As far as days go, this was not the best. Remember, I am very greasy at this moment. I also spent a lot of time writhing around my bed in pain last night, which made for a tough night of sleep. But no worries, everyone, I am a tough cookie. I still got up this morning, on time, and put on my shoes and walked out the door like the rest of the working world.
I just had oil dripping off my split ends. No matter.
So I take the metro to Les Halles, where I switch to get on the RER (express suburban-bound train). Then I read that there's some sort of problem, and I have to go to Saint-Lazare to get the train. Once I get to Saint-Lazare, they tell me that no, I could have just taken the train at Les Halles (whatever) and that I need to go to Auber to take it now. So I do that.
I left 30 minutes earlier than usual because I happened to get up extra early for no reason. Of course, that does me no good when I spend 45 minutes going from metro to metro, trying to take my damn express train.
It is now 10:30 and work starts in 30 minutes. The express train takes exactly 28 minutes, but I have to catch it right away for that to have any value. I run through the halls at Auber to try to catch the train on time. Meanwhile, I call the school and warn them I will be between 15 and 20 minutes late.
Mind you, I only have ONE class to teach today. But if I don't show up at all, my pay will be docked. If I'm LATE, however, they won't do anything to me.
So I finally get to my damn train and hop on board. I get off 28 minutes later and it is 11:12. I still have to walk over to the high school, which is several long, boring, annoying blocks away.
(A note on long boring blocks: I have taken to just, um, counting steps. I also like to see if I can set a rhythm between cracks. For example, is it more natural for me to take four steps per cement square or five? If I just walk along the dotted lines seperating the sidewalk into pedestrian and bike traffic, does that alter my walking? Etc. This is truly how boring the walk is.)
I get to the high school at 11:18 (I booked it, man!) and head straight for the classroom. Of course, nobody is there.
Downstairs, I spot two girls from my class and ask them if they knew they had class today. They look at me blankly. I say, "There's a new schedule starting next week, but did you wait for me today or not?" Oddly, they just at me pensively as if that would answer my question, which I take to mean, "Well, we sort of waited but we would so much rather just leave after five minutes and blame you than to do sit through another class." So I guess that answers my question in the end.
Whatever.
So then I go upstairs and sit for an hour, waiting to run into the teacher who has my new schedule. She doesn't show, so I give up.
I head back (six more boring blocks in the opposite direction) and go to the train station. Guess what? Now the trains aren't working. At all. Not one single train back to Paris. Of course, the train people have no idea when the next one will be, but they like to announce, "Madames, Monsieurs, there are no trains going to Paris right now."
I leave the tracks and head back out into the world, buy myself a sandwich, shop at the Asian food store (reading labels, actually) and then wonder what to do next. Guess what? The town I work in? REALLY DULL.
My decision is to just sit and wait for the train. I'm freezing my ass off (forgot my mittens) and am bored as hell, pissed off because I don't have anything to read on me (which never happens). Of course, today, of all days, the news stand is closed.
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, the damn train comes. I go back to Paris. On the way, I sit next to a guy who I swear has to be 7'0 tall. He's listening to AC/DC and whoa, the music really must get to him. He drums and sings along and really feels it, man. I'm usually down with people who really get into it (even AC/DC fans), but we're in a very confined space and the dude has some serious legs on him. It's a little mosh-pit-like in our four-person train pod, but he's the only one moshing. He also likes to talk to himself, but his music is so loud that it sort of turns into talking to the entire train.
So, in all, I spent almost two hours getting to work, an hour and a half waiting for various people at work, and then over two hours getting back from work. Lovely, really.
Once back in town, I called The Boy to ask if our hot water problem was fixed. No, no. Of course not. It can't be that simple. It looks like the hot water problem is going to be with us for a long, long time.
To drown my sorrows, do you know what I did? I had way too much caffeine and spent a significant portion of my Spanish class afterwards flapping my hands and trying to keep from getting to jumpy in class. I apologized to two of my classmates afterwards.
While this whole entry was one big enormous bitch-fest, I'd like to add one good thing: my Spanish class rocks, I mean ROCKS. It's a new semester and there are only five of us in the class. It is so unbelievably entertaining that I actually checked my clock halfway through while thinking, I hope we have at least an hour left! I was a little sad to see we only had 30 minutes.
Another good thing today? Um... um... I'm sure I'll think of something.
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