Just because you're older doesn't mean you're smarter

It's been a long, painful road to this realization, but I'm finally starting to come to grips with it.

For example: I woke up this morning to a loud crash. In my disoriented state, at first all I was capable of was bleary indignation at whoever had disrupted me. It took about 10 or 15 minutes for me to get to the point where I was capable of becoming suspicious as to the source of the noise, and so I got out of bed to investigate.

My entire desk was overturned.

The fact that the only way this could have happened was me kicking it did little to improve my disposition at this point. But yet there I was at 7am, picking up everything off the floor and putting my desk back together. I'm very grateful that all of my tech still works as far as I can tell, especially my printer which fell off of the top shelf, hitting my chair on the way down.

However, once is never enough. It couldn't possibly be considered a full day without at least one more mishap.

Which came later when I was walking back to Trustees, my dorm building. I jumped up the stairs as usual, swiped my card, opened the door, and knocked my glasses off of my face.

I'd hit myself in the FACE with a DOOR. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that even 5 year olds could open that door without almost knocking themselves out. What compounded the problem was that there were other people nearby to judge me for the horrendous nature of my ineptitude.

Let's face it, stuff like that is EMBARRASSING.

The list goes on, but I'll abbreviate the rest of todays: I discovered that my motor skills are sub par when it comes to doing anything other than the basics like walking. I realized that I'd forgotten to actually purchase the books I needed from the campus bookstore almost two hours after it closed.

Alright, that one does need a little bit of explaining. Basically what had happened was I went into the bookstore looking for some of the textbooks I'd need for class. I found what I needed for three of my four classes, and decided to go look up the ones I'd need for the last class at the Student center next door. I piled the books on one of the shelves, telling myself that it'd be fine since I was coming straight back.

In reality I remembered right after a two hour swim practice that I'd completely forgotten to GO BACK AND BUY THEM. Now I have to wait until tomorrow, and I feel like a complete idiot.

Hopefully someone else will be working there, otherwise I'll have to have one of those "Wait... weren't you here yesterday?" conversations. Those are never fun if it involves you having lapses in memory.

At any rate, college has been mostly off to a good start. I haven't failed any of my classes, haven't been seriously injured, have been fairly adequate at social interaction, and the crown jewel of my collection: I haven't DIED.

On a very positive note, as a slight deviation, swim team has started! I'm quite excited to see how this season goes. Cali keeps insisting that the fact that I'm decent without having ever swam club means that by the time Gary and Dorothy are done with me, I'll be nothing short of in-freaking-credible.

While I'm still skeptical about that level of improvement being possible, I did manage to pull off a 24.9 50 free after the first day of practice. I had to start from in the water, too, since Gary didn't want me to use the blocks.

Needless to say I'm quite pumped about that time. My best 50 free ever is a 22.65, and that was at my peak with a special racing suit. Gary (who's the guy swim coach, sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier) told me that he was impressed, and that he felt like I was going to be a solid, helpful addition to the team this year.

"You're going to help us." Given all of the things mentioned above, that sentence is a pretty good confidence boost, don't you think?