Much Ado About Being Late

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I just discovered a new talent today – that I can actually wake up ten minutes before classes start and afford not to be late.

Screw breakfast. Screw the morning rituals. Screw everything that you think are necessary for your optimum learning experience at school. These are the times that one learns that the only things you'd have to do is get dressed and go. It’s a post modern thing, I guess. I’ve heard this is what they call the “laidback” lifestyle. While this may not be the best routine to follow every day as it promotes unhygienic practices and the bahala na lifestyle, it still pays to learn the trade just in case.

It took me around five minutes to take a bath and another five get to school via an over-priced tricycle ride just to beat the traffic. Trust me, tricycles are the most trustworthy form of transportation in times like these. It’s amazing how they go through the city’s mazes unfazed by traffic glitches.

Upon arriving, I had to dash though the university’s streets and gates until I was blatantly blocked by a horde of students coming in who seemed to enjoy their time walking, as if in a park, marveling at our school’s century-old buildings and facade. I was so pissed that wanted to yell at their backs, “Hey! Make way for a soon-to-be late nursing student! You’re not the only one using the road!” I scrapped the idea. I guess I’ve been better at anger management through constant practice and frequent outbursts. My rage must’ve reached the point of exhaustion.

I have this thing for people who walk at a turtle’s pace. Given that braniac, now deceased, Charles Darwin was correct in saying that all life is a series of evolutions from a less able specie to a more adaptive one – that organisms tend to lose attributes that doesn’t benefit them, and vice versa, through the process of natural selection - I have this theory that those people who walk so slow had suffered from some evolutionary delay as evidence by their poor coping behavior to our fast paced world. Makes me wonder why they’re still existing now. Their race must be annihilated.

I am reminded of an instance when I was walking with a classmate for lunch. I suddenly blurted out with absolutely no pun intended, “Hay, alam mo ba ayoko sa mga taong mabagal maglakad”. Then suddenly the girl in front of us gave me the you-totally-burst-my-bubble look and said, “Sorry ah, mabagal kasi ako maglakad!”. I was like, whoa..what is your problem, lady?

Now, if the people in charge of our roads have solved the traffic problem by having a fast and slow lane, why can’t we apply the same idea in our pedestrian lanes? Imagine, you’d have a lane for those who seemed to be running late and another lane for those chillaxing people, that way everyone will be happy as they could still afford to walk whatever pace they wish to do without being a disturbance to others. It will be such a better world.

Back to the story. Although the universe doesn’t seem to lay all her plans in my favor that day, I still managed to arrive at our classroom before our professor did. That makes me, uhm…not late.

P.S: I guess just have to deal with my body stench later at lunch time.