To be perfectly honest, I’ve been a smidge out of whack recently. I think it all really started that one day I got hit with an egg yolk.

No, seriously. Some hoodlum actually threw a freaking hard-boiled, yellow, cholesterol bomb at me. I was on a bench in the Unit 1 Courtyard, just reflecting upon life over the phone with my mother and before I knew it—kapow. And accordingly, my life proceeded to disintegrate into shambles.

There was something beautifully disastrous about that day. I went grocery shopping with Kristy that fateful evening after the egg yolk incident. A few weeks earlier I discovered that my good friend and Berkeley Group colleague owned a car, and the prospect of hitting the Safeway without the sinking dismay of being forced to haul all of one’s grocery-loot back on the 51 Bus was too hard to pass up. Specifically, I bought eggs that night, (a consumption staple for my high protein, giant muscle diet) a brand new carton of eggs that I proceeded to drop on my kitchen floor less than an hour later.

Flexing my machismo I had intelligently decided to carry all eight bags of groceries in one trip back to my kitchen (you have to, it’s Man Law: one trip for groceries no matter what) and the single bag that escaped my grip had to contain my eggs. The moment I saw the oozing yellow substance, I sprung into action. There was absolutely no hesitation. Like a crazed chef, I immediately threw a non-stick pan onto the stove and with a quick whirl of olive oil I was gingerly salvaging what was left of my carton directly into a flurry of scrambled goodness. There was no way I was losing my eggs.

Then, the fun began. As I cleaned up the last remnants I managed to bash my head against the freezer door. And moments later, as I hastily washed my frying pan I somehow maneuvered my sponge in the perfect sweeping motion to launch a deluge of scalding hot water onto my body. Nice.

I really should have taken a hint as I trudged back up to my room, battle scarred. At the time, I was working on a report for my Technical Communication course about Snowboard Design. It was actually amazing, I spent three days just learning everything I could about the modern snowboard—trolling through the websites of Burton, K2, Sims, Ride, as well as reading research papers about cutting edge modeling. So there I was, without eggs, but ready to print out my midterm paper. I had already expended much of the day hopelessly attempting to wrap text around some of my images, but somehow, by an act of pure pure college-student-frustrating, Murphy’s-Law-fulfilling, salt-in-my-wounds-rubbing evil my Word Document just started generating pages. Seriously, on page fourteen of twenty, Microsoft Office decided to continuously add blank pages. This wasn’t a small matter, as my document reached 4000 pages (no joke) I was ready to crack some skulls. I dashed across the street to grab my laptop from my house--almost got hit by a car--and after an hour of finagling and troubleshooting I was finally ready to print the devil’s paper. I was finally ready as the Color Printer chose to just laugh at me and only produce one page at a time. Eventually, I dragged my worn psyche back to my house around 3am with little fire left in my bones and cracked open some physics homework.

As the clock struck 4am I passed out in my desk chair and at 4:30 I somehow magically found my way out of my pants into my bed. The problem was… I had to turn in that midterm paper at 9:30am—and I forgot to set an alarm.

Now, at this point in the story most people gasp (trust me, I’ve told this way too many times to drown my mediocre sorrows in unnecessary pity, pity hugs to be exact). So dawn broke, morning showed its face, and I snapped open my eyes in stomach-wrenching fear. I knew it the second I woke up, I forgot to set that damn alarm on my stupid phone. I desperately searched for my phone to uncover the damage that had been done, and I caught a glimpse of the clock…

It was only 9:20am. By some act of God, I had managed to wake up at the perfect time. I literally just sat up in my bed, raised my arms spread, and like a moron--howled in victory “WOOOO!” I dressed, brushed, granola bar-ed, and leisurely walked to 42 Bechtel Hall in triumph over a night that had left me weather beaten.

Happy ending. That whole fiasco turned out relatively well and in hindsight the day really wasn’t that bad—just a number of annoying occurrences that seemed to add up at the time. But between you and me, the last few weeks have truthfully been a little off. I’ve always been the kind of kid that lived for the weekend. Not in that ready-to-go-party-crazy mode, but simply the concept that I could easily justify hours and hours of work with the comfort of a stress-free Saturday on the horizon. Nonetheless, there have been a couple more hours lately, and a few less vegetative states. I’m learning a lot; my head just isn’t all “there.”

It’s probably that time of the year; I feel like there are a lot of people in limbo at the moment. The easy solution: drop everything and start an organic farm in Mammoth. My solution: cry.

What?

A guest speaker once showed me a speech by Jimmy Valvano, the late college basketball coach and founder of the V foundation for cancer research. During his ’93 speech at the ESPY’s , Jimmy (who had been diagnosed with cancer) said that everyday we should do three things: Laugh, Think and Cry. If we lighten up, spend some time in thought, and have ourselves moved to tears…hell, that’s a full day. I’m not really a wreck and my life isn’t charred and torn to shreds, I’m just a little tired and extended time in the college bubble can understandably throw you a little off center.

So I’m going to do the following and I extend an invitation for anyone to join me. I’m going to take a deep breath of something. Whether it’s filled with laughter, brilliance, or tears, I’ve just been pining to take a deep breath of something with some bite. And afterwards, I plan to savor the aftertaste, stretch out, relax my shoulders, throw on some Frank Sinatra, and lose myself in the comfort that I still wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world than where I’m sitting right now…

…unless some other idiot decides to throw another egg yolk at me.

Labels: college, eggs, valvano