Big Guy and Universe Makin' it Happen
Today was a crazy day – it’s the day before school starts up again full time. That means intense lectures and ridiculous amounts of reading on top of planning and teaching on the weekends. But, as always, the start of school isn’t really the start of school without the ritualistic…
(no, not school supply shopping)
…papers. Two of ‘em to be exact. Finished and turned in in the interim between moving out of our temporary location and into our new one. It was, like I said before, a CRAZY day.
Starting at 5:30am when I decided, against my better judgment (but true to form), to take a little, teeny 20-minute/3-hour power nap before finishing both my papers.
Oops.
Come 8:30am and I’m jumping out the bed because I was meant to have finished packing up my room into 3 unsuitable suitcases and ready downstairs to have them carted off to North London at 9:00am.
Oops again.
I throw all of everything into something and bring it downstairs as I come up with a new game plan. Do I
a.) Follow my suitcases to North London, check in, get them put away, and then proceed to school to finish up and print the papers
b.) Go straight to school and deal with that whole mess later or
c.) Sit in my empty room and keep writing and think about my options later?
I went with option c. Standard. Until 12:30 at which point I decided it was time to leave and go to school to (continue) finishing up my two papers.
Sheer chaos. But, amidst all this craziness, something cool happened. So first remember: papers are due at 6:00pm in Central London. But, the last opportunity to check-in at the new place in North London is 5:00pm. No, going to check in first and then rushing back to turn in the paper doesn’t work. The commute would kill me on both ends and I could seriously use the time to finish writing. However, bedding, clothes, and life are already waiting at North London. Sleeping in Central would not be ideal. Ready? Go! RUN EVERYWHERE. (Try not to bang the laptop bag as you clear obstacles in your path.) If you can, take the bus. Today is not about getting a workout.
(Welcome to the intricate beauty that is my head. Ha. More straightforward and logical than you expected, huh? So much for intrigue…)
So, 12:30pm, heading to school. AM and I get outside our place and are heading to the IIS – luckily there is a perfect bus stop with perfect buses dropping us off right in front of where we need to be. Lovely. We hop on to the 73 to Victoria – which is a majorly popular bus. It’s so popular in fact, that it is an extend-y bus complete with multiple places to scan your travel pass, or if you’re poor, it’s a great opportunity to sneak on without scanning since the bus driver is too far away to see or deal with your cheapness.
I was tempted, but it being Ramadhan, I decided I wasn’t about to waste 16 hours of fasting on cheating Transport For London out of a pound. So I tagged in. (I would have spent more on lunch anyway.)
The craziness continues, I turn in my papers (at 5:07pm) (7 minutes AFTER I was meant to already be in N. London…oops…) and BOOK IT to North London and basically apologize profusely and appeal to the receptionists to check me in and give me a new home. It works (you go Big Guy!).
So now it’s like 6:00pm something and I am realizing that I have a ton of other errands to run to complete the move in process – picking up more of what my mom would term “labacha” or stuff that didn’t get transferred with my suitcases at the old place, picking up some random pieces of furniture and books that SV left behind at her old place (thanks, btw ☺), grabbing mail from my old, old place, and grocery shopping for the week at the old Tesco since I don’t know of any existing life forms, much less grocery stores in the new residential area I live in.
I am exhausted. And I miss Central London terribly.
I get to the bus stop by my new place – totally foreign territory, might I remind you – and up chugs the 390. Woo hoo, let’s get the second half of my ridiculous day started! I climb up at the front of the bus with my empty, eager-to-be-filled suitcase and move to tap my travel pass only to realize there aren’t enough funds on it for a ride. (Ugh, seriously? Seriously?!)
I move to leave when the bus driver asks, “Where you goin’ to?”
“Euston.”
BD, “Mmm. Can’t take you all the way to Euston, but heck I’ll take you to King’s Cross?”
Z: “Amazing.” (It’s like a 10 minute walking difference, 2 stops before Euston on the bus.)
King’s Cross approaches, I get up to leave and am one foot out the back door when I hear hollering. I look up and see that the bus driver stopped the people who were getting on, got out of his little driver box/compartment thing and was motioning at me to take a seat, “what the heck I’ll just take you to Euston.”
Awesome.
Way to come through, Universe, way to come through.
(p.s. I added money on, ended up taking multiple trips back and forth and finally, on my last trip back to North London, I hopped on the 390 at 11:06pm and guess who was driving??)
