Ballad of the Overcaffeinated Grad Student (a segue)

I am currently sitting in a Starbucks, having arisen at the stupid hour of 5:30 in order to be up and revising my lit review by 7am with a cup of coffee and a bottle of water in front of me.  (I'm taking a break at the moment since I've worked through about one-third of my paper, moving stuff around...adding...deleting...pausing for a moment to think "the hell?" when I come across a particularly obtuse piece of writing.)

Of course, there was a moment when this almost didn't happen.  I have the luxury on occasion of being able to work on my homework at my job if it's slow.  I keep everything on a jump drive and take that jump drive home with me every day.  Well, every day except yesterday. 

I got all the way home, grabbed my backpack out of the back seat, and suddenly had a clear and vivid picture of me shutting down my work computer with my jump drive still stuck in the USB slot.  Cue me making sounds at a frequency and pitch that only dolphins should be able to make.  There may have also been a slight dance of "well...CRAP!".  (Ball fists, bend knees, turn in a nearly complete circle while trying to not give into the desire to punch the car or the side of your head.)

'Cause, see, my campus locks the buildings on the weekends.  Sometimes there is an entry door left open and sometimes not - it's like Jeopardy.  "I'll take the South entrance for $200, Alex."  The Spousal Unit and I drove down there Saturday morning while running our errands and hoping we were early enough to avoid the Razorback crowd*.  We made it and I ran across campus to my building to find the open entrance to Track 9 3/4...er, my building so I snatched up my jump drive, ran back out and we boogied on down the road.  Whew.  God likes me.

He likes me so much I'm here in Starbucks drinking bad coffee and playing my iPod really loudly in order to drown out the stuff Starbucks calls music :).

*Look, I know y'all here in Arkansas have the whole "Soooeee, pig!" thing going down for your cheer but  you still can't beat the cheer from my previous university:  Austin Peay (pronounced "pea").  Know what ours was?  "Let's go Peay!"  Yeah...