July 27th, 2009.

I decided against creating a spunky little name for this entry simply because it is set to be an overall negative read. I had bad dreams last night. A large segment of my day was bad; I made it worse for myself. Let me explain.

I permanently escaped a spur of scary dreams around noon today. I don't usually sleep in but I've been working so much lately that today it felt nice, with the exception of the unpleasant tale my subconscious mind chose to tell. I dreamed of moving away and altering positive aspects for the worse and cutting hair and death. Needless to say, I got out of bed feeling shaken and pessimistic. I proceeded to brush my teeth and eat breakfast and, inevitably, fire up the Macbook.

Upon accessing facebook, I learned of a new message from a friend. The message read that the friend is indeed still interested in taking an introductory theatre course with me come the fall. At this, I decided to log on to webadvisor to see the state of this course, among others. I was disappointed to find that many courses of interest to me are already waitlisted. Damn second year registration dates! I became particularly frustrated as I realized the short fiction course I am hoping to take is waitlisted; frustrated, but not surprised. The university offers ONE section, thirty-eight spots, for a short fiction course. Thirty-eight spots in a university where hundreds of thousands of students come and go each and every day. What made me even more frustrated was my recollection of the fact that there is not a single appointment available for an academic advisor and I am due to register in less than a week. There is, of course, the drop-ins where each individual, after waiting for an unpredictable amount of hours, is granted eight to nine minutes with one, but at this point it hardly seems useful. Overall, I concluded that the university provides horrible resources, or lack thereof. Speaking of resources, I needed to print some information for my 'drop-in' session yet was unable to do so for the following reasons:

My printer has been out of commission for over a year now. Yes, you are correct. I managed to get through a horrible year of university without a printer. Don't even get me started on that, it's in the past, thank God. Moving on, I called my uncle and asked if I could use his printer. Long story short, his computer is overly protected with security programs and the document would simply not open. I called my sister and asked if I could use her printer. She agreed so I walked the fifteen minutes in the heat to her house. Her boys were ecstatic to see me, as I was them, and my sister, as usual, was on the phone. I asked her multiple times to help me set up the printer, each time receiving the same answer: in a minute. I took the boys inside where we drank Yop's and play wrestled over a nail file. Finally, my sister got off the phone and began to make dinner. I asked her again to help me with the printer. Same response. I continued to play, or more accurately, babysit, her children as she cooked. She then assigned me the task of picking up to toys and vacuuming the entire top floor of her house, bedrooms included. I did as I was asked. After vacuuming in the heat, I finally lost it.

"I DID NOT COME HERE TO PLAY BABYSITTER OR HOUSEMAID. I CAME HERE TO STAY FIVE TO TEN MINUTES ONLY TO USE YOUR PRINTER. YOU ALWAYS TAKE PEOPLE FOR EVERYTHING THEY ARE WORTH AND IT'S DISGUSTING. I FINISHED VACUUMING, WATCHING YOU TALK ON THE PHONE, AND BABYSITTING YOUR KIDS. CAN YOU PLEASE, PLEASE SHOW ME HOW TO USE THE PRINTER NOW!?"

She gave me a look indicating that I am a drama queen and proceeded to the basement to set up the printer. The kids followed and so did I. Upon searching up the document, fiddling around with the settings, and preparing what I needed to print, I made a heartbreaking discovery; the printer was out of ink.

"Oh, right...I forgot."

I was so furious at this that I walked up the stairs to leave only to hear the eldest crying because he had been looking forward to playing with me. If the inkless printer didn't break my heart completely, this certainly did. I decided against leaving and called him and his younger brother up to play. We played a board game and an hour and a half later, I was out the door, back in the heat, to walk home.

Needless to say I broke down in tears to my Mom almost immediately after sitting down.

The remainder of the evening wasn't as bad although I still am kind of ticked about that printer. All in all, I did learn something. I don't know why but somehow, the importance of kindness became prominent today. I am unsure as to if it was due to my dream involving a lost loved one, a result of a situation where being kind becomes increasingly difficult, or the kindness my Mother displayed to me as she listened to my story, made me dinner, and did everything in her power to do something about what happened, but it shined through.

Here in my room, I take a deep breath as I prepare to crawl into bed with my cat. I reflect on the days events as I look outside to see blackness speckled with brilliant stars. Despite the stupid printer and lack of educational resources, today I did have the opportunity to spend time with my little nephews, someone cares about me enough to provide me with a healthy and fulfilling dinner, and I did get to watch the sun go down as I walked with my Mom. I have it pretty good and today only confirmed I have no reason to be anything but kind.