Magnet for disaster?
So, I suppose I should post before this all slips away into the haze of youth ... or something.
The day of graduation started rather inauspiciously with my roommate, as usual, having taken over the shower (and by extension, the bathroom) just when I woke up even though she had said she'd be getting up an hour earlier. Sigh. I felt rather irritated (mostly because I needed to pee) until I remembered that I would never ever have to deal with that again. (Well ... not from her, anyway.) So even though I didn't get to take a shower, well, it would be the last time. Anyway, I figured I'd take one after breakfast, which was a required event for seniors.
I had some hopes for breakfast. It was at the dining hall, sure, but it was the *senior breakfast.* They should give us something good on our last day at Calvin, right?
Well, my hopes were still not high. Which was good. Breakfast was not (good).
I did not, however, expect the breakfast to last nearly two hours, nor did I expect my family to have arrived by the time I got back to my apartment.
(So much for that shower.)
Well, everyone else's parents (and siblings, cousin, etc.) was there, too, so I can't put any blame on my family.
I had assumed that, since we would likely have more time to finish packing up and cleaning up after the ceremony, we would close out my Michigan bank account and then have lunch. Well, both of those things happened, but first ...
One of my roommates was checking out before the ceremony. Now, she had done all her assigned tasks, except for moving the furniture into its "proper arrangement," which was impossible anyway because a) we didn't have the manpower before to do so, and b) there was nothing to indicate where exactly the furniture was supposed to go. Well. For one thing, the RA who came to check my roommate out was ridiculously demanding. I understand the desire for clean apartments, but no matter how much you clean out an old apartment, it will never return to a pristine condition of newness. Some people do not seem to realize this. But leaving that aside, she also wanted the furniture correctly arranged. This meant we had to move all the beds around and stack them and so on.
Well.
While my other roommate's (not the one who was checking out) parents were pushing along the cleaning of the apartment, I was trying to move my stuff out of the way of the furniture (i.e., beds) that needed to be moved.
So, picture if you will, me standing underneath my bed. Note that my bed was lofted a bit more than five feet in the air, with just enough room under for me (a short person) to stand straight up without bumping my head.
My mom was removing the sheets from my bed, but it was a little bit hard because of how tall it is.
"How do you get up this thing anyway?" she asked.
"I climb," I said.
I will note here that my bed has long legs with rungs in between the front and back two. The bed's legs rest, at the front, on my desk and at the back, on my bookshelf. To climb up, I step on top of the bookshelf (not at all hard), then climb up the rungs on the back. I'd never felt it was particularly precarious, and I'd never had a problem. But I had noticed that the legs of the bed tended to sit near the back edge of the top of the bookshelf, so I usually pushed them an inch or two forward before climbing, and though I don't know for sure, perhaps I climbed in such a way that took this into account.
Of course, I didn't share any of this with my mother.
See me standing straight up underneath my bed, just tall enough to accommodate me.
See my mother put her feet on the bookshelf and start to climb.
That moment must have passed very quickly, but there is something slow about the way my mom puts her foot on the first rung ...
You may have guessed what happened next.
I'm not exactly sure what the order was -- there was certainly a very loud noise, and my mom sort of fell off the end of the bed, and the bed fell on me.
The bed fell on me.
The back legs of the bed slipped off the bookshelf, bringing down the back end of the bed and dragging the front end across my desk (but not pulling it off).
I must have ducked -- I felt it on the back of my head, the weight of it, but I managed (miraculously) not to get hurt.
I did burst into tears.
I'm not usually a crybaby -- or at least, I'm a private crier. When I'm upset, I tend to get choked up, unable to speak, and usually I can flee to a place of solitude before the waterworks start, if they come at all. I hate crying in front of other people. (I will admit that I cry during a few certain anime episodes, but that's in a different category.) I'm quite sure the last time my mom saw me burst into tears was eight years ago, when she told me my cat died.
Well, I suppose a narrowly avoided concussion (or worse?) is plenty of reason to cry. As far as bodily harm goes, I think that bed falling on me was the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. I couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't stop shaking.
Naturally, my mom felt horrible and kept asking if I was OK, and I felt horrible, because even though I knew I was OK (physically, anyway), I couldn't stop my crying and I couldn't go anywhere because the apartment was stuffed full of people.
