Day 1...Monday
So for some reason I feel compelled to blog about my whole day. This will be my first legitimate journal type blog post! Woah! Hmm... My writing style changes from day to day... So anyway, flashback to this morning of day 1 of a new semester...
*FLASHBACK*
It's midnight. The beginning of January 5, 2009. Whitney is sleeping soundly in her bed. She wakes with a start and looks wearily at Kelsey's clock. 1:09 am. Drat. After wrestling internally with herself she finally slips back into unconsciousness. Another sudden waking. The clock reads 3:06 am. Whitney reaches for her phone and hits redial. A drowsy hello is heard through the ear piece. Oi... I woke him. "Er... Sorry Kendall. Go back to sleep. Yeah you too." So much for leaving a message. Whitney sighs and reaches for her book. After reading a few chapters she falls into slumber. Awake again. 4:46 am. No mercy apparently. Sleep again. What is that annoying beeping sound? Oh that’s her alarm. Whitney looks at the clock. 5:30 am. Finally. She hops out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom. As she approaches the door she notices that the floor is soggy and spongy. Not a good sign. She pushes the door open from across the hall and is met with the sight of a flooded bathroom. Whitney should have called maintenance Saturday night when she noticed the toilet tank leaking or Sunday night when she noticed the sinks filling from the drains. She couldn't do anything now. Luckily she lives next to the guest bathroom. After using the guest bathroom for her morning toiletry needs she dresses for PT and makes the long, cold, dark walk to the field house. As she walks she is on high alert. She is just waiting to be attacked. She's just waiting to jam a rapist's nose back into his brain. She arrives at the field house without incident. She lines up in formation and is moved up to first squad. This is her first PT after her knee surgery and she's nervous. The cadre give announcements and the cadets stand at attention. They all stretch as a company then break off into squads for further instruction. Upon reporting to first squad location Whitney learns that today will be pushup and instruction and a PT test. Oh joy of joys... *sarcasm* After a painstakingly involved demonstration of the pushup the cadets pair up and perform a two minute push up assessment. The other female in the squad attaches herself to Whitney, not wanting to embarrass herself in front of the males. Whitney sighs internally at the weakness of the other female but agrees to partner with her. She begins the pushups at a slow pace. Not good. She hasn't done anything for three months and it shows. Whitney manages 42 in the two minute time limit which is maxing for a female her age but is still below what she expects of herself. After all the cadets are graded on pushups the sit-up instruction begins. The cadets are shown the proper and improper techniques and rest positions. Whitney settles onto the hard floor prepped for the two minute sit-up with the other female holding her ankles. Nothing against females but Whitney knew from experience that sit-ups were easier with a male holding her feet because most females didn't have the weight to keep her feet down at the speed she did sit-ups. However she bit her tongue and told the female where to hold. Through the first minute Whitney kept up a good pace working in time with the two males on either side of her. At one minute she was at forty-six sit-ups. However through the second minute Whitney's pace slowed and she scored a mere seventy-seven sit-ups total. Passing for her bracket but not maxing. Way under the score she was aiming for and way under her Ranger Challenge score. Disappointment. All that remained was the two mile run. The run was to be completed on the over populated indoor track as it was a balmy four degrees Fahrenheit outside. That would be ten laps on the little fifth mile track. Whitney began her run and started her watch. At six minutes thirty-four seconds she had completed her first mile. A grin grew across Whitney's face, her knee didn't even hurt. As she continued her pace slowed. The heat of the indoor was making her lag. She finished the two mile at fifteen forth-three. Slow. Passing for her bracket but not maxing and way more than her best time. Whitney wanders back to the annex to wait for the rest of her squad. She sees her Ranger Challenge family across the annex and runs over to them. They've all moved on to the Sand Hurst PT for competition. She hops in their stretching circle and catches up with her brothers. Someone yells out, "If you’re not in Sand Hurst get out of the circle!" Whitney gets shut out and walks away dejected. She wanders back to her squad