perpetually late

Yesterday I was late to everything and it drove me nuts. I've become ok with 5 min of lateness, it seems normal now, but I was 15 min late or more to everything.

Had my hair cut in the morning - late. My hairdresser was running late so that I was running late again... I ran out his door to catch a bus. There was a long long at the bus stop. It's a stop where two bus lines stop. The line of people for in B.A. are always nice and straight and single order.(it's quite remarkable to see) I followed suit....and got in the "cola". I saw my buss coming, a woman put up her hand, the bus slowed down, no one in front of me moved so the bus pulled away! umph. At this point I was already 10 min late and had to go fairly far, so I hopped in a taxi. 10 pesos later and I was at my destination, but 20 min late.

My conversation exchange friend asked me to help her with a translation project she was working on. She already translated it, so I just helped her refine it with common phrases. For a 1/2 work she paid me 20 pesos. The rest of the time we spoke Spanish.

Once we were through I started to page through my guia T (bus bible) to see which bus would take me to the centro to meet my 7pm student. I couldn't figure it out where the 93 came through so I asked the waitress at a cafe. She pointed me to the correct bus, the 111. Once I found the stop and boarded the bus the sky opened up and it started to pour.

20 min late, I met my student in a cafe.

To add to the craziness I was sending emails and texting my students throughout the day to confirm their classes for Thursday. Many canceled or wanted to rearrange the time.

Later in the evening I met with a friend for a drink. I think I was only 10 min late. A nice bottle of red wine, a bottle of water and some chilling out. 27 pesos. It was a nice way to end a crazy day.

Thursday, March 12, 2009
Oh boy, my lateness carried over and polluted today. I woke up late and missed my first two classes of the day. I felt so ashamed. It was my fault. I stayed out too late last night. Luckily I was able to reschedule one of the students.

So, this morning, in a furry, I got ready and headed out the door. Then my subte car broke down. It was packed as normal. At one of the stops the train wasn't moving. The conductor came over the speaker and everyone got off. For this being a Latin culture with a heavy Italian influence only one short older lady yelled obscenities and everyone else laughed at her. I just would have thought people would have shouted and yelled. I'm sure people in the U.S. would have made a stink over it.

I taught just 3 students today (2 of them cute) and I missed 2 and 2 canceled. Not a good day.

To try to cure myself of a bad day I went for ice cream and watched 20 min of TV. I kept flipping channels. The last channel, channel 98, was just a black and white picture. I passed it by. Then I flipped back to it. It looks familiar? OMG, It's the lobby of my building! There is a camera there!! No way! I had No idea and it's one of the channels on TV!