Fortunately, none of my stuff was harmed either (my laptop had been on my desk, and my backpack with my glasses and other stuff in it was on the bookshelf, but the bed stopped just in time so as not to put pressure on it).
Yeah, that was traumatic.
In fact, as far as the events of May 23, 2009, go, that will probably stand out in my mind in the future over the other important event that happened that day.
Oh, yeah, I graduated college.
The ceremony wasn't particularly memorable. We filed into the gigantic new fieldhouse, the first class to do so for graduation. A few people spoke; they did fine, but I don't remember much of what they said -- something about contests and running, a few verses from the Bible. The president declared us graduates, and we moved our tassels from right to left. Two readers quickly went through the names of all those in my class -- we each had little name cards that we brought up when we received our diploma folders, so they didn't have to go in any particular order. There were about 940 or so of us graduating (don't know how many showed up for the ceremony); the ceremony lasted about an hour and 40 minutes. That's pretty fast.
There was a reception afterward -- I talked to a few people, including my junior high art teacher, who remembered me, but I hardly felt like I was able to say "goodbye" to anyone -- and then we spent some more time frantically cleaning, even though I'd put in a good few hours doing my tasks the day before. (Our microwave ... so, so disgusting, probably thanks to all the greasy foods one of my roommates cooked beneath it.) I'll freely admit it, my roommates and I didn't keep our apartment very clean.
Needn't have worried though, because the guy who came to check me out (tee hee) *ahem* of my apartment was very nice and easy going ... and barely looked at the cabinets and microwave, etc., that I was supposed to have cleaned. Well, I guess just by looking at the apartment, one could probably tell that it had been thoroughly cleaned (it looked and probably smelled clean). And it was near the end of the day, and we were all sweaty (I hadn't gotten a shower), and he was probably sick of looking at rooms, and I was still wearing my nice shirt and cute skirt because I hadn't bothered changing after the ceremony (but I won't flatter myself by saying that my easy check out had anything to do with me personally). So that was that.
Home. It's weird to be here, "permanently."
So. Now I'm going to be looking for a job. I still don't quite know what that means or how that works or what exactly I should be doing other than tooling around online, poking at "help wanted" ads, so it might take a while.
I just keep telling myself, "Life is an adventure and God has a plan for me."
The day of graduation started rather inauspiciously with my roommate, as usual, having taken over the shower (and by extension, the bathroom) just when I woke up even though she had said she'd be getting up an hour earlier. Sigh. I felt rather irritated (mostly because I needed to pee) until I remembered that I would never ever have to deal with that again. (Well ... not from her, anyway.) So even though I didn't get to take a shower, well, it would be the last time. Anyway, I figured I'd take one after breakfast, which was a required event for seniors.
I had some hopes for breakfast. It was at the dining hall, sure, but it was the *senior breakfast.* They should give us something good on our last day at Calvin, right?
Well, my hopes were still not high. Which was good. Breakfast was not (good).
I did not, however, expect the breakfast to last nearly two hours, nor did I expect my family to have arrived by the time I got back to my apartment.
(So much for that shower.)
Well, everyone else's parents (and siblings, cousin, etc.) was there, too, so I can't put any blame on my family.
I had assumed that, since we would likely have more time to finish packing up and cleaning up after the ceremony, we would close out my Michigan bank account and then have lunch. Well, both of those things happened, but first ...
One of my roommates was checking out before the ceremony. Now, she had done all her assigned tasks, except for moving the furniture into its "proper arrangement," which was impossible anyway because a) we didn't have the manpower before to do so, and b) there was nothing to indicate where exactly the furniture was supposed to go. Well. For one thing, the RA who came to check my roommate out was ridiculously demanding. I understand the desire for clean apartments, but no matter how much you clean out an old apartment, it will never return to a pristine condition of newness. Some people do not seem to realize this. But leaving that aside, she also wanted the furniture correctly arranged. This meant we had to move all the beds around and stack them and so on.
Well.
While my other roommate's (not the one who was checking out) parents were pushing along the cleaning of the apartment, I was trying to move my stuff out of the way of the furniture (i.e., beds) that needed to be moved.
So, picture if you will, me standing underneath my bed. Note that my bed was lofted a bit more than five feet in the air, with just enough room under for me (a short person) to stand straight up without bumping my head.
My mom was removing the sheets from my bed, but it was a little bit hard because of how tall it is.
