So, I'm in the fourth week of my five week intensive at the Pasadena campus of Fuller. I didn't have to use any strong arm tactics to force first or second year students out of the class. I just needed some good ol' flaky seminary students to not show up for the first few classes to make it in. Yahoo!
I've been flying into Burbank on Mondays and coming back home on Thursdays. The last few weeks have been pretty hectic so sorry to all in Southern California whom I haven't seen. This last week, I came back home on Thursday, spoke at a retreat from Friday to Sunday, drove back home late Sunday night, and flew out of San Jose on Monday to go back to Pasadena and take my midterm. Alinna's been great.
I thought that was it, but there was plenty more adventure left. I had a later than usual flight out of San Jose. 2:15PM. I knew it was going to be a little tight, but I figured, "An hour flight, get into Burbank at around 3:15PM, class doesn't start til 5PM so that gives me an hour and 45 minutes to get to Pasadena from Burbank using Metro. Yes, I may be the only Asian-American to have ever used public transportation in LA.
The flight was a little more than 45 minutes late. We take off a little past 3PM and I know I'm in trouble now. We arrive in the airport at 4PM. I run out to the bus stop which is a healthy distance away from the drop off station and wait there for maybe ten minutes. I'm really glad that the first bus that shows up is not only the bus I want to take but is also the rapid version of it (it skips over a number of stops). I make my one and only transfer in Los Feliz. It's 4:30PM. A bus is right there waiting, but I don't know if it's the bus I want to take. It's not time to go on an LA Metro expedition. I wait... for another 15 minutes. Again a rapid bus comes by but I'm looking at the clock and it's 4:45. At this point I know I'm going to be late, it's just a matter of how late I'm going to be.
The bus drops me off at Colorado and Los Robles about two and a half blocks from the Fuller campus at 5:20PM and I run for it. As I'm running, out of the corner of my eye I see something white. I think nothing of it until I notice that my backpack feels funny. The big zipper, the one keeping my clothes in was wide open. I look in and notice that my socks are missing. "I guess that was the white thing. Oh well." I zip it up, keep on going, and get into the classroom at 5:27PM out of breath. I hunch over, put my hands on my knees as my professor sorts through his papers to find the midterm prompt, and I work at getting back my breath.
The midterm is an hour long. Class started at 5PM. And it was 5:27PM. I seriously had flashbacks to my Bio 1A midterm at Cal. Except this time, I was in grad school and eight years older. Well, that and the fact that I didn't oversleep this time around, didn't almost get hit by a car on my way to class, and got a time extension on my midterm. The professor was really nice told me to catch my breath, wait until 5:30 to take the midterm, and that he'd give me the full hour from there to take the exam while the others would go on their hour long dinner break.
The midterm went fine and I capped off the day with some good comfort food... $1.20 tacos from the taco truck on Fair Oaks and California.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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