10 Days Till Sky Diving

I've turned over a new leaf.

This past weekend was much less than entertaining. I'd managed to give myself very little time to write 2 papers in 4 days. Why would I do this to myself, you ask? Oh, because I'm a little bit young and over confident. I missed out on several fun things with my peers because of my lack of discipline and I looked like an irresponsible putz to my tutors.

But. Like I said, I'm a new woman. And I'm on a roll. It just took a bit of a reality check. So if all I need is a quick reality check, I'm in pretty good shape.

Term is half over.

I don't want it to be. I finally know the little things. I'm finally able to joke with the staff. I'm finally used to the British pound. I'm finally comfortably goofy here and I can skip across campus and whistle up to people's windows and wave vigorously to all the other students.

I can't help but think of things before it's necessary and it's completely unnecessary to think about when I'll have to leave here. I'll have to start the next part of my European Adventure which is much more uncertain and much less structured than Harris Manchester. It will be wonderful, most certainly, but you know how it is. Finding the right skin to wear and the right pace to walk.

Today right before lunch I walked into the men's restroom. So there's a little foyer right before you can enter the dining hall through one door, and there's another door perpendicular to it that I noticed people entering and coming out of. I assumed this was a bathroom. I was correct. What I'd fail to notice was that all those days and meals that the people I'd seen entering and exiting this bathroom were only of the male gender. It didn't occur to me that this might mean something other than it was JUST a bathroom. Sometimes a bathroom is for anyone, it is blind to gender. Sometimes, I just don't make gender distinctions. Nor do I read very small, highly placed, brass signs that have very faint lettering. This is another of my problems. I kind of act on the reality I create in my own mind before the real reality has a chance to correct my created one.
To the left, once I'd opened the door, was a toilet and to the right was a man with his back to me, standing at what was obviously a urinal. Mortified, I turned on my heel and faced the crowd of people who had just watched the sure and confident girl enter the men's restroom. I might have muttered an exclimation of sorts and a few guys stading in the foyer kind of said, "Yeah, I was going to tell you that was a guys loo but..." Too late. James, my neighbor's neighbor, told me there was a lady's restroom through the dining hall on the other side. I just decided the best thing was to walk across campus to use my own restroom before who ever it was I walked in on came out and found out it was me who invaded his privacy. I didn't want to know who it was I'd walked in on either, so I chose to remove myself from the situation and then blend back into the lunch crowd when I came back. Kind of like shuffling a deck of cards after a card trick. Only the dealer didn't see the Jack of clubs taking a pee. But you get the idea.
I'm not sure than anyone in the foyer really knew that there was somone in that W.C. but I didn't want to explain.
Lunch was fine. A baked potato with chili and I'd asked the server for some chicken curry too. Oooh, we don't really do extras, she said, but she gave me some anyway. That's how it goes. I'm a hungry girl. I need a little more than your average 5'5" (or is it 5"5' I never know) 21 year old female caucasion.

The theme of the next bop, which is next Friday, is Anything But Clothes and I've got a brilliant idea :)