(69) Arr, matey, why don't ye board my bus?
Don't read this if you experience panic about traveling. 
Guys, first of all, let me say that any air travel trip I touch turns to misadventure and miserableness. Statistically this has happened more than trips that have been successful. You would think the rather straight line flying Iowa <-> New Jersey would be easy - you would think - it... is not.
Seriously, shit always happens to me. When I whined to my friend on Facebook about it while I was stuck in O'Hare, his response was: "WOW! That WOULD happen to you!" THANKS, MCGEE.
It started out relatively well, besides the waking up at 5:30AM bit. I spent the whole night sniffling (pre-period weepies; even now I'm getting misty thinking of the family) and probably made my dad feel worse, being that he hates seeing me go. The longer flight from Newark to Chicago actually went okay and I confess that I felt a moment of relief. Bad Julia, you should never become complacent. CONSTANT VIGILENCEEEEEE FFS, but I was like, "Ah, this'll be quick!"
Original plan had me catching the 11:55AM flight to Cedar Rapids and getting home by 2ish. Instead, after trekking a mile from gate to gate because O'Hare is evil and ridiculous never go there seriously never go, I watched the delay time on the monitor switch from 12:15... to 12:30... to CANCELLED due to heavy fog.
Everyone sitting around me: groan in unison.
So then we all slogged en masse back to another gate that was another mile in another direction in this completely idiotically gigantic airport to rebook, except the weather in Cedar Rapids really was terrible (I realised this later) and flights were being cancelled going to everywhere in the region and we were all muttering balls, bawlsss to the floor. I made some friends with my fellows in misfortune.
After standing in the rebooking line for 45 minutes - my suitemate actually happened to have been booked on the same flight and therefore was in the same situation, we were like, well, of course, it's you, Julia - they finally told us that we'd be bussed from Chicago O'Hare to the Cedar Rapids airport. At that point I realised that my personal curse had struck yet again. I wonder.
They gave a voucher for free food anywhere in the airport and I sat at some random location for a while (because getting the bus also had a two hour delay), trying to unsuspiciously charge my laptop. The cleaning staff would occasionally give me the stink eye but I would rebelliously bite into my hamburger in return, like I paid vouchered? to sit here, suckahhsss om nom nom. At that point I wasn't up to taking shit from anybody.
We finally got a bus, finally left after another 30 minute delay, and were off on our grand, four-hour-long adventure. My ETA in Iowa changed from 2PM to 9PM. MAGICAL.
Almost immediately, the video screens came down. Movie!, we thought, yay! Except it was some 70s criminal justice flick and it was honestly terrible. Right at the beginning was when people utterly gave up and tried to fall asleep. My back's already kind of bad and I utterly destroyed it yesterday trying to twist into a comfortable position; I'm very small, and I saw bigger people trying to squish themselves into a comfortable pretzel on the infinitely tiny bus seats and it was a whole lot of DDDD:.
While we were driving, I understood exactly why flights weren't taking off. The whole time it was like a journey through some other world - everything was muted by fog and honestly, there are not a whole lot of things surrounding highways in the Midwest, and lights both close by and far away looked like small, amber glows in the distance. It was single-handedly creepy and beautiful.
Four hours later I made it to Cedar Rapids airport... consequently driving right past the exit to my dorm. So close, so close. Then I waited another 40 minutes for a cab and drove back the way I'd come and finally got there and all was joyous except my back and my hobbling.
/COOL STORY, BRO
However, I can't fault the airline in any way. There were delays, but that was because flights for the region were getting cancelled left and right. They did provide us with food. They did put us on a bus and got us to our destination; I was afraid I'd have to dish out for a hotel and then somehow manage to get an early flight and somehow manage to get to school before my 10:30 class, which would've never happened. So overall, although the story was stretched out by 7-8 hours, I'm successfully at school.
Talk about classes! Only three classes today! Thank god, because I am about to keel over. My reserve of natural cheerfulness is dangerously close to fizzing out.
