from blood samples to mock representatives

This morning I woke up to the slamming of a door. That really didn’t register, so I mechanically rose out of bed, grabbed my clothes for the day, and headed into the bathroom to take a shower. And then I realized that a door slamming meant people were leaving. In particular, my mom and sister were headed off. This immediately meant for me that it must be 7:20 and I had missed my trip in; no worries: I figured I’d either drive down myself or have my dad send me. So on that note I ditched my clothes and had a shower.

About halfway through, I remembered that my sister had a doctor’s appointment at 7:15 or some such, so they probably left for that, which meant that it was earlier than 7:20. I also recalled that my mom could come back and pick me up. No problem there either.

With fresh clothes on, I headed downstairs for my usual morning glass of milk to relieve my dry throat. This was on par with my irritated nose; allergies seemed to be worse this morning than normal, but then again, it could just be me. It could’ve been the flowers that my mom brouht home last night, which is what I’ve hence blamed, but it really could just be higher pollen counts for the day.

So getting ready, I began to pack my bag for the day. Remembering that last night I had forgot to charge my laptop, I proceeded to get a quick charge in before I had to go. Of course, I wanted to find out what the charge was, so I turned it on. 76%, it read, so I was happy. I once again remembered about the fact that my mom was coming back, so I decided that I should finish packing and all that. So after stuffing a hefty chemistry book into my messenger bag, I headed upstairs to get the socks that I had forgotten and anything else that I might need.

Passing through the kitchen, I grabbed a kleenex and blew my nose, only to find a large splotch of crimson red on it. Great, just what I need, a nosebleed. So there I stand at the kitchen sink, going through maybe seven tissues before the tide was stemmed. Upstairs I went, gathering the last of my things and finishing up any bathroom related items.

About at this point my mom came back, so we headed off to the clinic to pick my sister up. While heading out of the house, it slowly surfaced that today was the Mock Expo Career Fair, meaning I had to be at the Union at 9:00 in order to have plenty of time to talk to representatives and make it to my 9:30 class. Now, the plan had been for me to take the 8:10 bus from Parkland to campus, arrive a few minutes before 9:00 to catch my breath, and head in. My mom said that this should be no problem, saying that a 7:15 appointment should be well over by 7:45. Well, not quite. It wasn’t till about 8:00 that my sister emerged, which meant that there was no possibility of my taking the 8:10 bus; I’d have to take the 8:42 bus and completely miss Mock Expo, which was btw a requirement for my engineering 100 class.

Well, mom to the rescue, she decided that she’d send both my sister and I to campus. So arriving before 8:30, I had plenty of time to compose my thoughts and take a few deep breaths. And also remember at about 8:55 that I had secretly planned to utilize my mom’s printer and print out my resume.

So off to the Union computer labs I went. I successfully located my resume after a long search of my databases, only to find a more recent copy on my flash drive; oh well, so I proceeded to print it out. Only problem was that there was a long line of people also printing out their resumes. So 9:00 came and went, which was in one sense no problem, because I had till 9:30 to get to class. Thankfully I didn’t have long to walk after grabbing my resume off the printer, and was in the Colonial Room of the Union by 9:15.

The representative I talked to was very nice. She was very understanding of my freshman-noobishness and the like and gave me lots of useful tips. In retrospect, I think she told me stuff I had already known, but it was good to really let it sink in and make me realize that these really were useful things to do -- and that I needed to get on the ball despite her saying that I already was.

By the time I was out the front doors of the Union, it was 9:35. So there you have it, you can all pat me on the back; I was late to my first class today and it’s almost been three weeks. That’s not bad if you ask me. So I grabbed a bus and headed over to Siebel for class. I was (not-surprisingly) one of four that were coming to class at the same time, all having taken the same bus over.

By the time I found a seat and figured out what the professor was talking about, I found that I had missed absolutely nothing substantial. Come to think of it, I probably could have missed the whole class and looked at the powerpoint file and not have missed anything. All in a day's work, I suppose.