You’ve had that dream
before. You know which one I’m talking about right? The Dream. You fall asleep on the couch and miss your final? You
walk into school and notice everyone staring at you, so you look down and
realize you have no clothes on?
Good thing they’re just
dreams, right?
Right.
Unless you’re me.
I have a long and
colorful history of worst dreams coming to life in this regard. Want to feel better about yourself? Keep
reading.
I transferred to Brigham
Young University-Idaho as a Junior in college in 2005. My car had been totaled
a few months before and the insurance payout allowed me to take my time in
finding a job. It was two weeks before the end of my first semester when campus
custodian positions started opening up. On-campus jobs were highly coveted and
always went first to International students but non-returning students
frequently quit right before finals. So when I saw a job posting for a campus
job that would in no way (I thought) interfere with my class schedule and for
which I did not need a car, I jumped on it! I was immediately assigned to work
at the Taylor Religion Building from 4a.m. to 7a.m. Monday thru Thursday and
5a.m. to 7a.m. on Saturdays. What I hadn’t really thought about in the
this-is-so-great-because-I-don’t-have-to-worry-about-my-class-schedule frenzy
of excitement is the fact that up to that point, I had really enjoyed sleeping
past 3:45 a.m.!! I am not a night person
so going to bed early wasn’t really a problem for me. On the other hand, I’m not exactly a morning
person either… I like sleep. A lot.
So when Sister Gordon, my
Language Literacy and Learning teacher that first Winter semester let it be known that the class final
would take place at her home where she would be serving breakfast, I assumed
that meant it was optional. And since the other option was going back to sleep
after work, well….
Off campus + breakfast =
optional AmIright?
I was wrong.
And let me just say that
when your class starts at 10:30a.m., “I overslept” is not really an empathy-evoking
excuse.
One of the things I have
loved about my experience to date at University of Portland is that there has
been nary an exam. Seriously… 6 classes under
my belt, one underway and I have yet to see a single “your name here” answer
sheet. Instead the professors focus on our writing, which they believe best
reflects our thinking and understanding. And since I rock at writing (err, so I’ve
been told. Not to brag or anything. Plus academic writing is like a dry piece
of toast and I do not rock dry toast) I kind of love this approach.
Last Spring I had already
turned in my final paper and so all that was left to do on the last day of
class was show up and claim my participation points. Which I fully intended to do except that
something happened where if time was an ant marching across a piece of paper
and you folded the paper so 1/7th of it was missing and the ant
walked right from Tuesday into Thursday but thought it was Friday, then that is
how my week went.
And when I showed up at a classroom that been
expecting me Friday, first thing on Thursday morning and the teacher informed
me of the date, my heart went like this:
“But that means yesterday was….
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh” (plummets like the Perilous Plunge at Knott’s Berry Farm, except
on this ride the track never curves back upward).
I quickly borrowed a computer
and e-mailed the teacher, hoping to convey through my franticness that
this-was-not-intentional-I-don’t-do-this (that one time in Undergrad excepting…)
please-forgive-me-and-can-I-still-pass-the-class?
Luckily the prof wrote
back and assured me all was well and offered this sage advice “I don’t
recommend you miss any finals in your Doctorate program though…” Which leads me to the time I
Missed the First Day of Class
Did you know that time is
an auditory (really acoustic) property? That we learn to internalize time
through the ears? No, really. There are
three properties to a sound wave. Here
they are with the psychological correlates:
Amplitude/loudness
Frequency/pitch
Duration/time
One of my professors, Dr.
Ellyn Arwood, has been doing longitudinal research on the neurobiological
learning system. Over a period of about
3 generations she has noted a switch in the majority of learning systems from
auditory to visual.
By definition, a person
with a visual learning system uses the properties of light and movement to make
meaning. They don’t use properties of
the auditory system (which is the acoustic properties listed above + the visual
properties of light and movement). So we
have a whole generation of kids whose teachers’ #1 and #2 complaints are that
they don’t do their homework and that they do their homework, but don’t turn it
in; both are time-based problems. Incidentally, there is a fascinating link
between this finding and the widespread
use of antibiotics, ear infections and the incredible mechanism by which a
phenotype becomes a genotype.
Here are the list of
evidences that I have a visual learning system:
1.
My “strong auditory memory” that grasps details and misses the
big picture? Its pretty much an indication that my brain doesn’t turn acoustic
information into concepts very well.
2.
The fact that Father Time and I never seem to be on the same
calendar page.
What is all of this
leading up to, you might ask? Well, dearest reader, the answer is absolutely
nothing. I’m actually just blathering on to make a more substantial subheading.
Confession time: I missed
the first day of a Really Important Doctoral Research Class. I pretty much flipped out. Like that feeling you get when you’ve made a
Huge Mistake and you realize that there is no way to Go Back And Make It Right
and all you can do is Live With This Horrible Feeling Of Despair. Forever. Or
at least until the Prof e-mails you back, lets you know that your classmates
vouched for your “conscientiousness” and that therefore your absence was a
matter of concern for your safety rather than a judgment on your fitness for
continuation in the Ed.D. program. Then you take a deep breath, look at the
research books you now realize you didn’t do the reading for, for the first
week, and think “well, I have 7 whole days until that’s due” and settle
comfortably back into your life’s philosophy regarding homework: why do today
what you can put off until tomorrow?
