Most days, Sylvia Maxwell gets up at 5 a.m. for work at her first job at the state's Spring Grove Hospital Center.
At 10 a.m. she leaves for school, where she goes until mid-afternoon, taking classes that will prepare her to test for a high school equivalency diploma. Then she's off to work her second job -- a full shift at St. Agnes Hospital that lasts until 11:30 p.m.
By the time she gets home and gets ready to sleep, it's almost time to start over again.
"That clock goes off at 5, and it seems like I just got in the bed," she said.
Ms. Maxwell is not a teen-ager with mom or dad around to wake her up. She's a 52-year old grandmother who started taking adult education class in Catonsville three months ago to earn the diploma she missed more than three decades ago.
"I'm just blessed that I'm a high-energy person," she says. "Inactivity would kill me."
She said her love of people, her willingness to ask for help, and her desire to get higher paying work keep her motivated.
"Here I am, an unskilled person. How am I going to get a better job?" she asked.
She's finding the answer in a classroom with others her age, where she learns basic math, reading and job-search skills through a Baltimore County program called Risking Change.
The program helps older students prepare for a high school General Educational Development certificate (GED), learn English as a second language or study for their own edification.
Across Baltimore County, about 2,100 people are in adult education classes aiming to earn a GED, according to county school officials.
At 30 adult centers throughout the county, students such as Ms. Maxwell work at their own pace, drawing on life experience, reading books and practicing writing and spelling on computers to fulfill their math and literacy requirements.
"It's unbelievable the community people that we see," said Sharon Pitcher, a Risking Change official. "Her story in particular is unusual -- I've never quite heard of someone who fit us in between two jobs! I thought it was unique how she fits education into a schedule that is pretty stressful to start with."
Ms. Maxwell started school with a big job ahead of her.
"I could read, but it wasn't so much the reading, but the comprehension," she said.
She quit school at 16 without basic literacy and math skills. Soon after, she moved from Williamston, N.C., where she married a factory worker.
Ms. Maxwell says she always wanted her GED and tried to get one when she was 30, but she never completed the program because it wasn't crucial -- her husband worked full time while she reared a son and a daughter and occasionally did day care or factory work.
When she and her husband broke up four years ago, she lost her house and found herself looking for full-time work.
Now, her days are different. Every morning, she leaves her $449-a-month, two-bedroom Towson apartment, where she lives with her daughter and three grandchildren, and goes to the Spring Grove mental hospital in Catonsville.
She spends 20 hours a week there as a dietary aide, filling patients' trays with the foods on their individual diets -- earning $108 after taxes. Until she bought a new car a few months ago, she spent 1 1/2 hours riding the bus to her job.
She changes from her white dietary aide uniform for class at the Catonsville Center for Alternative Studies on Bloomsbury Ave., where she sat one day last week with a half-dozen other students in a class of 20.
Her classmates have various reasons for being there. One woman, a factory worker, wants to be a social worker. Another, who immigrated from Hong Kong 10 years ago, comes to hone her speaking skills. Yet another was motivated to get her GED when her daughter, also a dropout, went back to school.
Ms. Maxwell and her classmates work independently as well as in groups with teacher Elaine Bryant, whom they praised as helpful and understanding.
After class, Ms. Maxwell dashes to her second job at St. Agnes Hospital, where she has worked for 2 1/2 years as a housekeeper for $5.25 an hour. She's almost always late for her 3 p.m. shift.
"It's fine, because I know Sylvia's situation," said her supervisor, Larry Stebelsky, who called her efforts fantastic.
Others agree. "Sylvia never stops -- she's always seeking to better herself," said Mary Trotman, a housekeeper at the Southwest Baltimore hospital for 25 years. "I think she's a very ambitious person, to be able to do all this. I myself couldn't do it."
Using a cart loaded with a linen hamper, a broom, a mop and cleaning supplies, Ms. Maxwell cleans rooms when patients are discharged -- about 30 each night. She gets her assignments through a beeper she wears at the waist of the blue skirt of her second uniform of the day -- which also includes a striped shirt and bow tie.
Between assignments and during her half-hour lunch break, she pulls out her reading glasses, finds a chair in the locker room, takes her books and notebooks from her white canvas book bag, and studies.
When a math problem stops her, she asks for help -- from her 14-year-old grandson, Shannon Boswell, who answers questions over the phone or at home on weekends.
"She'll just sit down and ask questions, and I'll help her with the questions, especially the math part," said Shannon, who occasionally tutors her at a blackboard hung on a living room wall.
The high school freshman said his grandmother is a good student who is making progress -- and he's not easy to please.
"I'm a tough task master," he said. "I expect you to know the work."
Sometimes she gets doctors or nurses at St. Agnes to help.
"Anybody will help if you let them. But you can't let your pride get in the way. You wonder how they're going to feel about you if you don't get it," she said.
When she doesn't understand the answer, she said, "I'll tell them, 'Let me go think about it and maybe it'll sink in. If not, I'll be back.' "
When she gets her GED, she plans to enter a nurse's assistant certificate program, which she said will cost between $300 and $400 at Baltimore County community colleges. The job pays $6 to $8 an hour, which she said is fine with her.
Ms. Maxwell will get a break as of tomorrow when school goes into recess for the holidays. Then she has more work to do zTC before she takes the GED test, which her teacher thinks she could be ready for by June.
"I try not to be wishy-washy," Ms. Maxwell said. "I noticed that it has a lot to do with a person's attitude, too."