Discombobulated

Four Mondays.
We've survived four Mondays at work. I think it's only been made possible by the fact that we weren't open last Monday. (The first Monday of the semester, we set a record; the following Monday, we smashed it.) Things are, needless to say, hectic.
I find myself having to write everything down lest I forget it, or request that someone email me something that we just finished talking about so I'll have a reminder to do it somewhere. We don't have  many of our hours covered by work-study students this semester, which means that the hours that we are doing solo, active desk coverage has increased. I am uncomfortable starting any projects that will require my attention for any length of time because I never know when I'll need to break my concentration on it. (Which is why, if you venture to my place of work, you'll find 25 one-inch binders leaning against a file cabinet, where they've been for the last two weeks. At least, on Friday, I was able to make the copies I need to put into the binders.)
My supervisor also left me alone starting last Thursday. It's been three harrowing days without her -- and Friday I was wavering at coming home sick because I felt like I'd been hit by either a bus or a train, depending on when you asked me. She won't be back until Wednesday, unless things take an unexpected turn at her husband's appointment tomorrow, in which case she'll be back on Thursday. It's going to be a long couple of days. I know -- because it already has been. Seriously--I  don't think you understand what it's like: someone walks in, you greet them, then the phone rings; you apologize, put the call on hold, and return to help the person standing at your desk; someone else walks in; you finish helping the first person; two more calls come through, you answer each of them exactly long enough to put them on hold; by now, someone else has come through the door and someone wrapping up an appointment needs to schedule something else. Protocol is to help the in-person people first, but that doesn't help anything when the first person you've placed on hold has hung up and called back by the time you were able to get to the people on the phone. (And no, this is not an exaggeration.)

On Thursday and Friday, I unwittingly drove to work without my driver's license...or anything else in my wallet. That meant that I couldn't even buy myself lunch, for two days. The first day was an honest mistake -- I didn't even remember taking my wallet out of my purse. The second day...well, I didn't remember that I had forgotten to remember my wallet wasn't in my purse until I was at work. (I kind of missed the whole "locating the wallet" thing when I was at home.)
To make matters worse, on Thursday, I didn't even take a lunch. Things were so hectic at the office that I didn't feel comfortable taking an hour away from the desk and leaving our new-as-of-day-one-of-class student worker by herself. Drop-in appointments were taking longer than normal, which meant that things had to be constantly shifted in order to make sure that FIFO was maintained, and she hasn't completely honed her appointment-shifting abilities yet. Not enough to be left to the wolfish piranhas anyway.

I was without my allergy medicine for a week, and the symptoms came back, hard. Sneezing, coughing...even to the point of waking myself up and giving myself a sore throat. Ugh.
They're still here, despite having been on it for five days now.
Well, four.
I forgot to take all of my pills this morning.
Don't worry: they're just the kind that maintain my inner body chemistry (thyroid, anti-depressant, and allergy pill) so it's not that big of deal. [Yeah, right.]

I have a routine when I take a shower: suds up the hair, exfoliate the face, loofah up & rinse off the body, and then rinse out the hair. Last night, I grabbed the body wash first and put it in my hand as if it were shampoo. Realizing my error, I wiped what I could onto my loofah, and then turned to the back corner of the shower to get the shampoo...except that it wasn't shampoo -- it was body wash, and it wasn't even mine. I was so discombobulated. I feel that's a pretty accurate description of how everything has been going lately.

Except school.
School is going great.
Last night I finished an assignment, a week early. My grade is sitting pretty at 100%.
We won't talk about the fact that I'm two chapters behind in my textbook, or that I haven't read any of the articles yet. (Thank goodness it's a "choose one of the following" kinds of deals.)

The good news is that I have found an exercise that appeals to me: dance.
I'd love to take some dancing classes.
Like line dancing.
Or a class that's like aerobics, but for dancing: instructor-led. Preferably peopled mostly with ladies my own size. [Good luck!]
Maybe a combination of the two.
Jake and I have been talking about doing yoga together, too. It would be beneficial for both of us. (And he used to do yoga and still has all of his stuff, so this is the one time I will not hold against him for hanging on to everything.) I'd love to do it in the morning -- to get the blood pumping early and set the stage for the rest of the day. Therein lies the problem: he loathes morning. Oh well. It will happen if it's meant to.

Stay with me, friends: this is going to be one interesting ride.
It has been so far. :p