By Tuana Kardas, year 10
Aditya Daniel Manchala rushes out of bed each morning at six o’clock, after only sleeping for 5 hours. After an intense night’s sleep, he hurries to the kitchen and pours his first coffee of the day before feeding his cat, Naily. After getting dressed, he leaves his house around 7-7:15 am and begins his drive to school. During this ride, he listens to Apple Music or science podcasts on Apple CarPlay.
After 30 minutes, he arrives at school and searches for a parking spot in front of the Salève. He has five classes to teach, year 9 pure mathematics, year 10 chemistry, year 11 physics in French, year 12 and year mathematics AA standard, and TOK. In order to survive each class, he has to take a coffee break between all of them, sometimes seven during them. Mr. Manchala claims to rely on his high caffeine intake of 5 cups per day, all during school hours. Once the clock hits 10:30, he goes up to the mathematics department’s staff room to have more coffee with his colleagues. Following break are more lessons for him to teach; however, when he does have a free period, he prefers to spend it in one of the break rooms, chatting it up with co-workers such as Mr. Hedayati. He then continues to stay there during lunch, during which he socializes with more individuals. One peculiar fact about Mr. Manchala is that he does not consume food depending on a clock; he eats intuitively depending on when his body is hungry. This is why he does not eat anything for breakfast or lunch. He has no rule against eating food, but he prefers to do intermittent fasting where he eats dinners only as that is the only time he gets hungry. After lunch, he continues with his work schedule of teaching fellow students.
As soon as the school bell rings, Mr. Manchala can be spotted leaving the Salève building, heading for the green gate, and walking towards his car. He declares that he finds his home environment more suitable for marking papers as it enables him to get more work done without having any distractions. Depending on the day he endured, his marking time varies. For instance, for him, a quiz takes 30 minutes, a test 2 hours, an exam 4-6 hours divided into 2-3 sessions, but TOK essays take significantly longer to mark as each student’s work is unique and thus needs a more detailed look at it. He will then feast on his only main course meal of the day, his dinner. After devouring his treat of the day, Mr. Manchala will get into bed at 22:00. That is what he claims to want to do; however, in reality, he ends up in bed near 23:00 and will go on Netflix, Reddit, or YouTube until drifting to sleep 2 hours later. Fortunate for him, he argues that his current routine is solid, which benefits him as it helps him fall asleep faster and easier.
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