I'm not very good at handling stress. My body functions slowly start shutting down. I can feel my mental capabilities slowing. I become irrational despite my awareness. This results in my sleeping for hours at a time, random crying, and illness.
So Saturday was an extremely stressful day for me. I had an interview at 12:30 down in Menlo Park. It's slightly over an hour drive.
It's 8:30. I wake up, and realize that my phone isn't charged. It's down to 7%, and I have only a semi-full battery case. I charge what I can before I go out to get some breakfast at Denny's. I forget how busy it is on Saturdays. Fortunately it wasn't that busy when I got there, and there were only two families before me in line. I asked to be seated at the bar so I don't have to wait to be seated. I sit down, but no one comes to take my order until 15 minutes later. That's fine, I have time. A waitress brings out the food for the person next to me and then takes my order. It's a simple dish, one I always get. And so I wait. And wait. And wait. The lady next to me is almost done eating. It's been nearly half an hour since I ordered. It's 11:10 now. Will I have time to eat before I have to leave? I tell myself that once it hits 11:15 I'll leave. It's 11:14. The waitress stops by. She tells me she'll go check on my food. It's 11:19 now and she's nowhere to be seen. The clock hits 11:20 and so I leave. I thought I had enough time to make it to my interview. Until I look down and realize I'm still wearing my flip-flops. So now I'm going 25 over the speed limit rushing home so I can put on the right shoes. By the time I leave it's 12:33. Now I'm going to be late. The only way to get there on time is to drive fast. I'm going 75 for five minutes until I have to come to a near complete halt. There's been a car accident. I look at my GPS and I realize that I have to shave off nearly 10 minutes from my drive. Fortunately besides that car accident there weren't any other sources of traffic besides the constant one around Berkeley. I went 80 down the freeway the whole time, and I was able to get there five minutes early. But the interviewers weren't there yet. One of them came on time, but the other was half an hour late. I took that opportunity to interact with the employees already there and ask about the curriculum. When the other interviewer came, we had a nice discussion. The interview itself went fairly well. I had to take half an AP Calc and AP Chem test as an assessment. By the time I was finished, it was nearly 5:30. The AP Calc test went fairly well. I tutor Calculus all the time. The AP Chem test went horribly, however. I never took AP Chem before, and I had no idea what to expect. I forgot many of the things I remember learning in high school and college. The last time I had even tutored someone was four or five years ago. As I leave, I look down at my phone and remember that my phone had only been partially charged to begin with, and now my battery is down to 13%. I try to backtrack as much as I can, but had to use my GPS for a while. The app is extremely draining on my battery and so I close the GPS so I can still use my phone in case of emergencies. And then I got lost. I knew I missed a couple turns because I had never seen this place before. Instead of driving towards Hayward, I'm driving up to San Francisco. I open the GPS for a while, making sure that I could see call boxes within my vicinity. I'm supposed to take the very next exit coming up in 3 seconds, and I'm three lanes away. I end up making the exit and now I'm back on the right track. I make sure I know where I should go next, and I close the app again. But now my phone's down to 3%. I get home around 6:30. I had no food all day, half a bottle of Snapple and half a cup of water. I was almost late to the interview because I had forgotten my shoes and I had done terribly on the assessment test. And to top it all off, I had gotten lost on the way back home. It was a very stressful day.
