Stressful Saturday

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.