A day in the life...

My head is screaming at me. My body is ready to collapse. This is definitely going to be a bad day.

These thoughts ran through her head as she sat in class listening to the professor drone on about words and origins and meanings.

She was pulled from her thoughts by a movement in her peripheral vision. She glared over her glasses at the long muscular arm waving in front of her. Larry was sitting in front of her. He was a tall, stocky thing and she judged him to be a freshman. Most probably he wasn’t, but he acted like one.
You’re a moron, she thought, trying to project the thought toward him, hoping it would slap him in the face. Maybe that would make him stop his childish behavior. Unsuccessful, her headache returned and she went back to her agony.

She gulped down the remaining water in the half-liter bottle that cost her $1.46 and prayed that the two giant Excedrin she took would kick in and the foul mood she was in would pass. She longed for a cigarette. She had already left class once today to smoke, so she could not do it again.

The girl sitting directly in front of her leaned back and Jeannie got a mouthful of hair. She once again glared over her glasses, this time at the mass of black curly hair in front of her. She sighed loudly and sat back in her chair, resting her chin in the palm of her hand, and changing her focus to the gibberish her professor was writing on the board about Indo-European and Old English and other things she wasn’t interested in.

She decided to take some notes regardless of the fact that she was bored out of her mind. She lifted her glasses to the top of her head. A refreshing feeling rushed over her. She hated wearing her glasses, but they controlled her migraines and that was the only time she wore them. They were simply cheap magnifying glasses that she bought at her local thrift store for five bucks.

Once again she was distracted, this time by whispering coming from the mass of black curls in front of her and the only other Jeannie in the class. One of the many things she hated was being in a class with someone who had her name; sitting so close to her was even worse.

“Did he call you last night?” Black Curl whispered to the other Jeannie.

“Yeah, but we couldn’t talk for too long.”

“Did he tell you that I called him the night before?”

Jeannie wanted to get up and scream. She was so tired of being surrounded by overgrown children who think that acceptance from their peers is achieved by their Tommy Hilfigger jeans and the layers of makeup they paint on their faces.

You’re in college now, she thought, leave the high school crap at home.

Her bladder sounded in alarm. The bottle of water she drained, which cost her $1.46, had gone right through her and was knocking at the door ready to leave. There was only twenty minutes left in class, so she figured she could wait.

She glanced quickly around the classroom, a ritual she usually performed in the beginning of class, but due to her headache she thought better of straining her eyes. She was relieved to see that Sarah wasn’t in class.

Sarah and Jeannie met in their English Lit class when Jeannie was a freshman and Sarah was a sophomore. They soon discovered they were in psychology together as well. Sarah took this opportunity to play a game called “I can’t take notes very well, can I copy yours?” It didn’t take long for Jeannie to realize that Sarah was using her as her note taker and was relying on her in order to pass the class.

The mass of black curls and the other Jeannie were whispering again. Their voices echoed within her migraine and she closed her eyes hoping to block out the pain. She felt as if her brain was expanding and contracting with each beat of her heart.

Her professor had now whipped out her handy-dandy dictionary and was looking for the origin of a word that Jeannie had never heard. Jeannie once again sat back in her chair and pressed the back of her head against the wall. Staring at the ceiling, she wondered if anybody ever actually counted the holes in the tiles. She smiled at her thought.

The sunlight was pouring into the classroom and the fluorescent lights pounded their unnatural beams, casting a yellow glow upon her and the other globs of flesh that had managed to drag themselves here this Friday morning. She wanted to go home to bed.

As the minutes wound down and the professor rattled on, her classmates began fidgeting. The blond chick two rows to her right passed a note to Black Curl.

Once again, I’m back in high school. Jeannie was in her third year at the university although it felt like six. She struggled to carry a 3.0 average, though her research writing skills had only earned her a 2.89. This semester she was determined to bring her GPA up to where it was supposed to be, and that meant avoiding the fairy on her shoulder that constantly told her “ don’t worry, you can knock this paper out in a hour tops.” Or “You can do it tomorrow.” Or “ forget about it, you can get by on a half hour’s worth of sleep.” She loathed that little fairy in all his cigar smoking, belly-laughing merriment. He was the cause of her 2.89. She wanted to kick his tutu out of her life forever, but it was going to take more work and less migraines. Her migraines never let her do her work. They were always screaming at her for attention and she could never get anything done when they were around.

She watched as Black Curl quickly scribbled a response on the note and passed it back to the blond chick. This blond chick looked as if she was in her early twenties, but acted like she was twelve. She was always either sleeping in class or doing some other sort of work, never really paying attention to what the professor had to say. She remembered the day the professor announced that there would be a test on a certain day. The blond chick piped up from the back of the room, “Well, what if we’re not here? I have an appointment with my personal shopper that day.”

Jeannie guessed that the blond chick’s Mommy and Daddy sent her here to learn, but she only came here for the alcohol, the drugs, the sex, and of course the money that they sent her every week. Jeannie watched her place the note back on the empty desk between her and Black Curl. She shook her head, knowing that the professor had seen it and hoped she would say something.

Jeannie sighed loudly and waited for the professor to wrap up her lecture and release the class from the grip of her monotone lecture. All around her, papers rustled, notes passed, and plans for lunch were whispered. Lost in the swirl of commotion, the professor’s voice trailed away, cueing the class that it was time to go. Three quarters of the class was out the door in a matter of seconds. Jeannie slowly gathered her books and placed them in her bag. When she looked up, she noticed a bruise on the arm of a distant friend and made a mental note to ask her about it the next time she saw her. Jeannie heard yesterday about a fight this friend had had with her boyfriend and hoped that this bruise was not a result of it.

Finally packed and ready to leave the classroom, Jeannie realized that she was the only one left in it. All the students had raced off to get a seat in the deli and the professor dashed out to her office to prepare for her next class.

Jeannie laughed to herself as she left the room. She couldn’t believe how much high school behavior had followed her to college.

As she stepped outside to meet her friends, she stopped suddenly for a moment. Sweet relief had finally taken her in his arms and ended the throbbing in her brain. She was now ready to take on the many obstacles of the world around her. Unfortunately for her, she was done for the day.