Sigh. . . (and some yoga-style breathing)
I have had a day.
You know the kind. The one where you get up at the ass-crack of dawn (in this case slightly before because the sun wasn't up yet) to tackle a monster list of things that must take place to ensure the continuation of your life as you know it.
(Study for a 10am exam, ghost write a letter from the faculty program chair to Fortune 100 companies, try to identify the contacts to which you should send your resume before the end of the week in order to land a summer intership someplace interesting - only to find out that several of your targets have already closed their application process for 2003 - and have breakfast.)
You're just proud that you're conscious at that hour, and proceed to the bathroom where there is no hot water (the Monday morning ritual in my building - although last week there was hot, but no cold water) and then drop your toothbrush in the toilet. (I'm just glad it wasn't my electric one, or I really would have sworn.)
Finally, you're out the door (only 6 minutes late to the exam). Luckily, you fly down the steps just in time to barely catch the train (but without getting stuck in the door), only to have the train red-lighted at the next stop.
While taking the exam, your pen runs out of ink. How do you dig another one out of your bag without the prof thinking you're checking a cheatsheet?
Complete exam, head to next meeting (having exactly 3.5 minutes to grab lunch in between). Thirty minutes into the meeting (where the center's new trainee is "sitting in"), you realize you have pasta sauce crusted to your chin.
Finish meeting one and head to meeting two, where the aforementioned program chair (for whom you've prepared the letter and addendum) does not show up. Wait for said person for one hour, trying to be as productive as possible in the mean time.
After an hour, go to the Lounge to set up your laptop (because the dataport in the meeting room wasn't operational), only to have your email account crash (taking your Stat's professor's lecture notes and assignment with it).
Go to the vending machine. Diet coke and chocolate are required.
Breathe. Plug your headphones into your laptop and play something soothing. Attempt to regain sanity and rebuild lost assignment.
Go back to program chair's office. Learn that he has not pulled together the contacts for the letter, so you are delayed yet another day. Without screaming or pulling your hair out, ask him if he could simply mark an X on all contact names and leave them outside his door. You will pick them up tomorrow, hunt down the missing address data, build a database, merge the letters, print them and have them ready for his signature by the end of business Wednesday.
Go to policy class (the one for which you haven't had time to do the reading) and tell your friend to elbow you if you fall asleep. As the professor talks for 96 of the 100 minute class period, write a poem. An epic poem (why not? you have the time.) When he calls on you and asks if you agree, (with no knowledge of what he's talking about) answer no. Reply with something vague, but emphatic, referrencing that you feel it is more a "bifurcation resulting from external pressures."
Follow up with "Do you understand what I mean?" This shifts the ball back to his court and he is the one that has to tie the vague malarky you just said into what he was asking, or be the expert that doesn't know it all. Good strategy. Snicker, compliment and shame yourself, and return to the poem which is now four pages long.
After class, proceed home without slipping on the slushy, treacherous sidewalks.
Notice how beautiful the trees are - the branches hanging with heavy, wet, white snow.
Be grateful that today is over. Kind of. (Except for the Privatization assignment that's due tomorrow and the readings you haven't started.) Despite that, chill for a bit, and take a moment to e-vent.
Tomorrow is a new day. Anything is possible.
Posted by Amanda at February 10, 2003 08:40 PM
