One down, three more to go

I did my exam in eight hours, not twenty four. After that amount of time, I just put a stop to it, and packed away all my books. Enough was enough.

There's only so much you can take of reading about airplane crashes, horrible accidents and emotional traumas from near-death experiences of falling out of an airplane. Even if they are fictional. I broke out in laughter more than once at the bizarre fact-case we were given to write about.... at least my professor has a sense of humour, which made the exam somewhat light-
hearted, and dare I say, easy (or at least, easier). I guess I'll find out when the grades are out.

So I got a response from the photo competition I entered a few days about, and I won! Not sure if it were the quality of the pictures, or maybe the lack of competition (ironically, in a competition), but the school office liked my pictures and will soon post them on the website. They called me to go sign a waiver form, basically giving them rights to use the pictures I'd taken.

I walked into the office, and there was a secretary at the door. She looked at me, a puzzled look on her face. I greeted her, and said my name, and who I was there to see. She looked into some kind of day planner on her computer, and tried to find my name, frowning when she couldn't. "What time was your appointment?"

"Well, I was told to come around ten, so there was no real appointment", I answered. The answer seemed to frustrate her. It was as if my answer was a stumbling block in the bureaucratic machinery that caused an unpredicted and unwelcome obstacle, delay, or worse, which prevented things from taking place according to rules, regulations, formalities and conventions. "No real appointment" seemed to be looked down upon. She picked up the phone, dialling.

A phone rang, the sound coming from behind her. No more than metre away, obscured by a small cupboard. After a ring, or two, I heard the other phone being picked up. I heard the other person speak, as the secretary spoke. They were so close, and I wondered whether they heard one another's echoes in the phone. They were so close, yet communicating over the phone. All it would have taken was to get up from the chair, take two steps, peak around the cupboard to talk to her colleague. But no, it seemed everything had to be so official, so formal, so proper.

The secretary hung up the phone, and I heard the other phone hang up too. Then I heard footsteps, not more than two, at most four. A lady with a friendly smile appear from behind the cupboard. The one I was meant to meet, even though we had "no real appointment".

I smiled, greeted her and shook her hand politely. But inside I thought about the queer episode that had just taken place before me. And I laughed. On the inside of course.