Tag Archives: pipeline

A drop of wisdom from the post office.

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So I’m all stressed out because the deadline for my applications is January 15th, which is Sunday. It is now the 11th, and I have to send out my applications, but on Monday I forgot my checkbook (can’t send it off without the fee) and Tuesday I forget as well. On Tuesday I call home and leave myself a message with Rob hears on the machine, but deletes before the last part. The message ends with, “–and…” and I’m like “WTF?!? What was the other thing I was reminding myself?!?” But it was already deleted.

So I manage to remember myself on Wednesday, and I take some time during the day to gather everything together, call the schools, make sure I’m not missing anything else, include all the copies of what-have-you, I seal up the envelope and take it to the mailroom. It’s about 2:30 pm. I’m sending it Express Mail so it gets there overnight. That way, if there’s anything missing I can still send it or fax it in time for the deadline. I wanted more time, but it didn’t work out. Whatever. Then the girl who handles the postage says, “Our machine’s broken.” What? “It’s broken. I called the guy, but he never gets here when he says he’s going to get here.”

OMG WHAT DO I DO? So I call Rob, and he can’t do it, and we had an argument about it and I was really upset. (We resolved that in a couple of hours, but for the first two hours I was really bent out of shape.) So I leave work without permission and drive to the post office. (My boss was on an important phone call, and I was pretty sure he’d let me go, but I wanted to give him notice. I hadn’t taken lunch, so technically I was fine, but it’s just bad to walk away from your desk without permission. I told my office manager so I wasn’t actually MIA). By the time I get to the post office, I’m really steamed, and I’m talking to the woman behind the counter. I tell her the whole story, and I say, “And it’s grad school applications! I can’t take a chance on that being late! It’s the 15th, and if they don’t get it by Friday, I don’t know if I’ll be considered in under the deadline!”

She looks at me and gives me her full attentions and says, “Yes, that can be very stressful. I tell you what. How does ‘Tomorrow at Noon’ sound to you?”

“What?”

“Tomorrow at noon. Because that’s when they’re going to have it in their hands.” She stamps my package and smiles at me. I say, “That sounds great, honestly.” “Good. So wherever you were before…forget all of that stuff. Because this is where you are right now. Tomorrow at noon. Stay in the now. You’ve just taken two very important things off your list. They’ll have them tomorrow.”

By all of my ancestors, Bless This Woman. Bless her for reminding me Who I am, WHEN I am, and reminding me that the most important thing (and time!) in the world is Right Now. I hope she wins an enormous sum of money for no apparent reason.

Commuting

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If one removes all the scholastic/educational benefits of the Pipeline program (and there are many) there is one side-effect bonus that I didn’t expect to encounter.

My commute.

You see, my normal job is 15 minutes from my house.  I don’t even have the time to listen to more than three songs, or get the weather, on the way to my job.  I have an enormous amount of work with Pipeline.  I have tried to do it on the bus, but I get car-sick, even in the front seat.  I cannot read.  I cannot play games on my phone for extended periods of time.  I have a Zune (courtesy of Craig, who I forgot to give a check to), and I’ve been listening to music.  One of the sweetest moments I had on the bus was passing the sump on Douglaston Parkway…I had the live version of Sting’s “I Burn For You” on, and there was a Heron that took flight….me and my music and the Heron…it was beautiful.

Another side-effect is THOUGHT.  I don’t have much time to just THINK nowadays.  Sometimes I think about school, sometimes about myself and my life, sometimes about my friends…I have a friend that’s moving, and I have yet to process that.  I have to talk to my therapist about it…I’m too broken to process it alone.  We’ve moved so many times, and each time all contact was cut off from the previous moves, so I’m not even sure what that means to me any more, how “moving away,” whether that is just to the next state or across the continent, relates to me and my world.  There are other friends I’d like to be closer to, as well.  I have to figure out how to make that happen.

Although I like the opportunity for thought, I think it would be bad if I had to do it every day.  I’d probably resort to Dramamine to get my work done.  But once a year for several weeks, I think it’s just lovely.