Disaster Praxis and Spilled Milk

I never wake up with the expectation that it will be a bad day. I tend to wake up with very few expectations, in fact. I just intend to let things play out however they may and roll with the punches. I'm sure more conscious positive thinking would do me some good, but I am by no means thinking negatively.

I got up this morning before my alarm intending to get dressed, eat, and head over to the University of Utah for my reading Praxis. This is a 2-hour long test consisting of 90 multiple choice questions and 3 written responses. Not the way anyone likes to spend her Saturday morning, but it has to be done, ya know? 

I've been studying for the past week. I took the practice test last night and didn't do so well on it, but I tried to be confident and hope for the best. 

So I ate my granola, yogurt, and mango for breakfast and drove over to the U, prepared with my ticket and #2 pencils. Since I just took another Praxis not too long ago at the same place, I felt OK with where to park and where to go. The tests were downstairs on the end of the building last time. So that's where I headed this time.

I went downstairs, and it was totally dark. I went back upstairs and followed some other people. A lady pointed a test-taker downstairs again. "Ugh, for reals? I was right the first time." Back downstairs I went. Heaven forbid we be organized and post any signs for Praxis test-takers, directing people where to go, right?  

Last time there were papers on the wall with a printed list the tests and room numbers so I could check where to go. This time, I could find no such papers. 

Apparently, there was a woman who was supposed to direct you to the right room. But she was hiding in one of the classrooms herself. You'd only have seen her if you came in at one particular entrance. 

I wandered back and forth looking at the lists outside the classroom doors. The lists were scribbled and thrown together, like this whole thing hadn't been coordinated very well. I walked into the room that showed my test on the list to check that I was in the right place, and the woman at the table had no idea what to do or how to help me. She sent me to find the lady hiding in the classroom to check. I finally found her and confirmed that I was supposed to be in the room I had just gone to. A glorious waste of my time. Thanks for the help, ladies. (Extra steps for my BodyBugg though, right?)

I sat down in a desk. There seemed to be quite a bit of shuffling around and confusion on the part of the director lady. When we were supposed to begin everything, they sent us all out of the room telling us that they had to do assigned seats. So we waited around while they got their stuff somewhat figured out. We were finally allowed back into the room, where the lady at the table still seemed confused about how it should work. She was taking IDs and then forgetting to write down last names when she assigned seats. Overall, terribly inefficient. 

I sat down in the seat I had originally picked out. Finally, a lady walks in who has supposedly been trained and has some inkling of what should be going on. She said something like, "They told all of us the wrong time to come." Wow. Seriously? The test always has two times. The early morning one and the 10:45 one. So some semblance of order seemed to appear at this point. 

Unfortunately for all of us, there were about 14 different tests being taken in that room which had to be passed out and collected separately. 

So we didn't start the test until around 11:35 or so, making it so that we didn't finish until around 1:35. I was really frustrated by this slow, chaotic, late start. It took up a huge chunk of my Saturday, which I had pretty roughly planned out. And it made it so that I got starving in the middle of the test, when really, it should've been done by 1 PM. Mind you, we can't have anything to drink during the test. And if you know me and my water, you know what a problem this is. No water from 11 to 2? 

Then the collecting process was extremely long because of all the different tests and the slow lady collecting everything. 

We didn't get out of there till 1:50. 

I was pretty annoyed, as you may have guessed. 

I drove home intending to make myself a shake before going on a run. (It has banana and chia seeds, so it's good before a run. Plus it's delicious.)

I began to make said shake.  I had poured 1 cup of almond coconut milk (so yummy, and not cheap) into my Magic Bullet and opened the cupboard to take out my chia seeds. "No use crying over spilled milk," right? WRONG.

Just then, a huge stack of plastic tupperware and lids came cascading down out of the cupboard onto my head, knocking over my almond coconut milk and spilling it all over the counter. 

I know, I know. It could have been worse, ending up on the floor or elsewhere. Still, it was annoying. And of course it resulted in some unanticipated profanity. 

I finally got the mess cleaned up and was lamenting my lost, yummy, expensive milk. I'll cry over spilled milk if I want to. 

I put my shake onto the blender, and in an effort to make sure it was mixing sufficiently, I took it off to shake it. My Magic Bullet has kind of a leak at the bottom, and I used spinach ice cubes. 

So as I shook, green liquid in small amounts was exiting the bottom of my Bullet and onto my floor and counter. I went to wipe it off with a dish towel, but it just smeared and left my counter green. UGH. Spinach would make a great dyeing agent, by the way. 

I got the sponge and got the mess cleaned up. But do you see all these extra annoying little things that had to be done?! All of these things piled on top of each other today has just made me extremely irritable. I just wanted to take my test, come home, make food, run, eat, and go to the movies--in a timely, easy fashion. That's it. Is that so much to ask? 

I don't want to wonder what else will go wrong today. Instead, I'm going to fight my urge to take a nap on this cloudy day and go on a really long run. 

Because that will solve everything!

By the way, I am glad to report that I think I will pass that Reading Praxis. I feel pretty good about it. 

Also, I want one of these: