Ash Wednesday- Second day of Uni

I've just gotten home, and I'm tired, sore, tired, sleepy, tired and just, really tired. I'm not saying I had a bad day, but even good days can take a lot from you. All I wish for right now is my blanket, my pillow and my bed. Unfortunately, life and fate are like college fraternity guys, playing those pranks on the unsuspecting newbies before shoving them into a series of hazing just to see how tough and how much worth they are.
Who else better to bring in for that job, than family? They have the power to make or break you...and man, am I near breaking point.

Therefore! I've turned to the soothing balm that blogger offers and will dutifully relay the lovely day to you.

Ashamed as I am to admit this, I had literally no idea it was Ash Wednesday today. I consider myself  a good Catholic, but obviously, not adequate enough to know our own Liturgical calendar. After finding out, of course, I made plans for mass except, I realized, the interview I had for a course assignment was at the same time. Well not exactly; mass was going to be from 9am-10am and I was to meet the girl in Uni at 10am. Since mass was obviously more important, I prayed the girl (let's call her Jo) could wait a few more minutes.

My dad usually drops the kids off at school by 7:30am, and because I was an early bird (actually, I didn't want to catch the bus) I ended up going along for the ride. The school was going to be leading the mass at the Cathedral; they're both basically situated side by side. It didn't occur to me how much time I had to kill till mass started *slaps forehead* and I hadn't any extra money to go look rich in McDonalds. So, I made myself look busy and walked around the church for a while. Not too long, when I knew that if I continued I'd start getting strange looks, I decided to walk to the bus stand. What was I going to do?  I had no idea. It was an adventure! Maybe I'd find 10 bucks on the ground so I could go look rich in McDonalds.

I went on my way through Suva, bumping into former primary teacher's of mine who seemed really please to see me (No, I was never teacher's pet) and a few little kids from my sisters' school who recognized me as so and so's big sister. I jay walked a few places when I made sure there wasn't any police around. As everyone in our beautiful island nation knows, the fee for jaywalking was about $40. The thing was, the lights took ages to turn green and it would stay green for approximately 5 seconds, you'd have to run across to make it. Then there were the awkward locations the crossings were situated where there's normally no traffic, and you're just standing there for ten minutes staring at the person across the road....and there's not a vehicle in sight.

The city was brimming with people, which was unusual for that time of the morning, but not unusual for Ash Wednesday, with all the Catholics hurrying to mass. I got to the bus stand and there was nothing to see but herds of high school students standing around like cow grazing in a meadow. Not moving. Just standing there and chewing.
I circled the bus stand, then made up my mind to buy something in case someone (as unlikely as it would sound) was keeping tabs on my aimless wandering, just to prove that I actually planned this all along. To walk past the dozens of shops in the city to buy juice at the bus stand....

On my way back to Church, I met a friend of mine who had left my Uni to go to med school. We caught up with each other before bidding goodbye, and I was back to my mass mission.

I made it to mass, I can't say what the sermon was about, the priest was reading off a piece of paper and mispronouncing words. I suspected someone else wrote his sermon.

 Apart from that, mass was lovely and I felt jovial after, ready to take on Uni.



I walked up to the bus stop, waited almost 15 minutes for the bus to arrive and I was off to Uni.

Another embarrassing moment, I didn't recognize the girl I was supposed to meet, despite sitting beside her for two hours, 48 hours ago. She waved her hand at me and all I could think was, "Goodness, could she be related to me? Was she someone from Student life? Was she an old friend? A neighbour?"
I wasn't fast enough to hide my confusion, but I recognized her accent as soon as she exclaimed, "OH COME ON!"
I grinned sheepishly and just said, "I'm not good with faces." I felt so bad. First, I ditched her for mass. I was late meeting her. Than, I forgot who she is! I was not making  a good impression of myself. I should have bought her coffee. Or peanuts. Or something.
Instead, I led her half way across Uni to the "white tables" and we got started with the assignment. She's forgiving like that.

I'd forgotten my watch at home, so I was completely dependent on her ( We're supposed to call her Jo, remember?) for time keeping. The thing was, I'd left Church at approximately 10am, and she informed me that it was 11.30am. How come it took an hour and a half to get to Uni, was a mystery. It should have taken only 15 minutes or max, 30 minutes. Where had the time gone?

I asked Jo if her time was correct and she replied, yes. Her time had been wrong earlier but a friend of hers corrected her. So her time was updated and correct.


We found out that coincidentally, we were also in the same class in another course.The class was at 2pm and so we made our way there at 1.45pm.

We reached the class, I opened the door and stepped in with Jo. The class was full and the lecturer stopped talking and turned to us quizzically.
"We're having class."

I asked if it was our course. And she goes, "Class is almost finished"

..............................................
In Fijian, the word that could adequately explain that moment would be, POTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 For the meaning of pote in Urban Dictionary, click here.

Right, so we head to the bathroom and than burst into giggles. Good lord, what everyone in that class, including the lecturer thought of us!

Just 10 seconds later, out of all people to burst into the ladies bathroom, it's the lecturer herself. She demanded where we had been all day, and I'm silently cursing Jo's time-keeping skills. I explained that we had class from 2pm-4pm, to which the lecturer looks confused.

"It's 12.30pm."

POTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jo continues to look confused, but I burst into raucous laughter, trying to suppress the urge to fall to the floor and roll around in laughter. The lecturer, who had been beginning to apply her lipstick had to stop halfway to join in, laughing at our crazy situation.

We hadn't been late to class. We'd been too early! We were almost two hours early. Thanks to Jo's time keeping skill! Or actually, whoever it had been earlier who'd said her time was wrong.

The lecturer, her application of make up forgotten, was leaning over the sink still laughing. All she managed to get through her laughter was,
"I...laugh laugh laughl...thought you were...laugh laugh...late!"

My face had turned tomato coloured and all I could think was, I'm never setting foot outside this bathroom.

The lecturer, seeing our embarrassment, tried to console us,
"Give them a couple of days, and they'll forget."

A COUPLE OF DAYS!

She even relayed a story to us about one of her most embarrassing moments in Uni, when she accidentally set off a fire extinguisher she'd been playing around with in one of the class rooms. The room looked like a snow blizzard had hit and of course, she hadn't had anywhere to hide.

That made us feel a little better, but we became seriously paranoid. Whenever someone laughed around us, we were convinced they'd been in that class we'd barged into earlier and they remembered us.

So embarrassing. Major Pote.

Luckily, we had our time corrected and made the class ON time.


It had gotten cold outside, and in the lab I sat directly under the air condition.
Why don't they ship me to Antarctica while they're at it??

I was tired and cold, which worsened the urge to sleep but luckily I was sitting right in front of the lecturer, inspiration enough not to sleep. She was a good lecturer too.

After class, I bought Jo and I peanuts, because we had had an interesting ordeal. We'll probably see each other on Friday, and until then we've got to work on our assignments and study for the quiz.


THAT was how my Ash Wednesday happened.

So HELLO to LENT!! May the next 40 days be fruitful and a spiritually inspirational one.