Today is the greatest day I've ever known

Today was a delightfully fun day. I was supposed to wake up at 9:20, study for an hour, go to class, take a lunch break, go to more class, and then go to Pracs. It ended up actually being something like this:

I woke up around 10:15 because I slept straight through my alarm clock, and then panicked around for a bit while I threw everything together and rushed off to class. I had long missed the bus, so I had to drive. I had to bring Perla with me (she had been at my place for a couple hours because the guy she was staying with had to go to work), and as we got outside... we discovered it was raining. Hard. I knew this was going to complicate things.

Got to NDSU campus and realized I had about 20 minutes to get to class. The problem is that parking sucks (especially when you're cheap and decide not to buy a parking pass), so I had to drive around on random streets looking for a single parking space. I found one about five or six blocks away, but by this time I had 10 minutes until class, so I had to keep searching for one closer to Minard Hall.

I eventually decided to park in a pass-required lot of which I did not have a pass for.

Perla: "Well we're only going to be here for an hour...."
Me: "Doesn't matter. Those parking police will find me."
Perla: "There's like a million other cars around here though, how would they know?"
Me: "Oh they know. They know. I don't know how they do it, but they always fucking find me." (I've paid so many parking tickets already that I might as well have bought a pass.)

I then went to class to take a quiz that I didn't study for because I didn't wake up early enough. Then, to try and offset the bad day I was already having, I decided to go to Jimmy Johns' and have some $1 subs for their one-day-only special. Only I had to then drive around for 20 more minutes looking for some parking. Perla tried to cheer me up by playing Jitterbug, but it didn't help. Sorry Perla.

Then, because I slacked in getting my things together over my lunch break, I was going to be late for Psychology class. I decided not to go at all and just try and get the notes from someone. Then I went to English, where we would go over our profile rough draft (which I didn't write), hoping to just duck out early... until learning that we were having a pop quiz.

Got out of English and had 20 minutes to get from NDSU to Pracs for a $1500 study. My one chance at making this day all worth it. I was supposed to be there between 4:00 and 5:00, and I checked in at 4:58.

Then I learned that we would not be getting snack at night or breakfast in the morning (both things that are vital parts of my day), and that we would be required to eat 70% of our meals (something I rarely do). And that they, without notifying any of us, changed the time of the return draws to 6:45 AM and PM, which now completely conflicted with Chemistry 121, a class that I definitely cannot miss, as I currently have no idea what the hell is going on.

At dinner, I ate all of my chicken, corn, and rice, drank all my milk and water, and didn't eat any of my lettuce (which I hate) or my Angel Food cake (which is always far too sweet-tasting for me to eat and not want to vomit). This amounted to less than "70%" of my meal, so I was told to go sit back down to finish either one of those.

I had a couple bites of cake... and I felt myself getting sick. It was then that I started to want to just go home. I wasn't really sure why I suddenly felt like giving up $1,500 because I didn't want to eat my cake, but my mind was telling me it didn't want to be there anymore.

I fought it for a while, thought about it for a while, and eventually decided to withdraw from the study and go home. I went to a gas station, bought a cappuchino, four quarter-pound cheeseburgers, and four sausage, egg, and cheese muffins (I didn't actually eat all of this, it's just in my fridge).

Cashier: "Woah... little hungry?"
Me: "I had a bad day."

I then set off west listening to my "Whatever" playlist, just wanting to get away from everything. I ended up driving here (scroll all the way down to the map), and then turned around and went home, disappointed that I remembered enough on the way back not to get completely lost in the middle of nowhere.

It was a good thing that I listened to my instincts telling me to leave Pracs, because I decided that my life was moving far too fast for itself, I was constantly stressed out, and that nothing in my life was under my control anymore. Leaving something I was supposed to stay at helped get some of that control back. I then went home and enjoyed a completely relaxing night completely by myself, something I hadn't done in quite a while.

I still had an article for The Spectrum to write by Saturday evening, way too much Chemistry homework to do, a profile of an Iraq War Veteran due Monday for English, Psychology notes to track down, and a long-overdue Facebook Album to post... but for at least a night until everything sped back up again, my life was mine and no-one else's.

(The title is from "Today" by Smashing Pumpkins, a song about suicide, set to ironic mellow beats and phrases like "can't wait for tomorrow." The ProgressiveU FAQ recommends providing a link for re-posted material you've already written for other sites. This blog entry was originally posted here.)