Vortexia's Secret

Lately I've felt out of place here. In the area where I work people drive below the speed limit, not 8 above. I don't care if you're driving here illegally because you're in the States illegally, just drive fast enough that you don't stick out like a sore thumb and don't piss me off. Today some idiot in a pick up cut me off at the last second because he didn't want to slow down while the punk in front of him turned. I slammed on the horn for a while and got even more upset when he WAVED at me afterward. Did I let you over? No. You took the road in front of me, nearly took off my bumper, and made me slow down. The waving pissed me off just enough to risk waving a special finger at him (which I normally don't do here because it can get you shot by a redneck), which he responded to by waving again. Must not have had his glasses on. Jerk. Then as my friend and I worked on our half of a group paper we realized, to our horror and disbelief, that the other girls' half was far from finished. There were citations missing that would have screwed us all for plagiarism, things were written that didn't make sense, ideas were repeated 3 times to fill a paragraph out to the 3rd grade requirement of 5 sentences per paragraph... it was bad. I wouldn't have gotten away with that kind of writing in high school! Of course we felt even worse because we were frustrated by friends. If it's random strangers you can get as livid and talk as much sh!t as you want about them because you don't care. With friends, we were just surprised that they considered it finished work. So we spent an extra few hours correcting their stuff and sending them a detailed email explaining the other problems that we were unable to fix because we weren't the ones who wrote it and knew what we were supposed to be saying. Oh, and on my way home I stopped at Office Depot to make photocopies. After I was done, I went to the copy desk to pay, and the guy just stared absentmindedly at me as he contemplated how much of an overbite he had. The guy stapling papers next to me kept looking up at me, so eventually I looked over at him to see what he wanted. He told me that I had to take my copies to the aisle cashiers to pay, so to correct him I gave up on being polite. I called out to overbite guy "hey, we can pay here, right?" He realized the reason I had been staring at him and holding up a dollar bill was because I was wanting to pay and leave his printing hell, not because I was hoping to put the dollar down his pants. Finally... payment exchanged like the good little citizen I am, although I could have walked out of there with my 16 copies for free.

Maybe I'm developing rage issues. If you only read this post and the one before it, you would tell me yes and please get into an anger management class. However, dear reader, this is crunch time. I did not get a Friday morning. I woke up at 9 to discover the tragedy mentioned below, pulled myself together to start a paper, then headed to a friend's only to work again. I did not get a Friday night. It was spent working on a group paper until 12:30. I did not get a lazy Saturday morning. I woke up at 9, ate, and started working on the same paper and presentation until about 4:30 in the afternoon. I will not get a Saturday night. It will be spent finishing the paper I started Friday morning. I will not get a lazy Sunday morning. It will be spent writing yet another paper (that's 3 for those who lost count) from beginning to end until I collapse exhausted, dirty, hungry, and bleary eyed into bed on Sunday night. Only to wake up at 7 on Monday morning to turn in two papers and give a presentation. This time of the semester is hell. If I have rage issues, I can only believe that they are a natural response to the circumstances I am facing. If I am still a ball of anger during a week where I have nothing more to do that read, watch TV, update my blog, and make it look prettier, then I will examine the possibility of rage issues. Until then... I'll be writing papers. And screaming profanities. And daring that damn cockroach to cross my path one more time.

P.S. Keep them in your prayers.