2nd Year Japanese, 2nd Semester: Nothing new (same primary teacher, whom I love forever because she takes my ridiculous questions in stride), except for the fact that the leftover basic grammar structures are taught in this semester and if you don't grasp it, you're done for. She said it in nicer terms, but I think everyone understood the sentiment. Some stuff this semester: keigo, causative form, more and more kanji. I should enjoy this week of review before the material actually begins. I really want to have a somewhat useful grasp of this language before I go there.
Anthropology and Contemporary World Problems: Like most anth classes for me, this seems like it'll be a lot of fun. I had both the lecture and discussion section today. I really like the instructor for the course - she's very blunt, which is good. There's no sense in being polite about anthro when you're teaching it, which was one of the main reasons I disliked my past intro class. The guy was too in love with the subject to be impartial and therefore was rather not useful.
And... okay, the TA heading our discussion session seems like a nice guy, but he can't get out two words before interjecting an um and it hurts me every time I hear it. D: I'm really bad at public speaking, so trying to get rid of um and er and uh has been a big point of contention for more. Guy, please do your best to get out a full sentence because you're teaching a class and my head is gonna pop off from frustration before the semester ends.
But he did show us this neat video:
I think it's a nice little critique of both students and the system, but what do you guys think about it? I think a great deal of us are college students, or close to the age.
Image credit to stricture@tumblr.
THEY ARE SO CUTE. I don't get what's going on with Sho and Jun there (awkward sex position?), but look at Nino's face of glee.
E-extortion?
THIS IS SO AIBA. TENSION UP, UP!!
... I wonder what it was like taking this photo. Spread your legs more? ??
At one point I would've thought this whole scenario to be pretty odd, but now I don't even think twice. o_o
Adorable. Meanwhile, Sho is creeping in on the background. Nino looks tinier than usual.
...how do they always hit the line between subtlety and look, touching, touching?
I see you, distinctive Sho!drawings. >:|
This is for nicefinalbeam. ♥ Because SHO & GLOBES is OTP.
Look at this fierce bitch.
Another job interview thing tomorrow. :U Job, need. Eloquency, need! If someone read this whole post, c-can I get a hug?
Guys, first of all, let me say that any air travel trip I touch turns to misadventure and miserableness. Statistically this has happened more than trips that have been successful. You would think the rather straight line flying Iowa <-> New Jersey would be easy - you would think - it... is not.
Seriously, shit always happens to me. When I whined to my friend on Facebook about it while I was stuck in O'Hare, his response was: "WOW! That WOULD happen to you!" THANKS, MCGEE.
It started out relatively well, besides the waking up at 5:30AM bit. I spent the whole night sniffling (pre-period weepies; even now I'm getting misty thinking of the family) and probably made my dad feel worse, being that he hates seeing me go. The longer flight from Newark to Chicago actually went okay and I confess that I felt a moment of relief. Bad Julia, you should never become complacent. CONSTANT VIGILENCEEEEEE FFS, but I was like, "Ah, this'll be quick!"
Original plan had me catching the 11:55AM flight to Cedar Rapids and getting home by 2ish. Instead, after trekking a mile from gate to gate because O'Hare is evil and ridiculous never go there seriously never go, I watched the delay time on the monitor switch from 12:15... to 12:30... to CANCELLED due to heavy fog.
Everyone sitting around me: groan in unison.
So then we all slogged en masse back to another gate that was another mile in another direction in this completely idiotically gigantic airport to rebook, except the weather in Cedar Rapids really was terrible (I realised this later) and flights were being cancelled going to everywhere in the region and we were all muttering balls, bawlsss to the floor. I made some friends with my fellows in misfortune.
After standing in the rebooking line for 45 minutes - my suitemate actually happened to have been booked on the same flight and therefore was in the same situation, we were like, well, of course, it's you, Julia - they finally told us that we'd be bussed from Chicago O'Hare to the Cedar Rapids airport. At that point I realised that my personal curse had struck yet again. I wonder.
