Sunday, February 26, 2006

running the race

It’s disconcerting, but the weeks are picking up speed, I promise. In your chair, wherever you are, do you feel it? Earth’s spinning a little faster, yes? And I’m feeling dizzy…

As the Calvin Alumni Association cheerfully reminded us a little over a week ago, we (the senior class) now have less than a hundred days until graduation. AUGH! Run for your lives!

I remember in kindergarten when we had “100” day. Everyone brought in a hundred of something: buttons, pennies, jelly beans: all that glee in connection to 100 day. Not so, right now. I’d be bringing, oh, 100 life jackets, 100 crash helmets, 100 therapy visits, 100 oxygen tanks…

I’m sure it’s a good thing, this whole graduation business. Just like the little bird, as it’s plummeting to earth and trying to unstick its wings, is thrilled to be out of the nest. It just would rather not die so soon. Graduation feels a little like that. Though I know I’m in good hands…

But I’ll postpone the super-serious graduation terrors for another day. (Yeah, you can’t wait, can you?)

This week has been wonderful. Really. I managed to keep my seat belt buckled, and I didn’t go crazy. I think stopping the part time job was the key. Even though I miss my work pals. I’m actually ahead of schedule by a smidge. Well… both ahead and behind. I have most of the work done for Tuesday, but I have four more hours to put into an independent study, which I didn’t do last week. But I can do it tomorrow, so no worries.

Okay, I kind of take back the “wonderful” claim: early last week was kind of nuts. Tuesday morning in particular. I was running late, writing a paper, scrambling to get ready for class… and I dropped my earring straight down the sink. Perfect shot—thus dispelling my earlier belief that I have no eye-hand coordination. This was one shot in a million. (If you know me—and you might not—you’d know that I wear only one pair of earrings… and this was half of that pair. Very sad.) I didn’t know if a maintenance request would cover stupidity. The wonderful people at the physical plant have been out to check plumbing and such before, but do they take care of shot-in-a-million sink work?

At least one man does. Though he woke me up by calling at 7:30 on Wednesday morning (and no, that shouldn’t be considered super early, but it is), I was delighted to find out that he would be able to come by. Sure enough, he took the pipes apart and rescued my earring. Such a nice guy about it, too. So the maintenance people are my heroes.

Oh, I also went to Rangeela on Friday, with my good friend Jen. It was fabulous—so hard to stay in my seat half the time, because the music really made me want to dance. (That looks goofy typed out. But you know what I mean, right? When else would I be able to dance to a Japanese fishing song?? Or to Nigerian bachelor party music? Shoot. I missed my chance.)

And Saturday found me and Kim driving past Lansing to find a tea shop in Howell, Michigan, that Kim’s friend manages. This was my first “real” tea—we had lunch and then a cream tea. Incredible. (I feel a little cheesy raving on and on about clotted cream and the beauty of a hot lemon poppyseed scone, so just fill in here with your imagination. It really was amazing.)

Today has been a lot of homework, but I’m nearly done now. Whew. So much going on. And I’m planning for spring break: it looks like the wisdom teeth will be staying in my head a bit longer, and instead I’m going to visit my sister in Nashville—a much nicer alternative. Plus, a few of my professors have been reminding us about our end-of-the-year assignments. Eek! Is it time to think of major papers already?

Feel the Earth spinning faster now??—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 02/26 at 10:27 PM
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