Nicholas Cage, Please Don't Step on my Foot

Actually, Nicholas Cage never stepped on my foot. That was just to get your attention (cue in Pathetique Sonata). But if he did, I'd sue the ass out of him to get money and publicity. Ha (:P)

But actually, Nicholas Cage does make an appearance in my post today. Let me explain.

This week just plainly sucked. I went high on caffeine, overdosed on caffeine, went through hell trying to detox caffeine, did not sleep decently, did not eat decently (but then again, that's nothing new). I just had a really shitty week. Not only that, one of my students has failed to pay me for two weeks consecutively, and I'm about to fire (?) her if she fails to pay the coming Wednesday. People come to me for damn help while they go out drinking... and I have come to a discovery that I REALLY shouldn't be helping them anyway, I never needed their help in the first place (considering that I can just borrow one of the elder student's notes, for instance), and that quite frankly, with my excruciating schedule with 3 students, studying biochemistry, orgo, stats, and modern physics, studying for the exams, I just don't have the time or the energy to care about others anymore. There are some things that I've been wanting to do that I couldn't because I was so busy (like... visiting my guardian's house, for instance). But that's that.

On Friday night at precisely 3:41AM, just as I was dozing off after rolling around my bed in sheer agony and nausea, my phone trilled out the baroque ring tone that can become really annoying if it keeps ringing. I woke up just in time for the voice mail to switch on... so, after 30 seconds or so, I accessed my voice mail. Here is the message I received:

"Heeeeeeey! I'm at Paddington right now! Come pick me up, mate."

It was in a guy's voice. It sounded utterly drunk. My first thought was "Er, who the hell is this guy", since I couldn't place the voice. Or the number. So I had a random drunk guy calling me at 3:41 AM to pick him up from the Paddington station. (Note to readers: PLEASE check the number before you hit dial, please? Promise?)

My next thought was "Do trains even RUN this early in the morning around Paddington?" Considering that the tube does not, my logical deduction said no. So what the hell did this guy want?

Me, being quite uncharitable and frankly too tired to care, decided not to pick the mystery guy up from Paddington. Hell, he can be mugged and see if I care. It was his damn fault for dialing the wrong number. I went back to bed.

And could not go back to sleep.

How much does that suck?! A lot, let me tell you. So let's summarise - here was this idiot who called the wrong number at a ridiculous wee hour of the morning, asking for whoever it was meant to to pick him up from Paddington. And because he dialed the wrong number I got to be the poor victim who was woken up at 3:41AM, just as I was recovering from caffeine detox, to get a message that wasn't even for me! I'm pretty sure the guy was not Lady Macbeth but he sure did kill off my sleep.

Then today just sucked. To start off, I had an awful dream in which I was the 11-year-old offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Smith from the film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. What does that mean? It meant that Brad Pitt was my father and Angelina Jolie my mother. That was quite traumatising in itself. As if that wasn't enough, Orlando Bloom was my idiot brother who seemed to revel in the fact that he was pretty. Never mind that I think he's one of the ugliest creatures seen on the 6 ft screen these days. His utter gayness was bordering insanity.

Mummy Smith, AKA Angelina Jolie, asked me to go down to the pantry to get some bananas because she was baking banana muffins. (I have no idea what Daddy Pitt was doing... don't want to know, in all seriousness.) So I went down to the pantry, which was in the basement for some reason (I personally think that pantry in the basement is a dumb idea...), and opened the door.

And there were three shelves on each side of the wall, lined with bananas after bananas after bananas...

The room looked yellow, although the wall was white.

You know how scary that is? I found it quite frightening. After daring myself to go into the banana room and grabbing a few bananas, I went upstairs to hand them over to Mummy Jolie, who peeled them, broken them in 1/2 inch pieces, and then proceeded to mush them.

What this means in psychoanalysis, I don't even want to know. I'd leave the analysis up to you.