"How do you get up this thing anyway?" she asked.
"I climb," I said.
I will note here that my bed has long legs with rungs in between the front and back two. The bed's legs rest, at the front, on my desk and at the back, on my bookshelf. To climb up, I step on top of the bookshelf (not at all hard), then climb up the rungs on the back. I'd never felt it was particularly precarious, and I'd never had a problem. But I had noticed that the legs of the bed tended to sit near the back edge of the top of the bookshelf, so I usually pushed them an inch or two forward before climbing, and though I don't know for sure, perhaps I climbed in such a way that took this into account.
Of course, I didn't share any of this with my mother.
See me standing straight up underneath my bed, just tall enough to accommodate me.
See my mother put her feet on the bookshelf and start to climb.
That moment must have passed very quickly, but there is something slow about the way my mom puts her foot on the first rung ...
You may have guessed what happened next.
I'm not exactly sure what the order was -- there was certainly a very loud noise, and my mom sort of fell off the end of the bed, and the bed fell on me.
The bed fell on me.
The back legs of the bed slipped off the bookshelf, bringing down the back end of the bed and dragging the front end across my desk (but not pulling it off).
I must have ducked -- I felt it on the back of my head, the weight of it, but I managed (miraculously) not to get hurt.
I did burst into tears.
I'm not usually a crybaby -- or at least, I'm a private crier. When I'm upset, I tend to get choked up, unable to speak, and usually I can flee to a place of solitude before the waterworks start, if they come at all. I hate crying in front of other people. (I will admit that I cry during a few certain anime episodes, but that's in a different category.) I'm quite sure the last time my mom saw me burst into tears was eight years ago, when she told me my cat died.
Well, I suppose a narrowly avoided concussion (or worse?) is plenty of reason to cry. As far as bodily harm goes, I think that bed falling on me was the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. I couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't stop shaking.
Naturally, my mom felt horrible and kept asking if I was OK, and I felt horrible, because even though I knew I was OK (physically, anyway), I couldn't stop my crying and I couldn't go anywhere because the apartment was stuffed full of people.
Fortunately, none of my stuff was harmed either (my laptop had been on my desk, and my backpack with my glasses and other stuff in it was on the bookshelf, but the bed stopped just in time so as not to put pressure on it).
Yeah, that was traumatic.
In fact, as far as the events of May 23, 2009, go, that will probably stand out in my mind in the future over the other important event that happened that day.
Oh, yeah, I graduated college.
The ceremony wasn't particularly memorable. We filed into the gigantic new fieldhouse, the first class to do so for graduation. A few people spoke; they did fine, but I don't remember much of what they said -- something about contests and running, a few verses from the Bible. The president declared us graduates, and we moved our tassels from right to left. Two readers quickly went through the names of all those in my class -- we each had little name cards that we brought up when we received our diploma folders, so they didn't have to go in any particular order. There were about 940 or so of us graduating (don't know how many showed up for the ceremony); the ceremony lasted about an hour and 40 minutes. That's pretty fast.
There was a reception afterward -- I talked to a few people, including my junior high art teacher, who remembered me, but I hardly felt like I was able to say "goodbye" to anyone -- and then we spent some more time frantically cleaning, even though I'd put in a good few hours doing my tasks the day before. (Our microwave ... so, so disgusting, probably thanks to all the greasy foods one of my roommates cooked beneath it.) I'll freely admit it, my roommates and I didn't keep our apartment very clean.
Needn't have worried though, because the guy who came to check me out (tee hee) *ahem* of my apartment was very nice and easy going ... and barely looked at the cabinets and microwave, etc., that I was supposed to have cleaned. Well, I guess just by looking at the apartment, one could probably tell that it had been thoroughly cleaned (it looked and probably smelled clean). And it was near the end of the day, and we were all sweaty (I hadn't gotten a shower), and he was probably sick of looking at rooms, and I was still wearing my nice shirt and cute skirt because I hadn't bothered changing after the ceremony (but I won't flatter myself by saying that my easy check out had anything to do with me personally). So that was that.
Home. It's weird to be here, "permanently."
So. Now I'm going to be looking for a job. I still don't quite know what that means or how that works or what exactly I should be doing other than tooling around online, poking at "help wanted" ads, so it might take a while.
I just keep telling myself, "Life is an adventure and God has a plan for me."