rally point almost considering joining the Sand Hurst team. However, she is reminded of her past GPA when she had gone through Ranger Challenge. Sadly she'll have to pass. Her squad finally finished their run and they meet to stretch. As she's leaving PT she runs into her Ranger Challenge team leader and her ROTC mentor. Whitney exchanges a few happy words with the cadet probably giving him a huge shock as last semester she had been quite the pessimist, especially at PT. She walks back to her dorm with a few of the cadets. Upon arriving home she finds the bathroom has gotten worse. She finds the number for maintenance and calls. Their hours don't start until 8:00 am. Whitney wanders off the TV to wait until she can call. Eight rolls around and she calls and reports that their bathroom is flooded. The woman on the other end assures her that someone will be right over because of the nature of her problem. Splashing is heard from the bathroom. Whitney runs to affirm the source of the noise and finds that the sinks have filled more and are continuing to overflow. She quickly grabs the bowl from the cleaning cupboard and begins bailing water from the sinks into the bathtub. This results in water splashing all over her. Oh well. She returns to the TV waiting for the knock on the door signifying her shower opportunity is close at hand. On the TV comes a Hillary Duff movie called The Perfect Man. She is able to watch quite a bit of it while bailing the sinks every few minutes. Although it's romantic and cute Whitney secretly wishes a man would give her orchids or write her a love letter. Whitney thinks that men should watch that show and realize that most women want a little romance. They would enjoy the flowers and the romantic evenings. Well at least she does. The clock reads 9:16 am. There's a knock at the door. Whitney rushes to answer it and is met by a portly middle-aged man. A blessed portly middle-aged man for he has come to fix her plumbing issues. She guides him to the bathroom and explains to him her findings then plods back to the couch to watch more gooey romance. After a bit she turns to the clock. It shows 9:28 am. Time to get ready for class. She peeks in the bathroom and portly is still hard at work, bless his soul. *sigh* Whitney shall have to revel in her woman stank today. Gross. She dresses and deodorizes and such. She is then off the class with Kelsey in tow. Whitney's first class in German 101 in the MARB, but she doesn't really remember the room number. She thinks its three sixty-something. She finds a room matching the known criteria. The previous class hasn't been released yet. She turns to a girl waiting and asks if she is waiting for German 101. Mistake. She replies with an enthusiastic yes. Sensing that she is the peppy optimistic type Whitney kicks herself for making first contact with the little bottle of sunshine and replies curtly, “Good. Thank you," and looks away. She can see the girl out of the corner of her eye fighting the urge to bubble more at Whitney. The 9:00 am class is released and Whitney rushes into class to escape the girl. She finds a seat in her preferred row for actually learning (the third, otherwise it's the back but that doesn't promote learning at all). Much to her dismay the peppy responder seats herself next to Whitney thinking that their short exchange has formed a strong bond. Whitney turns and faces the front of the class and appears engrossed in the heading she was writing on her notes. Students file into the class and chose from the desks. A young man walks into the room and remains at the front. Is he a student? Thinks Whitney. No. He's the teacher. He introduced himself in German as Christian and continued the into in German and explained to the classroom full of students expecting an introductory course in German that we would begin by singing The Spirit of God in German then he would give a prayer in the language as well. Many looked on with puzzled expressions on their faces, but not Whitney. She had taken four years of German previous and was ready for an easy A. The class sang a shaky hymn then listened in awe to a foreign yet familiar prayer. After the prayer Christian explained that the majority of the class would be in German. Almost zero English. They then began the lesson of how to introduce yourself and ask others their names. Then he instructed us to find a partner and practice. Whitney rolled her eyes as she felt the tap on her right shoulder. It was the peppy replier, "Want to be partners?" Whitney replied with a, "Hallo, ich heisse Whitney. Wie heisst du?" The girl replied with an energetic, "Stephanie." Whitney gave a short smile and faced forward again. Stephanie then struck up a conversation and