A week of unfortunate events

This past week has brought me one mishap after the other. Just to delineate:

Monday:
At 2 p.m. I received a text: "Today at 3 pm ernesto will be at ur apt to move furniture to new apt". My roommate and I had just settled on an apartment the day before. My guest had just left at four that morning. I hadn't even thought of packing. Kay and I rushed back from work and found our landlords waiting at our door, ready to oversee the move. We packed, directed, loaded, moved, unloaded, and unpacked in about four hours. I love beginning my weeks with activities that entirely incapacitate me for the rest of the week.

Tuesday:
I was hoping to get settled, but the school wanted me to take a Spanish test at another campus to see if I was capable of holding parent-teacher conferences without an interpreter. I rushed through the test, like I do with all tests, and was stuck waiting at the high school for two hours until I could get a ride. I saw a fellow teacher I hadn't seen since week one, and upon seeing me, he said, "You look stressed." "I feel stressed," I replied.

My attempts for a long, hot shower were thwarted when our gas ran out. That meant no hot dinner. I wasn't feeling great, so I went out to email my family and grab a warm torta. I came back to the flood described in my last post.

Wednesday:
My 23rd birthday. I missed home. While out getting a beer with some coworkers, I discovered that my wallet was missing -- the wallet that held my only debit card, my driver's license, and a lot of my cash. I'd last had it while skyping with my sister at Starbucks. I went home and tried again to take a warm shower (we'd filled the gas tank that day), only to find that our water cistern was empty.

Thursday:
I got up early to look for my wallet at Starbucks before school. It wasn't there. I spent my first planning period talking to my mom in the US, and she was able to cancel my debit card after verifying that someone had been using it. (Without my own internet service, I wasn't able to get on a secure enough line to access my account myself). I spent my next planning period developing a budget that would allow me to stretch my money until my next paycheck.

Based on the past few days of apartment disasters, I should have known to stay away. But I was tired and hungry, and I couldn't afford to eat out, so I went home. This time, I found that the afternoon rain had refilled our cistern, giving my toilet enough water to flood my bedroom a second time. I groaned and decided to walk out and cook a hot lunch before returning to sweep up the water.

Friday:
Our campus received its second and third confirmations of Swine Flu (both of them in the grade I teach), and my imagination tried its best to convince me that my throat was swelling up and my head feeling hot. The letter I received saying that I had passed Tuesday's Spanish exam and would be receiving a slight pay increase failed to improve my mood. I went to bed at eight and slept for 14 hours.

Saturday:
Nothing bad! I slept late, wrote, read, studied for the GRE, went to a school potluck, and then went to a coworker's birthday party where I had birthday cake and pretended that it was really mine.

Sunday:
I looked forward to going to church after my awful week. I spent the morning writing before I got ready to go. At 11, I realized that I had the wrong time. I was supposed to meet my ride across town ten minutes before 11. I tried calling her, but I had spent all of my cell phone minutes calling the States to fix my wallet problem. I had not yet found an Oxxo near my new apartment, so I set out in an attempt to find one. After a bit of walking, I spotted an Oxxo, recharged my phone, and called my ride to explain and apologize. Then I found an Italian Coffee Company and treated myself to a mocha overflowing with whipped cream. I deserved it, I thought.

Here's to a new week!