Weird day

Do you ever have moments in life when you stop and wonder, "What just happened?"

This morning I got in my car to drive to school. It was freezing outside and my car was super sluggish. I had the thought, "Am I pressing on the brake?" It was an absurd thought, of course. My car was accelerating, even if it wasn't at the same rate as normal. I knew I wasn't actually braking, but the question stuck in my mind. It progressed to me wondering, "Is the gas on the right or the left?" I was pretty sure that it was the right, but I wasn't certain if my foot was on the right of the two pedals. Strange, right?

Our Tuesday/Thursday class load is pretty intense this semester. I walked into the classroom for our third straight class of the day at 10:20-ish (class starts at 10:30), so I set down my stuff and went to the bathroom. I walked back into the classroom and the clock looked about like this:

 

and I thought, "Darnit, I'm late." As I sat down I realized the professor hadn't started class yet, so I looked at the clock again and thought for certain it was after 10:30. Then I had to talk myself through the fact that the 5 is before the 6 on the clock, so it couldn't be 10:30 yet.

Let me stop right here. If for some reason you just stumbled across my blog, I should let you know that I'm a relatively intelligent person. I'm in law school and managed to pass the first semester. I drive a car and tell time successfully each day. These brain failures have nothing to do with sheer lack of intelligence (at least I hope). I can't even blame them on stress, because as my "slump" post indicated, I'm feeling no stress or drive to do anything right now.

When class ended, I panicked a little. I had a phone interview in ten minutes for a research externship back in Utah this summer. I got myself into the reserved study room and had a successful interview, during which I was invited to join the research program. Exciting, yes?

I walked upstairs out of the library and started to walk toward a professor's office. In the commons area, I heard someone call my name. I knew it was my name that had been called, but for some reason it didn't occur to me that I should respond. My name was called again. And again. And suddenly I remembered that's what people do when they want your attention. I turned around, spoke to my friends for a quick second, but for some reason I was on a mission to visit my professor's office. Typically, I'm shy about going to a professor's office. I need to have a very specific question that can only be answered by that person before I'll even consider going in. But when I arrived at Professor Dallon's office, I wasn't even sure why I was there. I talked to him about the externship and without much prompting, he began to give me feedback as to what he thought I should do. While he was talking, I realized that was exactly what had brought me to his office, but I hadn't formulated that thought beforehand.

I made it through the rest of classes, but the weirdness never let up. I feel like I've been living life outside myself all day. I inadvertently uncovered random information about a situation that I needed to know but would have continued on, ignorant of, if not for an accidental internet search. I acted carelessly and hurt a dear friend by acting completely unlike myself. I bought a roast and $32 worth of tuna (okay, those were actually thought-out decisions. But still, out-of-the-ordinary).

This post doesn't have much of a point. I guess I simply wanted to make a record of the craziness during this moment of lucidity.

Here's hoping for a more normal tomorrow...