For as much doom and gloom prophecy I emanate, I’ve decided that I really am
\nan optimist after all. I expect so much more of myself than I probably
\nshould, and I actually have the audacity to think I can accomplish what I’ve
\noptimistically set out to do.<\/p>\n
Take this research paper I wrote for Public Administration. I didn’t
\nactually get started on it until around 1:30 the night before it was due.
\n Oh, I’d checked out lots of books from the library and downloaded a bunch of
\npages off the web. I’d even started reading one of the books. But I didn’t
\nstart writing till then, when I read through the stuff I downloaded, skimmed
\nthrough the books using the indexes (I forget the Latin plural), and put down
\na couple of quotes and added their originators to my list of works cited. By
\nalmost five, I had between 2 and 3 pages. I needed 7. I went to bed, slept
\nfor an hour, got up, fixed myself a cup of tea, and optimistically told
\nmyself that the amount of time I had till 9:30, the absolute latest time I
\ncould finish and still make it to class on time, was plenty to figure out
\nwhat I was saying and add four more pages.<\/p>\n
It turns out it was more like 6 pages, but that’s the beauty of manipulatable
\nline divisions. Suddenly, I had an instant extra page, which was good
\nbecause it was 9:30. I rearranged the works cited list, printed the whole
\nthing out, and drove to school through the rain to get there about ten
\nminutes late. But it takes that long for this particular class to get going
\nanyhow.<\/p>\n
I remembered later on that I was supposed to talk about what the agency I was
\nwriting about does, but I kind of forgot. I guess I’ll find out what happens
\nwhen I get the paper back.<\/p>\n
After trying to stay awake through psychology, I laughed at every joke I
\nheard, through a combination of lack of sleep and relief at having the paper
\ncompleted, on the way back to my car. But first I had to stop by Dr.
\nSchaefer’s office and pick up a packet on taking the LSAT. He asked if there
\nwas anything else he could do for me. I asked to use his phone. “You have
\nto dial nine to get out,” he answered. I called mom and agreed to meet her
\nat my favorite health food restaurant at one. That left me several minutes
\nto spend in the computer lab on the Internet. I walked out to my car, stuck
\nmy key in the ignition, and was greeted by a weak dinging noise and the awful
\nclicking sound of a near dead battery. I’d left my lights on.<\/p>\n
Saying a couple of words I probably shouldn’t have, I walked back to the
\noffice, meeting Schaefer along the way. “Do you need something else?” he
\nasked. I told him about my battery. “I don’t have time to help you,” he
\nsaid, turning around and going back inside, “I have a meeting downtown in 15
\nminutes. But I’ll call someone who can.” He walked up to a phone on a
\nsecretary’s desk and punched a button. “You have to be really polite to
\nthem,” he divulged, “and they’ll come in about an hour. Hello? Who do I
\ntalk to about a dead car battery?”<\/p>\n
A few minutes later I was sitting on the trunk of my car, that had its hood
\nup, dangling jumper cables forlornly from my helpless hands. A young man
\nwith a few days worth of stubble dressed in a denim shirt and jeans, both
\ncovered in grease, emerged from one of the offices and started toward his
\ntruck. I knew it was his vehicle because I’d seen him arrive. I smiled
\nplaintively. He raised his eyebrows, “Need a jump?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah!” He mumbled something in reply and completed the distance to his
\nautomobile, a big, black, ancient truck with “Cajun Bob-Sled” spray painted
\nin red along the side facing me. The tail gate bore perhaps a wishful
\nprophecy in the same crimson lettering, “Built for speed.” Then the truck
\nswung around toward my hood. He slowed down as he got close and asked me
\nsomething through the windshield that I assumed meant he wanted to know if he
\nwas close enough. I nodded in agreement to whatever it was. He stopped the
\nengine while I stared at the flexible tongue sticking out of the truck’s
\ngrill. “I gotta get a log or something to keep it from rolling,” he said,
\nrunning off behind one of the offices and into the woods. He came back with
\na charred chunk of wood he jammed under his let front tire. Handing one end
\nof the cables to him, I attached the other end to my battery. He started up
\nhis engine again. I stuck my key back in the ignition. The open door made a
\ncheerful “bing,” but the starter simply clicked, perhaps a bit more
\nenergetically this time. The young man fiddled with the cable clamps; I
\ntried it again. He hit his accelerator. He tried knocking the corrosion off
\nthe contact points. He unscrewed knobs, wiggled wires, and did whatever else
\npeople do under car hoods while I watched from inside my car, my foot on the
\nbutton in the door to keep the light and dinging off. I figured if this guy
\ncould get that black piece of junk to run, I could trust him completely with
\nmy car’s engine.<\/p>\n
My engine began making overtures at turning over after a while before finally
\nroaring to life. I smiled triumphantly at the guy as he handed me my jumper
\ncables. “Thanks,” I said. He climbed into his truck and waved goodbye.<\/p>\n
By then it was getting too late to do anything on the Internet, and besides,
\nI couldn’t let my car stop. I went ahead and drove to the restaurant and
\nwaited till Mom came. I told her the story over my veggie salad and vegan
\nlasagna. She laughed and declared, “Your Cajun angel!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For as much doom and gloom prophecy I emanate, I’ve decided that I really am an optimist after all. I expect so much more of myself than I probably should, and I actually have the audacity to think I can accomplish what I’ve optimistically set out to do. Take this research paper I wrote for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonclassified-nonsense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nachzen.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}