I was up and at ’em early, determined to meet my goal of getting a heavy weight off my shoulders today.
I caught the bus to campus and spent from 10:00AM to 7:00PM locked up in a graduate study room in the D.H. Hill Library, rewriting my first ENG 515 Rhetoric of Science and Technology paper, for which I “missed the boat” on my first submission.
There are two graduate student study rooms in the library, for which you have to check out a key (using your student ID, which indicates your graduate school status)—one on the 3rd floor of Tower 1 of the library, and the other on the 4th floor of the same tower.
I went with the logic that most people would get off on the 3rd floor and use that one, so went to the fourth floor one in hopes to have that room to myself. It was not to be, and throughout my time there, there were three other people in and out at various times.
There are two bean bags in the room, and one student made them into a bed and took a nap for a while. One of the other students fell asleep for a while with her head down on the desk she was using. I wondered if they were juggling school, jobs, and families like a lot of grad students.
I had a mid-stay instant message chat with Robert, only to find out that another friend of his has passed. And another situation where the body wasn’t “discovered” for almost a week.
Condolences, my sweet. Rest in peace, Michael.
Turning on my phone while waiting for the bus, I received two voice mail messages—one from Joe and one from Irene.
I’d forgotten that Joe and I had talked about having dinner at The Borough this evening, so instead of catching the bus back home, I waited for him to come by Hillsborough Street and pick me up and we headed directly downtown—just down the road.
Checking in with Irene, I found her just leaving Greenville with her son Andrew, and we made plans to meet up after my dinner with Joe, and her and Andrew’s dinner, which they planned to have once arriving in Raleigh.
Joe and I had a couple of drinks and split two different entrées at The Borough. After that, we played three games of free pool at Flex, and had a few drinks there before Irene called to let me know that she had finished her dinner with her son. Joe dropped me off at home.
Irene and I listened to this incredible song, which I had downloaded earlier from iTunes, and then she caught me up on the past week or so with her mom, who is going through chemotherapy and radiation for lung cancer. She’s in what sounds like an incredible facility in Greenville, NC called Hope Lodge.
We got to bed as one o’clock approached. I set my alarm for 4:00; she set hers for 4:30. Her flight’s at 6:15.