Thought Processes

The Testing Center intimidates the fetch out of me.  Why you might ask?  Well let me go all therapist/patient on you.  IT'S MY PARENTS FAULT.

Before I came to BYU, my parents had a favorite story to tell me.  Actually they have lots of these favorite stories.  Always warning stories, "you know who else didn't clean her room?  Jenna.  Do you know where she is now?  DEAD."  Like every time I drive through the intersection of 27th and Highland Papa Jim MUST tell me about the time our neighbor got T-boned there.  "Now Sierra, you know this is the intersec... YES DAD.  I KNOW"  And then I speed up and pretend to ignore oncoming traffic.  I love our conversations.

Luckily for me they also have a story revolving around the testing center, so I could be sufficiently cowed and terrified before I walked in.  Apparently a cute charming charismatic boy from our ward didn't just get IN TROUBLE (enough to scare me right there) but got KICKED OUT and got A ZERO on a test for goofing off.  And by that point I'm curled in a fetal position on the floor because an embarrassing spectacle, disapproval, and bad grades?  Sweet lanta just kill me already.

Now I've already made it through a semester and taken more than a few tests, in fact, I even got away with wearing leggings during one test; so when I walked in on Monday, the trepidation levels were minimal.  Which means of course it's time to wreak havoc with my irrational fears.  Hello brain.  It's been awhile.

I'd lost my calculator a few days before but that was no problem right?  Really.  It would be fine because I could rent a calculator.  Everyone says so.  (But what if they're out of calculators?  What if they really don't have calculators?  What if they laugh at me and I have to walk of shame home past everyone in line?) NO.  It will be Oooooohhh Kaaaayyyy.  Breathebreathebreathe.

Luckily they really did have calculators for a mere 50 cents, so I took one, found an open desk, and sat down.  Halfway through taking my test I realized that my calculator, you know, that piece of plastic I'd sweated over getting actually didn't. work.  Whenever I tried to multiply or divide the calculator added a few zeros.  5 divided by 10 became 5 divided by a thousand.

Crap.  Crap crap crap.

(Am I allowed to stand up if I'm not done with my test?  What if they think I'm going to look at notes and cheat when I'm really only going to exchange a calculator?  Do I take stuff with me?  Do I raise my hand?  I DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO LOOK AT ME)

I kept the calculator.

I know, I know.  Pathetic.  Just wait.

Because, I rationalized, I can just move over the decimal points by two places.  No problem.  I can handle this.  Crisis averted.

Then I left the center, studied for an hour, and returned to take another test.  This time they gave me a working calculator and didn't even charge me for it because it came with the test.  I sat down under a large poster that read "KEEP YOUR BACKPACKS COMPLETELY UNDER YOUR DESK AND DON'T OPEN THEM AT ANY TIME" Normal.  

Things were going my way.  Until I opened the pocket of my backpack where I always keep my pencil.  The pencil I'd had less than two hours ago to take my other test.  It wasn't in there.

Crap.  Crap crap crap crap.

(I know it's got to be in my backpack somewhere! If I just keep looking through it... But what about that poster?  They're going to kick me out for peaking at a cheat sheet!  Why is the sound of looking for a pencil so dang loud in this deathly silent hall??  Why am I freaking out about this?  It HAS to be there!  ...  It's really not there.  Should I stand up?  Should I raise my hand?  Do they rent pencils too?  And then there's the whole issue of OH MY GOSH PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO LOOK AT ME)


I took the test with a spare piece of lead.

When Things Get Busy

Sometimes, the only time I can make it to anatomy open lab is at seven.  And sometimes that means I get dressed in the dark because my roommate is still in bed - apparently grad students have the luxury of sleeping till noon?  Yeah I hate her.  And because turning on the light would probably zap my tired eyes into little raisins that get sucked back into my brain (Optic Nerve I), leaving me tragically blind and disgustingly eye-less.  Think the fates in Hercules.  So sometimes I don't realize my shirt is actually inside out until now.  Approximately 10 hours and 3 classes later.

Also.  This is not the first time.

The Adventures of Billy. Part One.

So we meet again fair boy.

Let's start with an introduction about my accounting 200 class.  This is an auditorium sized room, filled to the brim with students.  Three hundred at least, honestly.  This is the girl that occasionally hides in the corner of the library during the ten minutes between classes because there's just so. many. people. Too many people crowding the halls and looking at me.  Stop that.  STOP IT!  So MUCH EYE CONTACT.  So. Much. Overwhelming.

yeah.

Now this class starts at 8:00 every Tuesday and Thursday morning, which is, you know, probably doable for well-coordinated motivated people.  Read: not me.  And on this particular Thursday we were assigned seats for group work.  Which meant that there really was no way I could rationalize not washing my hair (especially since it'd been a day.. or so...) and putting on mascara AT LEAST.*  We were supposed to look up the seating chart the night before and memorize it.   Riiiiiiiiight.  My teacher also warned us that being late was not recommended because you'd have to walk in front of all five million people and find your seat and make people move and interrupt the teacher...

heh heh heh.  See where I'm going with this?

I really probably could have made it.  But I also have this running schedule which is supposedly going to get me ready for a half marathon.  And I printed it off the internet so it must be trustworthy. RIGHT? Right.  And it called for me to go on a long** run that day.  And here's the thing.  When it comes to things like this I'm not flexible at all.  I'm brick.  I'm the BYU honor code and I WILL NOT DEVIATE.  I must go running every day my omnipotent schedule mandates and I Must go the Corresponding Distance and I MUST go in the MORNING.  Because if I go at night in this big scary city probably I'll become a headline in the news.

