How NOT To Start a Morning...

I tossed and turned all last night, going over my project presentation speech in my head until I finally fell asleep due to exhaustion at about 3:30 am.

Did I mention I had to be up at 6:30?

Yep, long assed day ahead for me.


Anyhow, I get up at 6:30 - abuse the snooze setting a bit while I'm waking up and manage to roll out of bed by 6:45. First to be done? Re-print our mass balance of acetyl cedrene graphs to turn in to our supervisor and external censor (evaluator) today.

Should be simple, right?

Did I mention that my printer ran out of black ink?

So, what should have been a click and print job turned into a 'let's go through each graph and change the font color to blue so I can actually print it out right' operation.

Fun times.

So it's about 7:25 that I head out to the bus stop just outside our condo complex.

The bus usually comes at about 7:35 and I'll get to the station by 7:50 and off on my way to RUC.

Usually.

Naturally, it doesn't work like that today.

I'm standing out at the stop with a half dozen other people, when a car pulls up to the curb in front of us, and a woman rolls down the window to shout, "The bus drivers are on strike today - there's no bus running."

Well isn't that just fucking great?

Now - I don't live within walking distance to the train station (which was running) - so that wasn't an option I could consider.

The only thing I could think about was - what the HELL am I going to do if I can't get to my presentation meeting on time?

I called one of my groupmates, Elisabeth to see if she had her car today (and also to warn her that the busses weren't running) - she was already at school, since she had spent the night there the night before.

Well, that's one opportunity lost there....

So, I ring up Marietta and see if (crossing fingers here) she still had loaned her mother in law's car, and if I paid for the gas, if she'd come and pick me up and bring me to school.

Success!

I arrived at school just before 9am, which gave me time to set up the computer with the overhead projector and all, so that our supervisor and the censor weren't left waiting for us to get our asses in gear to give our presentations.

Naturally, Liza wasn't with the rest of us when they showed up, but she managed to show up just before her scheduled presentation time.

Luckily for me, so far the day has a happy ending - we all received a 10 on both our paper and our project presentations.

The Danish scale goes from 0-13, but doesn't include 12. It's difficult to explain (and due to be changed at the end of this school year, into a more 'standardized' ratings system), but I'll give it a go.

0-5 Fail - and fail poorly.

6 - Extremely Poor

7 - Much Less than Average

8 - Less Than Average

9 - Average/Acceptable

10 - Slightly Above Average

11 - Above Average

13 - Exceptional


Given all the trouble we'd had with the experiment AND the report, I'm damned happy with my 10.

Now I can go home, start up my grill and relax, since my summer has started.