Gena told Mrs. Lee. It was the end of our shift, time for me to go catch the bus to my Korean class in Seoul.
At another little meeting two weeks ago, we were informed the B.I. Day had been moved from Wednesday to Friday to closer coincide with the the holiday, Children's Day. Mother's Day was supposed to be the holiday, we thought, but Mother's Day doesn't happen until the 13th. "Change," Mrs. Lee said. Korean Mother's Day happens a week earlier than Western Mother's Day, and Mrs. Lee wanted us to change for the Children's Day holiday, which happened the same week as Korean Mother's Day this year.
The curriculum has us celebrating Mother's Day, with special "I love you Mom" crafts the Korean teachers teach and heart-shaped Mother's Day cookies that Gena and I teach the kids to eat. So we shifted the Mother's Day B.I. Day to the week of western Mother's Day and we shifted the B.I. Day to Friday for Children's Day. Problem solved.
As it turned out (and we today found out), we also shifted the Mother's Day B.I. Day to Tuesday this week (today), in order to accomodate for the Korean Parent's Day holiday, which apparently also falls on this week. "Okay, this is the greatest short-term challenge you've faced in quite some time," I told myself. "Don't screw up."
In the kitchen. While I began mixing sugar, baking soda, flour and ginger, in a bowl, Gena started coughing uncontrollably while trying to grab all the necessary ingredients from the refrigerator and grasp the current situation. She managed to whisper "Asthma -cough- attack." She got up from her chair. I filled a cup of water.
In the copy room/cell phone lobby/office, Gena pulls her inhaler from her bag. I put the cup of water in front of her. Secretary Jennifer, Kate Teacher and Jane were in the office with her. "Can I help you get anything ready?" Jane asked me.
"Yeah, let me see what I can think of."
In the kitchen, looked at the instructions, mixed butter into the dough. "I told you guys before," Jane said again. "Put some flour on the cutting board," I responded. No use trying to argue over who should have done what and who messed up. At least not at the moment.
Gena recovered from her asthma fit, I followed the dough directions successfully and, through maintaining my cool, managed the surprise B.I. Day well. The gingerbread cookies were actually delicious. Intense situation resolved.
I'm still trying to think of at least some type of organization to implement that'll make stuff like this not happen again. I do now vaguely remember one time hearing something a couple weeks ago about a B.I. Day being moved to a Tuesday. There is no general whiteboard "Daily Calendar" with the dates written in, like at that horrible Wonderland where I worked last year.
Probably I took for granted that I'd hear about the schedule change again sometime within the next two weeks. Not totally unreasonable. But still... Jane is going to put a neon-yellow sheet of construction paper on our bulletin board, on which she (and we) will tack important memos.

At least, that's the idea.