Self - Inflicted

I don't wake up every morning in plans of injuring myself, yet here I am at the end of the day, with a bloodied crust sitting over the bridge of my nose. I did not obtain this out of thrill seeking fun, though I do find it humorous in hindsight.

It all started when I needed a bus to make it to a class. I left an hour early to insure I had a healthy amount of time. This was my first bit of bad planning - I missed the early bus on the hour and had to wait at the bus stop for the next 15 minutes. During that time, I conversed with a man who used this route along in conjunction with a county circuit for his daily commute.

Just as he was leaving, another man approached me, telling me that "Jesus loved me", and handing out a tract. I accepted this, but kept reading Tarantula, by Bob Dylan. Its free form poetry failed to hold my concentration, so I rouletted to Robert Frost's poems. The next bus arrived, and I boarded, still shuffling through my options in prose.

Nearing the end of my ride, I unsheathed my laptop and finished an analysis of W.H. Auden's ["Stop all the Clocks, cut off all the telephones."]. I shoved the computer back into my shoulder bag, and started jogging down the crosswalks as they became available. My chief mistake was my haste - I glimpsed a slanted road construction sign lying near the pavement, I easily hopped the face but failed to take note that the stabilizing crossbar. *SMACK!* I stumbled to the ground on a knee, shook my head, then resumed sprinting with my bag tucked under my right arm.

As I neared campus, my head was still buzzing, I disregarded this minor headache - I was late to class! I opened the door to the classroom, visibly exerted and rushed. I didn't realize that my mishap with the sign left a red blood mark leaning leftward between my eyes. It was only after I wiped the sweat of my forehead a couple times that I noticed faint blood streaks upon my palms.

Learn from my long winded example - Plan to be reasonably early to avoid careless haste, and don't, under most conditions, decide that dodging through traffic is an acceptable way to cut time lost. (And no, I haven't been clocked yet by a moving vehicle. Thank Goodness!)