Countdown

5 months from today, I will take my last law school final. That's boggling to me. A huge part of me can hardly believe the time has passed, and one other chunk of me is whining, "Are we there yet?!"

No, darling, but soon. Why don't you play the countdown game.

151 days.

13 credit hours.

1 week in Israel.

9 weeks of classes (usually 10, but I'll miss the first week because of Israel).

4 courses.

100 work days (subtracting holidays and vacation days).

...

Fidget.

Murphy takes a swipe at my head

Y'know, I know better than to start counting down to something as significant as graduation. It's just an invitation to disaster. Sure enough, fate took a shot at me this morning.

Get on the bus and the bus gets on the highway and with the snow traffic is crawling. Study for a while, then can't keep my eyes open. I doze off and wake up and we are just across the bridge, not yet a mile from home. Doze off again and awake to this odd clacking noise inside the bus. The smell of exhaust is strong, but I can't figure out that noise. Dozed again when it stopped, woke up when it started again. We were now about a mile down the road. All of the sudden the bus driver says, "We're just idlin'." I look at her and she is pumping the gas pedal to the floor against zero resistance - this is the clacking noise. I turn and look down the length of the bus. It is filled with exhaust.

"Open the windows!" I call to my fellow passengers. "S'cold out," the woman sitting behind me slurs, burrowing further down into her coat.

"Open them now!" The man sitting across from me yells. Sleeping passengers rouse and, realizing the situation, open the windows. Snow is now streaming in, but so is fresh air. The driver is trying to make it to the next exit, and we continue this slow puttering another half mile or so before the bus stalls. She gets it started again just enough to pull most of the way off the road and then it dies for good.

We sit for half an hour in the cold, as traffic inches past us, waiting for another bus. Several should pass us, but, alerted to the traffic situation, they have apparently rerouted. Finally, a bus shows up, our driver flags it down, and we are unloaded and reloaded by the side of the interstate, feeling a bit like refugees.

I personally think the bus stalled once Murphy realized he wasn't going to get the chance to kill me. Even so, I'm feeling headachy and my coordination is off (witness the lovely burn on my finger where I managed to pour coffee on myself, something I have never done here).

I will be careful not to mention successes on the horizon in the future. And in the meantime try to pull together enough brain cells to get some work done here.