Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

Yes, before you ask, I did steal the title of this blog from the children’s book by Judith Viorst. This is not a weak attempt to plagiarize, it’s just that this simple phrase so accurately sums up my awful day last week. Bad days- we all have them, it’s just the nature of life. And I know these blogs are supposed to be reserved for some insightful, enlightening reflection of my civic and cultural engagement here in New Orleans, today’s blog will simply be my belated vent of last week’s terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. That is my disclaimer, continue reading if you must.

So, this day actually started wrong from the time I opened my eyes. Instead of being awakened by my alarm clock, I was alerted by the loud sound of Stevie’s Cherie Amor (my ringtone) which sounded more like a siren than sweet melodies to my groggy self. I answer. It’s Felicia, the other intern who works with me at Providence. She asks me if I was up for work yet and I calmly tell her I’m not going to be hitching a ride in the carpool today, that I’d instead be walking to Tulane for work, a few blocks down the road. After she hangs up I look at the time on my phone and realize its 8:20am. I have to be to Tulane by 8:30! I hadn’t dressed, eaten breakfast, nor wiped the crust out of my eyes. Plus the walk to work would take at least 10-15 minutes. Quickly, I sum all the energy that I could possibly have in my body on at 8:22 in the morning and begin a mad dash to get ready for work. I barely had time to eat breakfast let alone, comb my hair so I sprint out of Loyola with disheveled hair and a cup of yogurt in tote. (I didn’t even make it out of the front door before I had a huge yogurty decoration on my polo.)

After running (*by running, I mean walking briskly- It’s too hot for all of that) down Freret and Willow I finally make it to the location I was supposed to meet my supervisor for work. (I forgot to explain earlier, but the reason I was supposed to meet my supervisor at Tulane instead of my usual location is that my company was bringing in volunteers for the week and their work required the usage of Tulane’s computer lab.) I was dismayed to look around and see that the volunteers were running late. I guess a normal person, would be relieved that they’d gotten there before work actually started but I was kind of upset. Here I was, sweaty, disheveled and disgruntled- for no reason at all. The volunteers show up more than an hour late, they had gotten lost in the city. During that hour waiting for them, I learned that instead of spending my day in a cool air-conditioned computer lab with the volunteers, I’d instead be outdoors surveying properties that my company was in the process of redeveloping. It was only 10 am but already in the nineties and I was wearing a dress shirt, some black slacks and some black shoes. I began to sweat just thinking about myself walking around in the heat with black dress pants on.
So anyways, the volunteers finally arrive and they were a group of energetic adolescents. Since I was having a bad morning, their energy and eagerness annoyed me- though in retrospect, energetic and eager volunteers are the best kind.

As soon as the volunteers we settled, we headed out to the “target area” to take begin our day of surveying (basically taking a huge inventory of the neighborhood my company is going to be redeveloping). Luckily, I was able to change my clothing into a more appropriate gym shorts and t-shirt before going out and also, I spent most of the day in a car instead of actually outdoors. Despite the which, as the day progressed, my irritation increased. Surveying isn’t so bad. We just take a look at the house/ vacant lot, determine its existing condition, structure type, etc. and record it. However, this isn’t the easiest job when the house you’re trying to survey is on the busy Canal street and not many people were appreciating the fact that as we approached our target house we slowed down to a 5 mile pace or simply came to a complete halt in the middle of street. I’m usually not that much of a complainer but this day I was especially tired and hungry. We worked through lunch and not to mention, half of my morning’s breakfast had ended up on my shirt. So I was starving.

Nevertheless we finished up the workday and got quite a few surveys done. When we returned back to the computer lab I was completely wiped out. In retrospect, my workday wasn’t so bad, it’s just that I hadn’t mentally prepared for it. I came in expecting a nice day in the AC and was thrown out into the streets of New Orleans, literally.

I really hope this blog didn’t come off too whiny. I really am not the complainer. And now that I read back over this blog, I see that my day wasn’t really bad at all. We got a lot of surveys done, and between numerous Facebook and Youtube breaks, the volunteers got an enormous amount of work done. Also, my boss rewarded our hard day of work with dinner at Jacque-Moe’s- a New Orleans favorite- where I saw Nicholas Cage! Finally I got to see a celebrity here! So, again in retrospect, my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day wasn’t so bad after all.