Wolf Dreams...: 11/2005

Interesting.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28047
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/microwaves-govern-us/2005/11/30/1133311107131.html

Subject: Funny Story

The following started out as a heavily edited (teacher appropriate) version of this. Then I realized that it was just better. Though, swearing is funny.

From: "Brian Hing Yen Kung"
Date: Sun, November 20, 2005 1:28 am
Priority: Normal

Remember when I showed up in class on Tuesday haggard-looking? This is why.

(Mr. Gertzfield, I'm just emailing this to you because you seem to have enjoyed hearing about capers like this in the past.)

**WARNING! IRREVERENT REFERENCES TO GOD MADE ON OCCASION!**
**WARNING! EXTREMELY LONG! READ ONLY IF YOU HAVE GREAT PATIENCE!**
**WARNING! INSIGHT INTO THE LAST-MINUTE MIND OF A SLACKER, WITH NOT THE SLIGHTEST INTENTION OF MAKING ANY TALL-TALE EXCUSES FOR BEING UNPREPARED FOR SCHOOL! I REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT MY GRADE BECAUSE IT'S BEEN A FLAMING WRECK FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER!**
**ALSO, IT WOULD BE VERY KIND OF YOU NOT TO MENTION TO THE COPS THAT I WAS DRIVING AROUND WITHOUT A LICENSE, K THX!**

That said...

It started when I was sick last Monday. On the following day of school, Tuesday, there was a late arrival, and I overslept. I probably shouldn't have stayed up writing until 2:30AM the previous...well, technically, that day.

The first memory I have of that day is very fuzzy. I got the impression, acoustically, of my mom running past my bedroom door. She slammed a knuckle on the door and yelled, "Don't be late to school!" Then, in the fastest semi-conscious recall I have ever experienced, I remembered that it was a late arrival and completely ignored her, going back to sleep. I had two more hours to sleep...

There was a lot of fuzzy logic involved there. Logic always gets fuzzy when emotions and feelings grow on it, emotions like laziness and feelings like exhaustion.

When I woke up next, the clock read 10:22AM. School started in three minutes! I have a huge Biology assignment due today! And a Government assignment as well! I'm gonna have to drive the car to make it in time, but the the windows don't go down, it's freezing outside, it's raining, and, oh yeah, I don't have a parking spot!

I was so short on time, it wasn't funny.

Then I decided to take a long shower, because I hadn't had the luxury of personal hygiene the night before, when I fell unconscious. Mmm, hot water and cleanliness. Thankfully, I hadn't fixed my clock for Daylight Savings. It was probably 10:00AM when I got out.

I got out of the shower, dressed, and then started working on Angiosperm Lab Questions. Nevermind the fact that I hadn't read the necessary chapters, I was going to answer the questions and get it to class on time 2nd period, 11:10AM. On late arrivals, I have 1st period free, otherwise I would have had less time. That meant I didn't quite have the luxury of walking to school. I would indeed have to take the gimped car. I would park it in the visitor's parking, or in my friend's driveway, or, if worst came to worst, in the train station parking lot. Then I would do my Government assignment during lunch, an assignment which was actually the written portion of a test which had been due Monday.

Time was running short on my Angiosperm questions when I finally finished, at 10:45AM. This, I decided, was more than enough time to get to school. I printed the questions out and hopped in the car, donning my sweater and fingerless gloves, since that's all I could find on such short notice. I think something happened in between printing questions and getting in the car that sucked up some time, but I can't remember what it was. It was probably something trivial, like eating or drinking, necessary life functions like that. Then I made my way to school.

I drove past the school lot's visitor parking, which was normally half empty. Today, not a single spot was open. More than that, the security guards were waiting in their vans right next to the areas I had been planning to have my car make an extended visit to.

My fingertips numbed. I put the heat on, contending with the winds and mist from the outside, rushing in from three windows. The driver's side window wouldn't go down. The rest didn't go up.

I nervously made my way out of the school parking lot, watching my time. 10:55AM. Fifteen minutes to park and get to school. I could make it to my friend's house in one.