If you used the hyperlink
to jump directly to this section I hesitate to burst your bubble but this post
contains no actual nakedness.
At the risk of providing
too much information, here is how I get ready for work in the morning.
1.
Get dressed (including camisole)—all except blouse/shirt
2.
Eat breakfast/pack lunch
3.
Put on blouse/shirt
4.
Kiss kitty, grab keys and go
The specific reasons for
not putting my blouse or shirt on until I’m ready to leave are twofold:
1.
I have a special magnetic field on my front that attracts any
and all food. Waiting until I’ve finished the food prep saves on laundry.
2.
Sometimes my apartment reaches 93 degrees. With the air
conditioning on.
Now walking around in a
camisole is, to my mind, not much different than wearing a spaghetti strap tank
top. Sure, your bra strap shows and its
not terribly modest, but I only do it in the privacy of my apartment and so far
my cat hasn’t complained.
Full disclosure: One summer I did take my blouse off
every single week when I got into my non-air conditioned car and made the drive
from Flagstaff to Cottonwood, AZ in the heat of the desert sun. I figured it
was better to drive “topless” than arrive at my summer clinical assignment at
the hospital with pit stains (TMI? Sorry). Yes, I garnered some strange looks at stop
lights when I loosened my seat belt to wriggle out of the blouse. Who wouldn’t
do a double take if they glanced at the car beside them and saw a woman
undressing? I don’t think this is nearly
as unsafe as driving distracted by cell phone conversations or texting, though.
FYI. Also I have a car with air
conditioning now and haven’t undressed while driving since Grad school… just in
case clarification was needed.
So two Winters back, I
was getting ready for a normal workday in which I traveled to the Coast to
consult with one of the rural districts in our ESD conglomeration. I got
partially dressed, ate breakfast, prepped my lunch, slipped on my jacket,
kissed kitty and headed out the door with my purse over one shoulder and keys
and water bottle in the opposite hand as I pulled the door shut behind me while
toeing the cat back inside.
All was well for the next
thirty minutes as I drove toward Hillsboro where I’d stop in at my office for a
file I’d forgotten, then pick up Hwy 6 out to Tillamook. I had noticed that I
felt a little bit chillier than normal, but in my mind this was a good thing (I
love cold weather) and I simply turned up the car’s heater a smidge.
It was while I was
washing up in front of the mirror in the bathroom at my office that I realized:
I do not see my shirt. I see my long camisole beneath my rather short jacket…
but where is my shirt? I went to pull it down and… nothing. So I unzipped the
jacket and came to the heart-stopping realization that
that dream about showing up naked to school
had just come TRUE!
Now one thing I can say
for small towns that rarely if ever get snow and that almost as rarely have air
conditioned buildings is that they are well-heated. To the point of obnoxiousness. Or at least
short-sleevedness. There was no way I was going to want to wear a fleece jacket
all day long.
And it was only 7:30 a.m.
No department stores were open. I’m not
quite awesome enough at being a Mormon to have a 72-hour kit with a change of
clothes in my car, and going home would mean losing an entire hour round-trip,
and cutting into my already significantly limited time on the coast.
Fred Meyer to the rescue!
Dearest reader, I am not
a shopper. I hate shopping. I would probably buy everything I ever needed on
the internet and have it delivered to my door if not for the detriment of
having to re-package and drive to the post office any returns. When I do go shopping, I am all about getting
down to business. I don’t clip coupons and I repeat shop the same stores instead
of bargain hunting specifically so I can march directly to the aisle with the
item I need, grab it off the shelf, and get out. I had never before shopped for
clothing at Fred Meyer however.
Looking back, this was an
omen I should have heeded. Instead I marched in the front doors like I meant
business, glanced around and located an employee to tell me where the clothing
racks were, and headed over with the intent of grabbing the first reasonable
looking dress-shirt I could find. What I found was… a disorganized clearance
rack. Feeling impatient I abandoned the plan in favor of grabbing a
no-need-to-try-on t-shirt off a shelf and headed for the self-check registers.
In the car I took the
stickers off of my shirt, unfolded it and realized… it was a men’s shirt. And
it had a gigantic “Columbia Sporting Company” logo over the front.
Did I mention I hate
shopping?
I decided to wear it
anyway, with my black dress slacks and Mary Janes. I figured if anybody noticed
the discrepancy in my attire, I would laugh and tell them about showing up to
work topless. But nobody did. Because on
the coast most everyone is a surfer. And if they’re not a surfer they’re still
the most laid back people you’ll ever meet. And they wear swim trunks and grass
skirts to work in the dead of winter. Because they’re coastal people and that’s
how they roll.