Whitney bit her tongue and she acted peppy and replied to the questions thrown at her. Throughout the class Christian would ask the class random vocabulary questions. Whitney was the first to respond followed by the girl seated behind her. It became an undeclared race. Whitney won every time but the Deutsch Nemesis wasn't far behind. At the end of class Whitney turned to the girl and inquired her name. She was a girly preppy fashionista in all pink. Whitney succeeded in being serious with her and complimented the Deutsch Nemesis on her skills. D.N. then complimented Whitney on her "cute jacket." Girls are so evil. They both knew that war had begun in that class to compete for top of class yet both pretended that they hadn't noticed and that they were merely interested in the other because of some unrelated reason. After German Whitney had an hour break before Book of Mormon. She clomped off through the snow to buy text books. Whitney found that her booklist was unavailable for printing or even viewing so she took off to the JKB to buy some food from the vending machines and await the start of Book of Mormon. The machine vended her pizza hot pocket which she cooked for double the time suggested yet when she bit into it the pocket was still cold. Whitney munched on her frozen meal outside her classroom. At the scheduled time she entered the room and picked a seat in the middle. As students moseyed in she recognized people from her ward. She also recognized Kelsey's friend Lizzy and welcomed her to sit with her. She continued to watch the people fill the room. She saw the familiar face of Jon Selee. Oh how she had missed her redneck econ buddy. She called out to him and greeted him warmly. Next familiar face in the room was Kelsey herself. Joy! Kelsey came to join the row of friends. As Whitney waited for class to start her nose twitched as a pungent stench filled her nostrils. She turned to look down the row knowing who she would find. Smelly. What a joyous class it would be. Whitney sat through class taking fastidious notes as the sarcastic professor rambled on. After Book of Mormon Whitney had two hours till Chemistry. She walked to the WILK with Smelly, Kelsey, and Lizzy and shared lunch with them then took off to buy textbooks. She only had two to buy. Hoo-rah! Somehow Whitney had managed to keep her textbook purchases around two hundred dollars this semester. She purchased her books and proceeded to the Benson Building to study her for her online HEPE class while she waited for Chem to start. As she was studying on the floor under the display case a young man approached her. He sat next to her under the case and introduced himself as Will and asked Whitney's name. They discovered that they were both waiting for the same class. They struck up a conversation and discovered also that they were in the same recitation period and both were interested in the medical field and that both were in the ROTC. He however was in the AFROTC. ROTC people seem to have an intangible draw to other ROTC people. Thought Whitney. They always seem to find me even when we're only dressed in civilians. Will then fell asleep under the display case and Whitney returned to her studying. The bell rang releasing the 2:00 pm class. Whitney woke Will with a poke to the head and they entered the classroom and sat themselves in the third row next to a young man named Chad. Whitney scanned the room for people she knew. She saw Nathan her recitation leader from the semester previous. He seemed sad that Whitney was retaking 105. She assured him that it wasn't his fault she didn't learn anything. She had been a slacker. Next she saw Jared. A member of one of Whitney's favorite families. He was even in her same recitation period. After all the students were seated the class began. It was lead by Doctor Hussein Ahmed Samha. He spoke with a very thick accent and his enunciation made Whitney laugh. Whitney took notes throughout class and hurried out at the bell. She rushed back to her dorm. In her hurry she nearly ate it on the cement but regained her balance before entirely losing it. She returned to her dorm and unloaded her stuff and got ready to settle down to study. Much to her dismay she couldn't locate her bookstore bag containing her books. Chemistry Class. Oi. Whitney put her shoes back on and pulled her coat over her. She doubled timed it back to the Benson Building and found her bag under her chair. Relieved she snatched the bag off the ground. Bless the integrity or lack of perception of others. Whichever. She didn't care. She walked happily through the snowfall back to her dorm nearly slipping in the exact same spot. She arrived at her room, and settled into her bed with her computer to blog...
