Oddities

Well, the word for today should be odd. Followed closely by distracting. Here's an account for my day, starting at around midnight.

So I had a sub job for today, at my old high school I was pretty excited about that because, well my high school was the best in the city, and I was going to be subbing for a very small, relaxed class, so it was almost too good to be true. So around midnight, after making myself a lunch for the morning, packing my standard teacher's tote with my MCAT study books and a book of crossword puzzles (that I could make copies of for the kids to do in case the teacher didn't leave a lesson plan), I thought it would be a good idea to go to bed. I was going to be getting up around 6:30, and while the idea of less than 8 hours of sleep isn't very appealing, I figured six and a half was better than nothing.

Haha. It would have been really nice if I had gotten six and a half hours of sleep, but my brain had other ideas. I am the owner of one of those annoying kind of brains, the ones that refuse to turn themselves off, ever! The kind that over think everthing and leave the possessor in a ruined state of anxiety because they simply think too much. So hour after hour I tossed and turned, not able to sleep, and then, to make matters worse, I kept looking at the clock thinking about how little sleep I was doomed to get. This of course, only made it that much harder to fall asleep.

So I think I ended up with like 2 or 3 hours of sleep. Well, my alarm went off at 6:30, and I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed except I heard our puppy Tabitha crying downstairs because my dad had just left for work. So I decided that I must drag myself out of bed. For some reason, after turning the tv on to the normal early morning VH1 videos, I decided to switch to the morning news. And what did my tired eyes see, but a lovely news ticker across the screen naming off closed school districts. It seemed that all the horrible sleet and freezing rain we got the day before played havoc on the roads, and since everything was so iced over, schools were cancelled. Now, they never close the Flint Community Schools, like never ever. This was the district I was subbing for, so I just sat there, thinking, dude, too bad I'm not subbing for Carmen-Ainsworth, because they're closed. But, some part of me must have been having good luck, because finally, after seeing "Atherton, closed, Bentley, closed, Burton Charter, closed, Carman-Ainsworth, closed, ..." that lovely "...Fenton, closed, Flint Community Schools CLOSED..." popped up on screen. I was so happy that I'd be able to get some sleep after all, even if it did mean missing out on a $100 day.

So I went back to sleep, and had been sleeping for a lovely hour, when wouldn't you know it, Consumers Energy called and the phone woke me up. And do you know what they were calling for? A bill that wasn't even due yet, the bastards. I heard my mom grumble into the phone before hanging it up rather violently. The phone apparently woke up Teddy too, because he felt the need to come barging in my room, jump up on the bed, and take 3/4's of my bed and blankets.

I finally found a position on the 1/4 of bed I had left, and wouldn't you know it, the next hour went by, and I got woken up again, this time by someone from Consumers Energy. Darn the freaking power company. This was someone who wanted to read the meter. Well, Teddy went flying off my bed and ran downstairs as he heard my mom downstairs directing the worker down the the laundry room to read the indoor meter. At least now I was Teddy free.

I fell asleep, for about an hour and a half, and next thing I know, I hear the front doorbell ring. At this point it isn't even quite 10 am yet. Craziness. Why is it when all you want to do is sleep, it seems that fate has other plans for you? My mom goes downstairs, and asks through the glass on the front door who it is and what do they want. It was some older man, in his 60's maybe. My mom asked him what he wanted, and he just stood there. I don't know if he was confused or hard of hearing, or what his problem was. My mom asked him again who he was and what did he want. He finally said something in coherent and then reached out and tried to open our door! Teddy was going crazy jumping at the door, and my mom was like "What the heck are you doing trying to open my door?" And the man said something about "Oh I thought you said to come in!" Like, what? And even if you thought a perfect stranger was inviting you into their home, would you really want to with a 100 pound dog jumping and growling at you through the door???

The man answered back with something about he needed an address, in which my mom's response (with my editing) was "Get off my porch!" She then watched him drive across the street to the neighbor's, and go to both their front door and back door. Then he went next door to the older woman's house (as my mom refers to her, the old bat) and went in, apparently invited in. Okay, I can totally see him confusing the next door neighbor's house with that old woman's house, because they are little white one story cape cods. But our house is a three story English tutor with brick and stucco, nothing slightly resembling the little cape cods sitting across the street. So why he came here looking for this woman is beyond me.

Now my mom, being overdramatic as she is, decided to call the police on the man, just in case the "old bat" didn't know him and he had just intruded into her home. So here comes a very good looking 30 year old police officer, which I had to run upstairs away from. I mean, police officer or not, there is no way I want a hot buff guy in my age range seeing me in my twinkie boxer shorts, glasses, greasy face, and messy hair. i don't think so!

Which brings up a slightly off topic point. When we lived in the ghetto (I didn't realize it then, because we always lived in nice houses and had a typical middle class lifestyle, but we totally lived in the hood!) something really bad could happen. Like really bad. Like the time the boy who lived next door who was in a gang attacked and beat up an 80 year old man with his other fellow gang members, and somehow this poor man ended up on our porch at 3 in the morning asking for help. My parents called the police then to get the man help, and damn if it wasn't almost an hour before they came. But now, when we live in the uppity neighborhood where all the college professors and lawyers and such live, oh, my mom can call because she thinks someone is acting "odd" and the police are here in 2.5 seconds flat. What the heck is that about???

But back to the topic on hand. At this point there was no hope for me going back to sleep. So I ate a bowl of Chocolate Lucky Charms and started studying. I've been studying off an on all day although I've been very distracted the whole day and I don't think much has really stuck in my head. Darn lac operons! Tomorrow I'm getting up early to begin taking my first full practice MCAT. I would really like to not score it as I think my self esteem will take a brutal beating if I look at the score.