Day Thirty-Two

Tuesday was weird. As I was walking toward my building on the way to work, I saw a lot of smoke coming out of the top. It turned out that it was just the smoke stack and normal exhaust. Then as I got closer, I started to smell burning and there was a little bit of smoke coming from the bottom of the back side of the building. Just in the time it took me to walk along the back side of the building, the burning smell and the smoke got much thicker. I resolved to report it when I got to the building just in case. I stopped by and got my morning papers on my way, just as I always do. By the time I got around to the front of the building, the alarm had been pulled and people were slowly trickling out. Turns out there was a small fire in a trash can in the loading dock. That explained the smell and the area where I saw the smoke. The fire was out before the fire department arrived, en masse.

Mind you, it was already a bad morning, because I woke up with all of the (too) many things I had to do that day on my mind. A meeting that morning that I wasn't prepared for, a class presentation that evening I wasn't prepared for, a homework assignment for that evening that I wasn't prepared for, and test the next day that I wasn't prepared for. The day got worse. When we finally got into the building, it turned out that my coworker wasn't coming and I would have to prepare for her portion of the meeting to, then help our director to manage the meeting. The other bad thing is that I hadn't brought my camera, so I missed taking pictures of the smoke and the fire fighters, and the window washer who didn't realize the building was on fire until the fire trucks arrived and he realized the people were rushing out of the building for a reason. I also had some rather inconvenient gastrointestinal problems that I won't go into.

The day slowly got better and ended up being a pretty good day. The meeting was postponed (after I prepared and arrived, but whatever), my presentation went well, and my homework assignment wasn't due that night (it's a floating assingment that will be due at random, but you always have to be prepared for it). My test, which was last night, went phenomenally. I prayed for that test, but had no idea it could go that well. I maybe doubted three of my answers out of 50. I sailed through with a confidence that was clearly not accounted for by my level of preparation.

ASIDE: In case you're wondering, it's not just you. You are actually noticing a theme - a motif, if you will - of unpreparedness.

God answered my prayer for Tuesday and for my test. The jury is still out on my prayer for my friend's test, but I feel some guilt in that. Not real guilt, some neurotic guilt. Well, maybe real.

I...um...am grateful that that test went so well. I really can't explain it. It was pretty cool. Even if I failed it, that feeling was good enough for me to call it a success.

For today, I pray for tonight. It's a small group night at LW and I want that to go well. I want to feel reconnected. I'm there, I'm present, but there's something else going on. I don't know what it is. Having it identified is optional. Having it gone is mandatory.