So I figured that all I had to do was get up at six, because hey, run for a 45 minutes, then have 45 minutes+ to get ready = GOLDEN.  Six rolled around.  Then 6:05, then 6:15.... because I kept rationalizing, "no way.  I can totes run it faster than 45 minutes.  I fantasized this as I laid completely stationary in my very comfortable sleeping bag.*** That's also when I think I won't check facebook that day, or will talk to that one boy in my chem class.  I'm such a liar in the morning.

By the time I got up, ran, got ready, and left for class, I was doing that awkward jog every other step zombie gallop all the way to class (the furthest building away as it turns out).  And after running my legs into little stumps (ahem.  little-ER) that morning I still had to make it up the seven flights of stairs that stand in the way of my classes.

The point is: if you happened to be walking on campus and saw a really sweaty girl in yellow pants, cradling her thighs and wheezing/speed-walking with an especially pained looking grimace on her face, it was definitely Billy.

It was also Billy who arrived late to class, dripping lotion-sweat and walking from the 38th row to the correct seat in the 7th row.  And then when that person had to get back up two minutes later to pick up the handout back on the 38th row?  Still Billy.  Poor thing.


*you're proud right mom?  the EFFORT i GO to.
**long for ME ooookay?  As in, more than three miles.  Shut up.
***Normal.  More about that later probably.

Meet Billy

Before I talk all about my first day of school - actually I probably won't do that at all because it'd be very long and only interesting to me - let me share this one story about the picture on my ID card.

Apologies to those who've heard this story before.  But when I find a funny story that people enjoy (or at least I think they enjoy it.. that's what the grimace means right?) I tell it several times because hey, I'm not that clever that often.  And true to my upbringing, if you have something good: WEAR IT OUT.  Those shoes can actually last two years longer than you think.  Just because they're five shades dingier (yet simultaneously five shades more faded) doesn't mean you can't still USE THEM.  What?  You have a new pair of shoes?  Great.  Those old shoes can become work shoes.  You already have a old pair of almost-but-not-quite-worn-to-dust work shoes?  Great!  You have a NEW pair of CUTER old work shoes!  Or better yet, move them into the little room that holds all the preparations for the last days when the earth blows up and all the shopping centers have burned in sinful materialistic flame.  Because then no one will care if I'm wearing that striped shirt that is "so adorable" but also makes me look like a lumpy dough bag.  Although if I did come down to me to repopulate and all I had were these storage clothes, the future generations would be screwed because any man, desperate or not would take one look and say, 'oh no dough bag'.  He may reconsider but probably not before he gets hit by an asteroid.

So dear readers, prepare to hear this story over and over and over again, every time we meet someone who hasn't heard it yet - and there are about 7 billion people in this world - until this story is memorized, can be recited backwards letter by letter, and is past the point of even the redeeming powers of duct tape.

I'll try not to drag it out, because really it could have started a year ago, when I took a math class so I could work at the Y.  I'm again taking this math class, because I went back to Cedar before it ended, taking an incomplete.  A process which in and of itself could out the Odyssey to shame.  Basically, I had to get a new ID card.  Ok.  Shouldn't be that hard right?  Riiiiiiiiiight.

And it begins.

The search for a new card led me to the library, where a very helpful sign said, "ID Cards" with an accompanying arrow.  Perfect.  So I followed the sign through the library, around a desk, around a corner, and to a door with another sign.  This one read, please go to the front desk to get your ID card.  Well ok then.  I retraced my steps.

"Hi I need to get a new ID card."

"Well what happened to your old one?"

Thinking that honesty would be the best policy and already expecting a charge anyway I answered, "Oh I lost it forever ago. It's been at least a year."

The man at the desk stared at me and said, "Well since you admitted you lost it that almost makes me want to charge you the fee for a new card.*"  And then he laughed awkwardly like that would diffuse the weirdness of his statement.  It didn't.

Knowing that class would be starting soon, I impatiently told him I didn't care about the charge but to just tell me where the heck to go.  He sent me out to another office, where I paid and they sent me back to socially awkward man so he could take my new ID photo.

Now really I should have just waited.  Waited for a different day when I hadn't come straight from swimming or at least for a day when I was wearing make up.  But since I'd already paid the d-a-m-n charge I followed the man back through the library, around the corner, and to the door that originally denied me access.  Here Mr. SA* kind of muttered, "there's a mirror if you want to fix your hair."  To which I replied, "what? Don't I look good?"  I think he still might be red.

I stood on the little x and started to smile because I was told the camera would click on 4.  It clicked on 2.  Apparently it was a new camera and no one knew how to work it.  Here's the result.

 

I know.  I know.  I could have retaken it but I was super late for class and really, it kind of captures my feelings about the whole adventure.

So meet (as my family calls it) Billy.  As in, Billy BYU.  My pained looking alter ego. Destined for all things awkward.  I'm sure he'll be in lots of stories this year.

Do you know how often I use my ID card?  For about everything.  I'm ashamed every time.  In fact, even having this up on the screen is scaring the other people in the library.  It's scaring me at least.  

School rocks.

*I asked him later what I could have said in order not to pay and he stammered out that sometimes if the card gets stolen they don't charge.  I think my card will be getting stolen VERY soon.