Routine.

Every day I wake up, shower, do my hair and makeup, get dressed, sigh at my face in the mirror, and drag my feet to my car. I drive to school, park near the RB, pick up all my things--bulging backpack, purse, coat, study materials--and climb five flights of stairs to my 8 AM class, Biblical Hebrew. From there I march in sequence to Ancient Near Eastern History, which is characterized by such scattered, imprecise, and incoherent lectures that the only reason I show up is to take the occasional reading quiz. The professor always goes over time, which stresses me out as I rush to Middle Eastern History, which I genuinely enjoy because it's with my favorite professor and he always has interesting things to say. I then trek off to work--through the intersection with the very short Walk light and up the stairs and past the Marriott Center and the outlet creamery and into the Morris Center, where I clock in and spend the next three or four hours staring at Adobe Dreamweaver before gathering everything up again and making the same trip back for Arabic class, which I attend in two sections, the first in which I feel entirely unwelcome and guilty for taking up space, as it's not really my class, and the second in which I'm simply never called on. Arabic ends at 5 PM and then I usually have some kind of meeting or research obligation and then I grab something for dinner on campus. 

When my feet finally make it back to my apartment, it's night. All I want to do is go to bed, but I have to start what I know will be at least four hours of homework/grading/research, and then I think to myself how very much it would mean to have someone say,

hey,

Jessica,

I notice you.

I see how hard you're working,

and you're doing really well, so

keep it up. 

You have a future--

in this, 

at this,
here.