being sarah marie
They love to plant...
Pull, then Push
Savage Minds
The Trick is to...
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan Englander
Bad Dirt, Annie Proulx
Brown, Richard Rodriguez
Namesake
Rewind to the present
Two long but fascinating articles about China and ...
I wish I knew where to start or how to begin. Ther...
I guess it's time to start coming out of hiberatio...
Privacy and the Net
Blogging and Free Speech
Month of Discontent
Sister Issues/My Hunger Strike
January 24, 2006
First Days
The first few days of a new semester are like a broken record that repeats every year. The same song, same scene, same mayhem repeats and repeats. The sidewalks connecting the campus buildings swell more than ever during passing time as seemingly 95% of the students who don't normally show up to class make a forced showing to the first lecture, or two. The bookstore resembles an ant hill with people coming and going, making their ways through the narrow aisles stacked with books. Taking books out with them, returning books from unwanted classes back in with them.
Professors hand out their syllabi and spend the first class taking care of the "book-keeping," "housework," "mechanics of the class" or whatever other boring phrase they decide to use to describe their unoriginal and rather boring rants that routinely fill up the first day of class. Students sit in their chairs, staring at the professors, yawning, fidgeting, the bold ones get up and leave.
The clock ticks, time goes by, and the class period is up. The crowds that swell the classrooms on the first day disperse within a minute, everyone seems to have a place to go, things to do, and so it goes.
January 21, 2006
Yep.
I made it back to New York, but who knows about my luggage. Luckily I split my stuff between two suitcases, so I'm not at a complete loss with one missing. But still, what a pain in the ass. This really is a little bit of a nightmare, and all too parallel to my awful journey back to NY after winter break last year.
I really miss my toothbrush.
Classes start on Monday.
Always a Nightmare
After writing my last post, I slipped into something of a narcoleptic episode. In the midst of sitting up from my bed and wiping those cobwebs off my eyes I decided that with more than a week at home, I ought to continue to take it easy and have fun, even if that means being a bum.
In truth, that period of proto-awakening consisted of a string of 3 or 4 days in which I had plans back to back. It was great to get out a little bit, see some friends, etc. But all that running around left me exhausted, and in the end the allure of the couch and the fetal warmth and coziness of my bed at home were just too good to resist.
I'm supposed to fly eastward back to school tomorrow, although whether or not that will really happen remains to be seen. Tonight I had a little bit of foresight to check up on my flights. I really just needed to check at what time I'm leaving. Instead, I was greeted with a horrid "cancelled" note on my itinerary. CANCELLED?!? Both of my flights were supposedly cancelled, and I had no idea why the hell that happened.
I ended up trying to call USair, and I spent like half an hour on their automated customer service and got hung up on once before I actually got through to a live human being. Speaking to a human didn't help much. The woman sounded out of it, and then she basically told me that I had cancelled my tickets and that this was all my fault. Wow, what?!? I was infuriated but even more in complete shock. I had bought that ticket and I had in hard copy that I have two flights to get back tomorrow. What in the world?!?!
The customer service rep then proceeded to tell me that she can book me on another flight but that all the flights for tomorrow are full. Full they may be but I bought a freaking spot on those flights a few months ago! I'm in a flabbergasted fury so I just repeat to her that I never cancelled any flights and that I should already be on those flights. She retorts with a, "Oh, and and in order to do this rebooking you'll have to pay a fee of $100."
I asked her not to touch my tickets and said that I would call back. Good thing I was still home because after hanging up I ran straight to Mommy and explained to her the complete idiotic mess that I was in. Apparently angry Moms have some sort of magical powers, because my mom called back and got that same unhelpful Customer Rep. Mom was firm and assertive; with a few sentences she had cast her spell. It was USair that messed up my flight, she insisted. You will fix this! She demanded of the Rep. And hell to the NO you're not charging us another $100 for your own screw ups, she finished.
Apparently the Customer Rep got me back on my two flights free of charge, but I have still have no idea what's going on. And why did she have to cause me so much grief in the first place? And why did we have to waste so much time arguing and going crazy thinking I might be stuck at home and forced to buy a new ticket? The Customer Rep said we should see the changes online, but here at 4:34 a.m. I still see no changes and I'm supposed to be airborne in a few hours.
What another shitty way to start the Spring semester. This sounds all too much like deja vu from a terrible start to the Spring semester last year, which also, incidentally, involved airline trouble. Hmph. I'm so angry and bitter! The only thing keeping me going is the thought that I'll be graduating this Spring before getting perennially screwed over by airlines at the the start of every Spring semester can become a tradition.
January 12, 2006
Waking Up
The past four weeks of my life have whizzed by in a quick blur. My canker sores have long healed; I've just about had my fill of re-runs of TV shows I've never seen before; and I think I've spent enough time in my bed and on the couch to leave permanent imprints. I have almost nothing to show for this most recent crash and burn event in my life, but that's OK. I suppose a good dose of hiberation is a quite an proper antidote to a semester's worth of overstimulation.
Well, I'm still feeling a bit groggy and sleepy, but between that and feeling I've been living a very useless life for the past few weeks I'm also coming to grips with the inevitable fact that yet another semester is about to dawn. I'm slowly clearing out the cobwebs from my eyes, and mentally preparing myself to brush my teeth, put on some day-clothes, eat breakfast and then head back to the real world, whatever that means.