*PRESENT TIME*
Wow... Long entry... So today had its bumps but I still feel really good. I'm very optimistic. It might be this new semester with new classes, new people, and new teachers coupled with the new snow. It's like endless opportunities. The snow covers my past and leaves a clean white blanket awaiting new markings. It's my choice of what to make from the snow. I'm excited... :P
*FLASHBACK*
It's midnight. The beginning of January 5, 2009. Whitney is sleeping soundly in her bed. She wakes with a start and looks wearily at Kelsey's clock. 1:09 am. Drat. After wrestling internally with herself she finally slips back into unconsciousness. Another sudden waking. The clock reads 3:06 am. Whitney reaches for her phone and hits redial. A drowsy hello is heard through the ear piece. Oi... I woke him. "Er... Sorry Kendall. Go back to sleep. Yeah you too." So much for leaving a message. Whitney sighs and reaches for her book. After reading a few chapters she falls into slumber. Awake again. 4:46 am. No mercy apparently. Sleep again. What is that annoying beeping sound? Oh that’s her alarm. Whitney looks at the clock. 5:30 am. Finally. She hops out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom. As she approaches the door she notices that the floor is soggy and spongy. Not a good sign. She pushes the door open from across the hall and is met with the sight of a flooded bathroom. Whitney should have called maintenance Saturday night when she noticed the toilet tank leaking or Sunday night when she noticed the sinks filling from the drains. She couldn't do anything now. Luckily she lives next to the guest bathroom. After using the guest bathroom for her morning toiletry needs she dresses for PT and makes the long, cold, dark walk to the field house. As she walks she is on high alert. She is just waiting to be attacked. She's just waiting to jam a rapist's nose back into his brain. She arrives at the field house without incident. She lines up in formation and is moved up to first squad. This is her first PT after her knee surgery and she's nervous. The cadre give announcements and the cadets stand at attention. They all stretch as a company then break off into squads for further instruction. Upon reporting to first squad location Whitney learns that today will be pushup and instruction and a PT test. Oh joy of joys... *sarcasm* After a painstakingly involved demonstration of the pushup the cadets pair up and perform a two minute push up assessment. The other female in the squad attaches herself to Whitney, not wanting to embarrass herself in front of the males. Whitney sighs internally at the weakness of the other female but agrees to partner with her. She begins the pushups at a slow pace. Not good. She hasn't done anything for three months and it shows. Whitney manages 42 in the two minute time limit which is maxing for a female her age but is still below what she expects of herself. After all the cadets are graded on pushups the sit-up instruction begins. The cadets are shown the proper and improper techniques and rest positions. Whitney settles onto the hard floor prepped for the two minute sit-up with the other female holding her ankles. Nothing against females but Whitney knew from experience that sit-ups were easier with a male holding her feet because most females didn't have the weight to keep her feet down at the speed she did sit-ups. However she bit her tongue and told the female where to hold. Through the first minute Whitney kept up a good pace working in time with the two males on either side of her. At one minute she was at forty-six sit-ups. However through the second minute Whitney's pace slowed and she scored a mere seventy-seven sit-ups total. Passing for her bracket but not maxing. Way under the score she was aiming for and way under her Ranger Challenge score. Disappointment. All that remained was the two mile run. The run was to be completed on the over populated indoor track as it was a balmy four degrees Fahrenheit outside. That would be ten laps on the little fifth mile track. Whitney began her run and started her watch. At six minutes thirty-four seconds she had completed her first mile. A grin grew across Whitney's face, her knee didn't even hurt. As she continued her pace slowed. The heat of the indoor was making her lag. She finished the two mile at fifteen forth-three. Slow. Passing for her bracket but not maxing and way more than her best time. Whitney wanders back to the annex to wait for the rest of her squad. She sees her Ranger Challenge family across the annex and runs over to them. They've all moved on to the Sand Hurst PT for competition. She hops in their stretching circle and catches up with her brothers. Someone yells out, "If you’re not in Sand Hurst get out of the circle!" Whitney gets shut out and walks away dejected. She wanders back to her squad rally point almost considering joining the Sand Hurst team. However, she is reminded