november 5

Eleanor’s phone alarm went off at 3:30 that Thursday morning. She grumbled and hit “snooze,” intending to just lay there for a few more minutes. It would give Yasha a little extra sleep, considering he was the one driving. So at 3:45 she got up and quietly crept to his room, closing his door before turning on his light. No reaction at first, then a bleary groan and a glare. She smiled sheepishly, nervously, sleepily. Those two and a half hours had not been nearly enough.

She put her belt back on and grabbed her backpack, going down to the kitchen to forage for breakfast. She found bagels in the fridge and set about toasting one while munching a Nutrigrain bar. Yasha sat at the counter, eating pita chips and drinking juice. She quickly buttered her bagel and wrapped it in a paper towel for easy transport. They put shoes on and headed out to the car.

“We’re never doing this early-morning bus ride thing again,” she told him moodily in the car. He agreed.

He dropped her off at the Baltimore station just after 4:30. A quick hug and he left, as she shuffled inside to sit and wait. She zoned out, glancing at her watch occasionally. Had this been any other Greyhound trip she would have her iPod out, but her ears were still feeling stuffed up and she didn’t feel like dealing with the volume level necessary to actually hear it.

Just before 4:50 she stood and waited by her gate, printed tickets in hand. The ride to DC was short, the traffic nonexistent, and she dozed in her seat. There was an hour layover in DC, and she thought sleepily how ridiculous their planning was, considering they had just been there not 6 hours earlier. She nodded in and out of sleep, checking her watch when she snapped her eyes open, not wanting to miss her bus. 6:40 came and she stood again, ignoring her achy back. The second leg was much the same as the first, though she thought she may have actually slept a bit there because suddenly they were at exit 79 and it was just about time to get off. They were almost a full hour early, meaning she would have no trouble making her ten o’clock – though she would be vaguely smelly for it.

Rather than wait the half hour for the number 24 bus, she ended up walking back down the street to Broad. Her shoulders were starting to hurt, the combined stress of the pit and having made that trek twice in as many days. She caught the first bus that came down Broad to campus. In the ten minutes between getting back and having to leave, she put on her pajamas (which didn’t smell of beer and sweat and smoke and who knew what else) in the hope they would somewhat disguise her unwashed state. She checked Facebook briefly and was back out the door.

On her way to class she stopped by the campus convenience store and got some pills for her just-starting to hurt muscles.

--

Sitting in bio lab Eleanor examined her arms for any obvious bruising, anything that might give her away. Her left triceps were especially tender, which was strange because that was the side Yasha sheltered for as much of the show as he could. She reasoned it was because she ended up bracing that arm on the back of the guy in front of her, pushing against him hard. Her throat was a little raw and her ears still felt a little stuffed, but she seemed hardly the worse for wear. Compared to Yasha’s kidney damage and concussion, Eleanor was fine – though she was slightly annoyed at having lost an earring.

Nate finished the introductory lecture on the respiratory system in large animals. They were supposed to be dissecting fetal pigs that day, but for some reason the department either didn’t order them at all or didn’t order enough, because their class instead was supposed to dissect rats. Eleanor, for some reason, didn’t have much of a problem with the rats as much as the pigs, probably because they were fetal pigs and her strange hippie ways were very much against that. However, due to the general gross-out factor of all dissections, Nate instead made it entirely optional.

“If you feel like your life won’t be complete without cutting into something in bio 101, then go ahead and cut open a rat. Otherwise, it’s not required.”

In her mind, Eleanor sort of wanted to do the rat. But she had a feeling her unnamed classmates wouldn’t want to – especially since Nate’s previous class had already done one and the rat was sitting on the counter for students to look at if they chose – so she didn’t mention it. Instead they played with healthy and smoker’s pig lungs, looked at slides of lung tissue, and found their vital air capacity. Without the dissection, the class let out a little after 11. She made her way back to the house, stopping by the dining hall to get a sandwich for lunch.

--

She took a nice, long shower when she got back, doing a more thorough examination for other injuries her clothes had hidden. Her knees were slightly bruised from being pressed and banged against the rail, and her upper back and shoulders were starting to ache. She knew it would only get worse before it got better and was not looking forward to the next few days.

She prepared a lie as to why her copper container wasn’t quite finished and headed to the critique. I took it home because my locker has been giving me trouble and won’t open. But when I took it out when I got back one of the feet had broken off and I wasn’t sure how to fix it. It seemed plausible enough. But when she got to the crit she ended up telling the half-truth anyway.

“When I was bending that foot so it would sit flat, the solder broke and it came off. I wasn’t sure how to fix it. And then I noticed the other feet weren’t really in the right places to so I have to fix them all.”

Luckily, only nine out of sixteen students had finished boxes, so everyone had until the next class to finish and fix them. Eleanor planned to go back to the lab on Sunday when Sheal was there, though she had a feeling she wouldn’t.

The crit went well for everyone else, though Eleanor said nothing. She periodically flexed her hands and arms, testing her muscles, but was otherwise silent. During the break and for a few minutes after class she worked on the crochet project in the hall. It had grown a lot since she had last seen it Tuesday, with some chaining reaching above and across the rail and around the steel pillars. It was soothing to work on it, even if standing there to reach the higher parts made her left shoulder ache more. When she got back home she took some Aleve.

--

Later on Ces texted her.

C: Shafer at 730 with Anna and Nicole?

Thursdays were one of the nights Eleanor went to Angela’s and watched TV on the large flatscreen in her dorm’s common room. That night was Supernatural night, starting at 9. She figured she had time, and anyway, getting out was always a good thing for such a shut in. She readily agreed.

Ces and Eleanor left together. They were meeting the others outside Bo Dillaz since it was a fairly central location. Of course, since Nicole was involved, they were waiting in the cold for a good twenty minutes before she showed up – Anna had gotten there fairly quickly. They headed over to the dining hall.

Around 8:45 Eleanor left to walk to Angela’s for their TV night. She rode the campus security escort back to her house afterwards.

[1331]
[9609/50000]

God, this took forever to get out... I forgot what I did on Thursday, and now it's Monday, so I've got a lot of catching up to do...