I left the dorm at 11:00AM to go to work, hoping to get to Richmond at 12:30 PM, grab something to eat, then go off to teach. Usually it takes an hour to get from London Bridge to Richmond, but today the District Line only ran to West Kensington. "Fine," I thought, after seeing the notice at Westminster, "I'll just get off at Earl's Court, switch to Piccadilly, get to Hammersmith, and catch the replacement bus from there." Because IT CLEARLY SAID that the bus ran from Hammersmith via Gunnersbury and Kew Gardens to Richmond.

The first misery occurred while I was ON the train. There was this Chinese lady who seemed to be intent on trying to get to Richmond. However, all she did was point at the Richmond Station on the mini tube map, point at West Kensington, and say, "West Kensington". Don't know about you, dear reader, but to me that conveys not much. I had no idea if she was asking if she needed to get off at West Ken, could switch at West Ken, or what. I slowly explained to her how to get to Richmond - quite slowly - twice, but after that she smiled at me, nodded, and said, "West Kensington?" all the while pointing at the location on the map. Was she listening? No. Of course not. Because it's the thing to do after asking a complete stranger a question. Gah!

I got off at Earl's Court - the lady certainly didn't - and switched to Piccadilly. Got to Hammersmith. Got off the tube. And then was promptly notified that apparently every SINGLE poster indicating engineering works was different in all of London, because actually, no, there was no replacement bus. And yes, it did say so on the stupid poster by the assistance window, but it also said that it only ran from 9:00 PM and beyond on Sunday evening. And yes, they did put up a huge sign saying "REPLACEMENT BUS C TO RICHMOND" with a HUGE arrow under the sign. The replacement bus just simply wasn't running. Why for? I have no idea.

Now, here, two questions pop into my mind. Number one, why run it from 9:00PM, when there's hardly anyone using it? That's just inefficient, and it wastes petrol. Number two, why put up a sign that is no longer valid? This just baffles me.

So I caught the 391 bus from Hammersmith to Richmond. Now, usually it takes about 20 minutes by the Underground to get from Hammersmith to Richmond. On the bus, 40. This time, it took a full hour and a half, which means that I got to the Richmond station approximately at 1:00PM. When my class was about to begin. So that made me 10 minutes late.

During the bus ride, several things happened. First, they tried to squish approximately 40 people on a single bus, which just isn't plausible on Sunday afternoons. Second, this brat decided that it'd be awesome fun to touch my back and my hair while I was standing, earning a severe death glare from me. She then promptly began to cry. The mother became hysterical. I pretended that I couldn't hear her due to my earphones, and ignored her. Much screaming and hysteria ensued.

Third, another brat decided that he absolutely had to stand in the coolest way possible, never mind that no one was paying attention, and took up the space that could have accommodated three. He then proceeded to stand without holding onto the rails or anything, and when the bus came to a screeching halt he promptly crashed into me without further ado. For heaven and hell's sake HOLD ONTO SOMETHING unless you have a balance of a tightrope walker. But oh no. This kid could hardly stand straight every time the bus braked.

Fourth, this guy (and this is where the title comes in) decided to step on my foot. Really hard. For some reason. And then he decided to KEEP HIS FOOT ON MY FOOT the entire time. With full weight on it. Needless to say, I was beyond vexation. I asked him to please remove his foot from my foot. He ignored me, because he was too busy talking to his girlfriend who looked about 17. I kicked him with my left heel of my boot. It left a smudge on his grey slacks.

Fifth, another guy who was with his girlfriend kept staring at me the entire bus ride. That was very disconcerting and unnerving. Doesn't the guy know that it's rude to stare?

Sixth, and lastly, it took my 4th grade pupil AN HOUR to understand the concept of "base times width equals area of a parallelogram" today. I had to cut tiny bits of paper and demonstrate. I was NOT that slow when I was in 4th grade.

So after that, I am quite ready to give up on mankind, curl up in my bed only to be never seen again. I now understand the enchanting attraction of living as a hermit. I might even be one very soon...