of her past GPA when she had gone through Ranger Challenge. Sadly she'll have to pass. Her squad finally finished their run and they meet to stretch. As she's leaving PT she runs into her Ranger Challenge team leader and her ROTC mentor. Whitney exchanges a few happy words with the cadet probably giving him a huge shock as last semester she had been quite the pessimist, especially at PT. She walks back to her dorm with a few of the cadets. Upon arriving home she finds the bathroom has gotten worse. She finds the number for maintenance and calls. Their hours don't start until 8:00 am. Whitney wanders off the TV to wait until she can call. Eight rolls around and she calls and reports that their bathroom is flooded. The woman on the other end assures her that someone will be right over because of the nature of her problem. Splashing is heard from the bathroom. Whitney runs to affirm the source of the noise and finds that the sinks have filled more and are continuing to overflow. She quickly grabs the bowl from the cleaning cupboard and begins bailing water from the sinks into the bathtub. This results in water splashing all over her. Oh well. She returns to the TV waiting for the knock on the door signifying her shower opportunity is close at hand. On the TV comes a Hillary Duff movie called The Perfect Man. She is able to watch quite a bit of it while bailing the sinks every few minutes. Although it's romantic and cute Whitney secretly wishes a man would give her orchids or write her a love letter. Whitney thinks that men should watch that show and realize that most women want a little romance. They would enjoy the flowers and the romantic evenings. Well at least she does. The clock reads 9:16 am. There's a knock at the door. Whitney rushes to answer it and is met by a portly middle-aged man. A blessed portly middle-aged man for he has come to fix her plumbing issues. She guides him to the bathroom and explains to him her findings then plods back to the couch to watch more gooey romance. After a bit she turns to the clock. It shows 9:28 am. Time to get ready for class. She peeks in the bathroom and portly is still hard at work, bless his soul. *sigh* Whitney shall have to revel in her woman stank today. Gross. She dresses and deodorizes and such. She is then off the class with Kelsey in tow. Whitney's first class in German 101 in the MARB, but she doesn't really remember the room number. She thinks its three sixty-something. She finds a room matching the known criteria. The previous class hasn't been released yet. She turns to a girl waiting and asks if she is waiting for German 101. Mistake. She replies with an enthusiastic yes. Sensing that she is the peppy optimistic type Whitney kicks herself for making first contact with the little bottle of sunshine and replies curtly, “Good. Thank you," and looks away. She can see the girl out of the corner of her eye fighting the urge to bubble more at Whitney. The 9:00 am class is released and Whitney rushes into class to escape the girl. She finds a seat in her preferred row for actually learning (the third, otherwise it's the back but that doesn't promote learning at all). Much to her dismay the peppy responder seats herself next to Whitney thinking that their short exchange has formed a strong bond. Whitney turns and faces the front of the class and appears engrossed in the heading she was writing on her notes. Students file into the class and chose from the desks. A young man walks into the room and remains at the front. Is he a student? Thinks Whitney. No. He's the teacher. He introduced himself in German as Christian and continued the into in German and explained to the classroom full of students expecting an introductory course in German that we would begin by singing The Spirit of God in German then he would give a prayer in the language as well. Many looked on with puzzled expressions on their faces, but not Whitney. She had taken four years of German previous and was ready for an easy A. The class sang a shaky hymn then listened in awe to a foreign yet familiar prayer. After the prayer Christian explained that the majority of the class would be in German. Almost zero English. They then began the lesson of how to introduce yourself and ask others their names. Then he instructed us to find a partner and practice. Whitney rolled her eyes as she felt the tap on her right shoulder. It was the peppy replier, "Want to be partners?" Whitney replied with a, "Hallo, ich heisse Whitney. Wie heisst du?" The girl replied with an energetic, "Stephanie." Whitney gave a short smile and faced forward again. Stephanie then struck up a conversation and Whitney bit her tongue and she acted peppy and replied to the questions thrown at her. Throughout the class Christian would ask the class random vocabulary questions. Whitney was the first to respond followed by the girl seated behind her. It became an undeclared race. Whitney won every time