April 10-12, 2001 — Of straight edge and the grotesque body

It has been far too long since I last wrote a journal. I'm worried that I might've forgotten how. I've definitely lost the initiative that I once had to drive me to write them. Here's to hoping I can get it back...

Tuesday

As planned, I'd started studying for my two physics tests scheduled for Tuesday at some point on Monday night. When I say that I started studying, I of course mean that I figured out which parts of the text book I would need to learn the following morning and in which order it was recommended that I learn them. I also copied out the list of problem set questions and answers from the Web site so that I could try them for the first time. I am a responsible student.

By the time lunch rolled around, I was actually doing quite well. I'd learned a lot more than I figured I would, anyway. But I hadn't studied at all for my lab practical that was to take place mid-afternoon, so I switched from my term test to that. I immediately decided that if I were to get any practical other than DC Circuits, I would not do well. (During the practical test, we're given one of the labs we did during the year, and we'll have to do a shortened version of it without the instructions in 45 minutes.) On the way to the practical, I chanted, "I will get DC Circuits," over and over again. Then, given that the odds were stacked so high against me and that the universe was a spiteful one, I convinced myself that it didn't matter in the end and I prepped myself for inevitable failure. I'd wrapped myself in a warm blanket of indifference by the time that I arrived at the lab.

I checked the sheet and found that I was doing DC Circuits. Maybe the universe doesn't hate me after all...

I finished in 40 minutes without trouble. When I returned to studying for the midterm, though, I found that some of it was a bit too dense for me to fully understand in the two hours that I had to learn three weeks of material. I could answer all but two questions on the term test, and since it was the longest one we'd had so far, I don't think I did so badly. Besides, we're allowed to drop one term test, so I'll just make this one mine. And since we can't drop the lab test, I did much better on the test that actually mattered. Once again the consequences of rather intense procrastination proved quite minimal.

Now, on to the essay due on Thursday that I was given six months to write and that, as of Tuesday, I hadn't written a word for...

Wednesday and Thursday (my 48 hour day)

I woke up early on Wednesday and went to breakfast. Then I calmly went to the library to get a couple of books, acting like I had all the time in the world. Then I went to lunch. By 10:00PM, I had nothing written and had only a vague notion of what I wanted to say and in what order I wanted to say it. It was a long night.

The highlight was when at 9:30AM Thursday morning, with my essay only half-written, I set my alarm for 10:30AM and took a nap. Johnston, the killjoy that he is, had for some reason decided to set his alarm for 10:00AM. He proceeded to hit snooze for an hour before resetting the alarm for 12:00PM and going back to sleep. Luckily, the adrenaline that my body produced in preparation for carrying out my plans to slit Johnston's throat and to make it look like an accident was easily redirected to the cause at hand -- I had my essay finished by 1:30PM or so.

Well. I'd written it, anyway. The problem was that I'd said that I would submit the essay as a Web page. So I popped open the ol' HTML editor and got to coding. I ended up finishing one of the worst essays I'd ever written just before 3:30PM, which was cutting it pretty close given that the bus I had to catch to Ottawa was leaving at 4:30PM . . .

. . . But I still calmly packed my things and casually walked to the subway on my way to the bus. At some point on the subway ride, I realized that my bus was leaving in fifteen minutes and that I still didn't have a ticket. That's when I started to panic.

When I arrived at the station, there was a 30-minute wait for tickets, so I was directed to the arrivals area where you could only pay in cash and where the line moved faster. I was running about in an adrenaline-fueled daze, and I was a bit surprised to hear my name and to find that it was none other than Jay McDevitt. We talked for awhile, but I was a bit too stressed out about missing my bus and exhausted from my mostly sleepless night to make very good small talk. I eventually got my ticket, but I didn't even get to say goodbye to Jay because he was helping a man carry his luggage to the bus. He's good like that. (For those not in the know, Jay is a year older than me and went to the same high school as I did. In an ICQ conversation with Tim last night, we both agreed that Jay is indeed "good like that" when it comes to helping strangers.) Anyway, ticket in hand, I began my sprint to the bus; I made it as the door was closing, hit the door, was yelled at by the driver, and was allowed to board.

I don't know what it is about me and buses, but I've a tendency to end up sitting beside people with accents, loud voices, and cellphones, and this time was no exception. The accent: Australian. Summary of many a loud cellphone conversation: "Yeah, I'm on the bus. Can you pick me up some beer?" Luckily, my exhaustion allowed me to sleep through most of this -- I didn't even realize we'd been delayed by two hours until our time of arrival rolled around and the driver informed us that we still had two hours to go.

Upon my arrival at the bus station, Paul Galipeau recognized me and said hello before my father did. I thought that was kind of funny.

And so began my weekend in Richmond. Don't worry, there's more.