Meg Speak

Wednesday, September 19, 2007, was pretty close to being the worst day of my life. It all started with my Chemistry midterm. I left my house at 7:10 (as I do every morning) to get to my 8 a.m. class super early, only this time things were a little different. There was an accident on the 101 and it took me 40 minutes to go 15 miles. As I’m watching the minutes tick on by I am starting to freak out more and more. At 7:35 the sobbing started as I sat in my car, unmoving, realizing I would be late to my first midterm.

Here is where I need to insert a little info about me:

I graduated in ’04 deciding that I wanted to be a forensic pathologist. I took a semester of necessary classes (along with working a job at a dental office) and slowly realized that perhaps it forensic psychology wasn’t for me. My second semester of college I took a stupid class like Archeological Anthropology and realized I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. So, of course, I quit school and went to work at a law firm as a receptionist and then as a file clerk – Full time. I tried to go to school while working, but it was near impossible to find classes that worked around my schedule, so I took Spanish and that’s about it. Two years later I quit my job to go back to school full time. I moved to Santa Barbara and decided that Nursing is what I will do with my life. Or at least, that’s what I think I’ll do. I’m 21; I’m not supposed to know what I want to be.

Moving On:

I am back at school and a lot is riding on me doing well. Nursing school is very difficult to get into (300 apply, 30 get in) so I know I need to not only ace my classes, but I need to wow them as well. So here I am, my first midterm (that counted) and I was going to miss it. I’m sobbing in between leaving a panicked message on my professor’s voicemail and talking to my mom. At 7:50 I pulled into my school’s parking lot. Somehow in ten minutes I found a spot, hiked my ass up the huge hill that leads to the classes and skirted into the classroom at 7:59. I was sweaty, out of breath and more than stressed out, but I made it. Let’s just hope I didn’t fail it.

So my day started quite stressfully and it never really let up. I was supposed to tutor my first English class (that’s right, class, not individual) and I had 3 hours to fill out necessary paperwork, watch 2.5 hours of training videos, fill out a response packet and find my class. Needless to say, I was a whirlwind across both campuses (2 campuses attached by a bridge) but I made it to my tutoring session in time. Here’s when things got a little sketch.

You know those movies where all the riffraff kids of the school are kept in a dingy looking classroom in the basement of the school and some noble teacher tries to change their lives forever? (Think: Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Take the Lead, Freedom Writers, etc.) Exactly like that. My school is amazingly beautiful. It’s located right on the beach, the weather is perfect and all the classrooms are well lit, ventilated and have either a view of the beach or of the gorgeous campus. Not this classroom. This classroom was in the basement of the Drama building.  There were no windows and no clocks; just cinderblock walls and poor lighting. This place looked like a prison, and the kids definitely looked like inmates.

There were only a few girls in the classroom, but all of the looked cracked out with stringy hair, emaciated bodies, dark circles under their eyes and pale, crusty looking skin. Most of the guys in the class were large tattooed black men. I have absolutely nothing against black men, I actually quite enjoy them (hint hint wink wink) but these gentlemen were like the ones you would find in the prison yard bench pressing the other inmates. And let me tell you, these kids did not want to be there. Then again, after five minutes or so, neither did I.

I walked around and asked if anyone needed help and after being ignored and then laughed at, I went about the task of editing their essays. Holy Shit. I have never in my life seen essays like these. The grammar was horrible, the tenses were all screwy, slang and profanity was everywhere and in general, they were just bad. Below is an excerpt from one of the essays:

“Then I heard a bitch ass knock on my door like one of my ladies was comin over to deliver some ass and my little head got excited thinking it is my baby mom and so I opened the door to find the five-0.”

What? And this was one of the better essays. I am seriously scared. This person was talking about how he was this drug dealer and was arrested on kidnapping suspicion, etc. Now he’s a great guy, a father and grandfather, but let me tell you something; he scares the shit out of me.

Best part: They original teacher went missing. No one knows where she is.

So I leave my tutoring session feeling rejected, defeated and a little sad. I really wanted to help these people, but they definitely didn’t want my help. Oh well, off to my first Hospice patient’s house!!!

I get there and the wife of my patient lets me in and walks me to a back room where the husband (an older man suffering from prostate cancer) is in a hospital bed. The three of us chat for 30 minutes or so and then the wife kicks me out. What? I’m supposed to be here for 2 hours. I was sweet, smart, funny and pretty much everything you would want from a volunteer, but 30 minutes in the wife escorts me to the door. I let her know that I am there for her just as much as I am for her husband and that she can call me anytime she needs to get out to spend sometime alone or go grocery shopping or if she just needed a hand. She laughed at me. Seriously, no joke, the old bitch laughed in my face and then told me that she has hired help from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. to do that and I was “just not needed”. WTF? She requested a volunteer and now she is telling me that I am not needed. She then goes on to say that she would prefer a male volunteer as a female one would “not be appropriate”. Okay, fine, but why not say that before you waste 30 minutes of my time, or better yet, why didn’t you just request a male volunteer? Why tell Hospice any type of volunteer would be fine?  I HATE PEOPLE!!!!

So I went home feeling rejected and realized I ended my day just as I had started it; sobbing in my car. I came home and slept for 13 hours and then woke up to start all over again at my 8 a.m. class.

I’m never going to try to help people again.

You know those people who have a position of power who really shouldn’t have any power whatsoever? Maybe they are a jerk, indifferent, incompetent, not a leader, what have you, but they really shouldn’t be in charge of anyone other than themselves. Well, I am dealing with that person. She is in charge of assigning tutors to teachers at my school. There are several things wrong with her management skills:

1. She doesn’t listen to a thing you say – I told her that I was currently in Chem 101, Math 107 and English 110 with the hopes of being accepted into nursing school in a year. So, she tries to sign me up to be a tutor for 3 different nursing classes until I finally convinced her that I had not taken a single nursing class. She then tries to set me up to tutor classes while I am in class ten seconds after I tell her what times I am in class. Sure, I’ll be in two places at once. Dumbass. Finally she decides I should tutor two English as a Second Language classes. Fine with me, even though they are not even close to when I am on campus, I will work it out.
2. She is impossible to get a hold of and will drop the ball – So I go home with the distinct impression that I will be tutoring for two different ESL classes. I was told I would be contacted in two days. Never happened. I called her numerous times and she FINALLY called me back to tell me there would be two different classes I will be tutoring. One of them starts while I am still in class, but hell, we’ll work it out, and the other is… the class that I am in. What?
3. She is completely unaware of the rules – She tells me to just “show up” to the classes she assigned me. But     possibly I might want to talk to Mrs. H about some paper work. Bah! I have 1 day (during midterms) to watch 4 hours of videos, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and meet with a group of people to get an evaluation as to whether or not I should be a tutor. What? I thought I just had to “show up”. I should be studying for my Chem final, not watching retarded movies about how to properly help people. Ah. Bite me.