Small Successes

Our first night in the dorm room was, well, miserable. We arrived around midnight, after a long day of travel from Denver. When we got to our room, there were actually two twin beds in separate bed rooms. After 10 minutes of failure at trying to sneak one out of the door, I turned to dismantling it. Fortunately, one of the beds was an extra-long, and one was just regular length. After assembling the double-tiered makeshift double-single bed, we realized that we didn't bring a comforter. Or pillows. And that our air-conditioner, though broken, was actually broken in the sense that it never turned off.

By 2 am, I had my head snuggled gently upon a stack of towels, wrapped in a hoodie with towels around my shivering legs. By 5:00 AM, I was swiftly arising to join 600 other wide-eyed corps members for my first day of boot camp.

The theme of this story is that the air-conditioner worked so well. In fact, since that first night, we have not closed any of the windows in the apartment. 100 degrees outside, windows open, apartment freezing.

My small success is that I finally figured out how to turn it off. Really wasn't that complicated now that I think about it. Maybe this small success only illustrates how pitiful my 2.5 weeks of failure were.

***This story may be read literally or figuratively. The events are real. The author's intent is up for interpretation.***