I arrive, only to find that someone from Ohio is dominating the driveway. There is another, parked diagonally and to the rear of the Ohio car, the driveway normally large enough to accommodate four cars. I was loathe to block in the Ohio car, envisioning an irate relative calling the cops and getting my car towed. My parents would be incredibly pissed, and it would cost hundreds of dollars to get the car back. I also didn't want to jam my car between the small space in between the two cars to get to the free spot in front. So I left.

I made my way to the train station parking lot. On the way, I saw a friend in my class walking to school. She drives to school, and I hit the brakes to ask her where she parked, but I was too late. I sped past her. Making my way towards the parking lot, I realize that I don't have any money because I lost my wallet. Furthermore, I didn't have a driver's license on me. I couldn't pay the fee to park in the train station lot, and I couldn't do anything illegal...at all. I pulled into a side street and did a turnabout, zooming back towards school, my only option being...

...I didn't know.

I was, however, suddenly and screechingly stuck at a red light, coming from a tiny street into a major route. Minutes rolled by, seemingly right on top of the foot on the gas pedal as I forced myself not to make an illegal left on red. The light wouldn't change, and there was no one there.

Finally, the light changed, and I hurried back to my friend's house, parking behind the Ohio car. I left an apologetic note on the dashboard, glancing back worriedly at the open windows in the misting rain, and resolved to come back at lunch to prevent my car from getting towed. ****, I thought, as I grabbed my backpack and ran towards school. The word came spitting from my inner monologue as if from a tommy gun. It was perhaps a five minute walk to school. I made it into a minute run.

I entered from a fire exit which was closer to my Bio class, a teacher in the hallway letting me in. I was so very, very grateful to...GAH! SHE WANTED TO SEE MY SCHOOL ID! I had lost my wallet on the weekend, and now the security is going to kick me out of-

Oh, thank God! I had accidentally bought an extra ID and accidentally left it in my backpack a while ago when I believed I'd lost my ID. I grabbed it from my backpack and showed it to her. Then she informed me that it was third period already.

My heart stopped. I had just ditched Biology. Not only that, my assignment was going to be late at the very best.

Then she corrected herself. Second period had just started. I thanked her outloud, cursed her internally, and ran to Biology. I arrived triumphantly, bursting through the doors at 11:21AM, much more than 5 minutes late, but at least I was present, God damn it. My classmates were
seated quietly, working on...

...my heart sank. I'd forgotten completely about the vocab quizzes being on late arrivals, and, as was tradition, had been planning to glance at the vocab prior to the quiz and ace it. Unfortunately, that was not an option. I sat down and took a vocab quiz, barely rattling out the answers before time was up. To compare, I was normally the first finished, with all of the answers absolutely correct. Once graded, I had lost two points. The first two vocab questions I had ever lost this year, and it had been so obvious...mononeuralgia being the path along a single nerve...and one other, which was equally stupid, but which I can't remember. It was a crushing moment - normally, I didn't give Bluver the pleasure of using a red pen on my quiz at all. Despite that, I decided I would make the day better by turning in my Angiosperm Questions to Ms. Rowan.

"They're late."

I suddenly remembered that lab questions were late unless handed in the moment my teacher asked for them.

All that effort. For nothing. Well, not nothing, certainly, but fifty percent of whatever I got.

"Oh, okay," I said, nonchalantly. Dazed.

Then I stumbled out of the classroom to Creative Writing. Not a lot was going on in my head in Creative Writing, just absolute battered shock. I looked forward to lunch.

Then it hit me. I needed to get the car out of my friend's driveway before it got towed. That meant lunch was co-opted for the operation. Slapped from my uselessness, I asked Mrs. Heckel-Oliver if I could leave perhaps five minutes early, begging understanding, and a story to tell her later. Assuming something like a 35 minute fourth period lunch, five minutes to make it to the car could be all that saved me from being hopelessly tardy to fifth period. Thankfully, she complied. I rocked back and forth, mentally, but my body just kept on chugging. I think I was actually productive in Creative Writing, waiting impatiently for those few minutes to come up so I could leave.