They gave a voucher for free food anywhere in the airport and I sat at some random location for a while (because getting the bus also had a two hour delay), trying to unsuspiciously charge my laptop. The cleaning staff would occasionally give me the stink eye but I would rebelliously bite into my hamburger in return, like I paid vouchered? to sit here, suckahhsss om nom nom. At that point I wasn't up to taking shit from anybody.
We finally got a bus, finally left after another 30 minute delay, and were off on our grand, four-hour-long adventure. My ETA in Iowa changed from 2PM to 9PM. MAGICAL.
Almost immediately, the video screens came down. Movie!, we thought, yay! Except it was some 70s criminal justice flick and it was honestly terrible. Right at the beginning was when people utterly gave up and tried to fall asleep. My back's already kind of bad and I utterly destroyed it yesterday trying to twist into a comfortable position; I'm very small, and I saw bigger people trying to squish themselves into a comfortable pretzel on the infinitely tiny bus seats and it was a whole lot of DDDD:.
While we were driving, I understood exactly why flights weren't taking off. The whole time it was like a journey through some other world - everything was muted by fog and honestly, there are not a whole lot of things surrounding highways in the Midwest, and lights both close by and far away looked like small, amber glows in the distance. It was single-handedly creepy and beautiful.
Four hours later I made it to Cedar Rapids airport... consequently driving right past the exit to my dorm. So close, so close. Then I waited another 40 minutes for a cab and drove back the way I'd come and finally got there and all was joyous except my back and my hobbling.
/COOL STORY, BRO
However, I can't fault the airline in any way. There were delays, but that was because flights for the region were getting cancelled left and right. They did provide us with food. They did put us on a bus and got us to our destination; I was afraid I'd have to dish out for a hotel and then somehow manage to get an early flight and somehow manage to get to school before my 10:30 class, which would've never happened. So overall, although the story was stretched out by 7-8 hours, I'm successfully at school.
Talk about classes! Only three classes today! Thank god, because I am about to keel over. My reserve of natural cheerfulness is dangerously close to fizzing out.
2nd Year Japanese, 2nd Semester: Nothing new (same primary teacher, whom I love forever because she takes my ridiculous questions in stride), except for the fact that the leftover basic grammar structures are taught in this semester and if you don't grasp it, you're done for. She said it in nicer terms, but I think everyone understood the sentiment. Some stuff this semester: keigo, causative form, more and more kanji. I should enjoy this week of review before the material actually begins. I really want to have a somewhat useful grasp of this language before I go there.
Anthropology and Contemporary World Problems: Like most anth classes for me, this seems like it'll be a lot of fun. I had both the lecture and discussion section today. I really like the instructor for the course - she's very blunt, which is good. There's no sense in being polite about anthro when you're teaching it, which was one of the main reasons I disliked my past intro class. The guy was too in love with the subject to be impartial and therefore was rather not useful.
And... okay, the TA heading our discussion session seems like a nice guy, but he can't get out two words before interjecting an um and it hurts me every time I hear it. D: I'm really bad at public speaking, so trying to get rid of um and er and uh has been a big point of contention for more. Guy, please do your best to get out a full sentence because you're teaching a class and my head is gonna pop off from frustration before the semester ends.
But he did show us this neat video:
Click to viewI think it's a nice little critique of both students and the system, but what do you guys think about it? I think a great deal of us are college students, or close to the age.
Image credit to stricture@tumblr.
THEY ARE SO CUTE. I don't get what's going on with Sho and Jun there (awkward sex position?), but look at Nino's face of glee.
E-extortion?
THIS IS SO AIBA. TENSION UP, UP!!
... I wonder what it was like taking this photo. Spread your legs more? ??
At one point I would've thought this whole scenario to be pretty odd, but now I don't even think twice. o_o
Adorable. Meanwhile, Sho is creeping in on the background. Nino looks tinier than usual.
...how do they always hit the line between subtlety and look, touching, touching?
I see you, distinctive Sho!drawings. >:|
This is for nicefinalbeam. ♥ Because SHO & GLOBES is OTP.
Look at this fierce bitch.
Another job interview thing tomorrow. :U Job, need. Eloquency, need! If someone read this whole post, c-can I get a hug?