but the Deutsch Nemesis wasn't far behind. At the end of class Whitney turned to the girl and inquired her name. She was a girly preppy fashionista in all pink. Whitney succeeded in being serious with her and complimented the Deutsch Nemesis on her skills. D.N. then complimented Whitney on her "cute jacket." Girls are so evil. They both knew that war had begun in that class to compete for top of class yet both pretended that they hadn't noticed and that they were merely interested in the other because of some unrelated reason. After German Whitney had an hour break before Book of Mormon. She clomped off through the snow to buy text books. Whitney found that her booklist was unavailable for printing or even viewing so she took off to the JKB to buy some food from the vending machines and await the start of Book of Mormon. The machine vended her pizza hot pocket which she cooked for double the time suggested yet when she bit into it the pocket was still cold. Whitney munched on her frozen meal outside her classroom. At the scheduled time she entered the room and picked a seat in the middle. As students moseyed in she recognized people from her ward. She also recognized Kelsey's friend Lizzy and welcomed her to sit with her. She continued to watch the people fill the room. She saw the familiar face of Jon Selee. Oh how she had missed her redneck econ buddy. She called out to him and greeted him warmly. Next familiar face in the room was Kelsey herself. Joy! Kelsey came to join the row of friends. As Whitney waited for class to start her nose twitched as a pungent stench filled her nostrils. She turned to look down the row knowing who she would find. Smelly. What a joyous class it would be. Whitney sat through class taking fastidious notes as the sarcastic professor rambled on. After Book of Mormon Whitney had two hours till Chemistry. She walked to the WILK with Smelly, Kelsey, and Lizzy and shared lunch with them then took off to buy textbooks. She only had two to buy. Hoo-rah! Somehow Whitney had managed to keep her textbook purchases around two hundred dollars this semester. She purchased her books and proceeded to the Benson Building to study her for her online HEPE class while she waited for Chem to start. As she was studying on the floor under the display case a young man approached her. He sat next to her under the case and introduced himself as Will and asked Whitney's name. They discovered that they were both waiting for the same class. They struck up a conversation and discovered also that they were in the same recitation period and both were interested in the medical field and that both were in the ROTC. He however was in the AFROTC. ROTC people seem to have an intangible draw to other ROTC people. Thought Whitney. They always seem to find me even when we're only dressed in civilians. Will then fell asleep under the display case and Whitney returned to her studying. The bell rang releasing the 2:00 pm class. Whitney woke Will with a poke to the head and they entered the classroom and sat themselves in the third row next to a young man named Chad. Whitney scanned the room for people she knew. She saw Nathan her recitation leader from the semester previous. He seemed sad that Whitney was retaking 105. She assured him that it wasn't his fault she didn't learn anything. She had been a slacker. Next she saw Jared. A member of one of Whitney's favorite families. He was even in her same recitation period. After all the students were seated the class began. It was lead by Doctor Hussein Ahmed Samha. He spoke with a very thick accent and his enunciation made Whitney laugh. Whitney took notes throughout class and hurried out at the bell. She rushed back to her dorm. In her hurry she nearly ate it on the cement but regained her balance before entirely losing it. She returned to her dorm and unloaded her stuff and got ready to settle down to study. Much to her dismay she couldn't locate her bookstore bag containing her books. Chemistry Class. Oi. Whitney put her shoes back on and pulled her coat over her. She doubled timed it back to the Benson Building and found her bag under her chair. Relieved she snatched the bag off the ground. Bless the integrity or lack of perception of others. Whichever. She didn't care. She walked happily through the snowfall back to her dorm nearly slipping in the exact same spot. She arrived at her room, and settled into her bed with her computer to blog...
*PRESENT TIME*
Wow... Long entry... So today had its bumps but I still feel really good. I'm very optimistic. It might be this new semester with new classes, new people, and new teachers coupled with the new snow. It's like endless opportunities. The snow covers my past and leaves a clean white blanket awaiting new markings. It's my choice of what to make from the snow. I'm excited... :P
Love it Whitney! I love being a part of your day!...mom
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