Finally, it happened. I rocketed out of the classroom five minutes early, and then out of school, idly wondering if the security guards were going to stop me. I wouldn't even let them check me for off-campus privileges. I had a car to save.

I reached the car, noting that the letter I had written was blown away. I had overstayed my promise of an hour and twenty minutes in the driveway by ten minutes. I paid no heed; the car was still there. I hopped in, the freezing cold swirling about me, mist damping my hair. I fired up the engine and drove back to my house, two and a half miles east of Stevenson. That's an important measurement, so keep it in mind. I realized as I drove that I had brought my backpack instead of leaving it at my next class, or at lunch with my friends like I had planned to, but it was too late to turn around. Once I had the car safely parked in the garage, I got out and started running, backpack strapped tightly to my back.

Walking, it generally took me 45 minutes to get home from school. I assumed I had a lunch period of 35 minutes in which to get back to school. Running parts of the way home, I had made it home in half an hour, once. But that was in warmer weather. It was cold and misting miserably this day. Regardless. It was possible, therefore it had to be attempted. I set off, fairly confident I could make it back.

Describing ambulatory motions for any period of time is an onerous burden. So let's just say I switched off between walking and running back to school, first right on the side of Route 22, then on the side of Route 45 to avoid the busy intersection of 22 and Milwaukee, taking the Des Plaines River Trail, then cutting across the Walmart parking lot to get back to Milwaukee, where I took the road to the library to get back to Route 22. Then I walked/ran from there on to Stevenson's cafeteria.

Outside, I asked a girl if it was still fourth period.

She said "no." But it was still passing period, so I could make it if I ran. So I did. Some more.

Once inside, I saw my fourth period lunch friends sitting around enjoying their lunch. Misled once more! I joined them, sopping wet, and deflected questions. I spent my three minutes before school ended alternately begging for food and finding out what homework I would miss today by not getting to use my lunch period. Evidently, I had missed a surprise Economy essay from Monday, and not much else otherwise.

Next up was Government. Mr. Larsen asked me in his idle way whether I had my written portion of the test I had taken on Friday. I didn't freeze up - I was too used to it by then. I just shook my head, and my teacher said, forebodingly, "Bad choices..."

Then my classmates got the written test back. It was worth 100 points, and most had failed it.

I was so royally screwed, it was funny, for a second. Then I realized it was happening to me. The rest of the day passed through my sight wrapped in a layer of gauze. I couldn't wait to go home and sleep. I would take the bus home, since walking was completely out of the question after all that.

Tuesday...Tuesday...

Oh, yes. Tuesday. My friend Mohsin had gotten me to promise to show up after school to help Diversity Club.

I practically wept.

And wouldn't you know it, in all that confusion I somehow forgot to tell my teachers I would be absent the next day for a writing competition. Therefore, I didn't get the homework, I fell behind, and I was just generally looked down upon. Unfortunate. I hoped I could get my written test section turned in in time.

When I finally got home, I wrote a brief explanatory email to all my teachers, hit the send button and officially vegetated in my house until sleep came.

That day was the most fun I'd had in months, though my ensuing grades would be a hassle to deal with. In fact, everything, starting from waking up, had been a hassle to deal with. "Exciting" would just about cover the breadth of that day. Although, now that I think about it, if I hadn't been mentally slapped around so much, maybe I wouldn't have been so numb. But as it is, I remember it as being really fun. Fun like being punched under the influence of anesthetics.

OMG!

My moon-meter says it's time to go outside to stare at the (99%) full moon!

UPDATE - Okay, so it was cold, raining, and there was too much cloudcover to see the moon. But I did get a glimpse of a perfect picture! Unfortunately, my camera sucks too much to capture it in all its glory. But I did see it!

Memory Meme

If you are reading this, if your eyes chart a path across these words, even if we don't speak often, or maybe at all, please take a second to remind me of a memory we share. It can be anything you want, good or bad.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.