Rainwater infused cookie dough and train sushi (or why Princess really needs a break)

Apologies for my relative absence from Bloggie Land as of late.
I'm afraid I have entered that cyclical period of hell known as end of semester.

You think I would be familiar with this experience considering I've been a full-time university student for! eight! damn! years!

Yet, it seems that I still become a little blind in predicting the effects that such stress has on me, despite the repeated instances of such Princess-patented forms of irrationality.

First, let me recount the "highlights" of my day at work yesterday, to give you an idea of why a little stress might be justified...

- Having to do two assessments in jail to cover for the other psych assistants being sick... may I reiterate again that I was told I would be scheduled for essentially none of these after I was hired due to the tremendous commute it involves for me as the one P.A. without a car? And I have done one on more than 50% of my shifts?

- Having to leave 2.5 hours prior to my scheduled assessment because of the nearly two hour commute, as well as stopping off to pick up mad amounts of testing material on the way.

- Correctional officers making fun of me because I am so bogged down in tote bags full of various neuropsych tests, since I don't have a trunk to store them in and have to carry them everywhere with me.

- Doing neuropsychological testing on someone who is illiterate. Can I tell you what a jerk I felt like?
"I know you can't read, but testing protocol says you have to get 10 items wrong before I can stop the test, so can you pretty please just try to figure out those nonsensical squiggles on the paper in front of you?"

- Being halfway through my second assessment, opening up the tote bag full of WAIS testing material (that's an IQ test, for all you non-nerds), only to find that the only thing missing is the damn test protocol (?!?!?!). Which, it turned out, instead of being in the bag like every other neuropsych test we have, were underneath a few binders in the bottom of a random drawer... back at the clinic.

- Having to do frantic attempts at rescheduling because of this missing test protocol, because the court report is on a deadline-- yet everyone has called in sick for the rest of the week!

- Despite dressing as conservatively as possible while still looking professional, having all the inmates hanging out in the open room beside where I test line up outside their door to watch me walk by, only to head back inside as soon as I disappear.
Whistles and snide comments are a stellar way to boost my confidence when working in a correctional facility!

- Being caught in a rain and wind storm on my way back to the clinic, which actually bend the metal tines in my umbrella.

- Not getting my lunch break until I've actually worked an hour later than I am supposed to for the entire day

- And, as I finally sit down to ravenously chow down on my very late sushi lunch, getting interrupted by the receptionist saying that they need me to leave, as the clinic is closed. As such, I get to spend my "lunch" break shoveling raw fish into my mouth on a moving train.

***

So, while I think you may concur that it sounds like I had a particularly stressful day... you'd think I would have coping mechanisms in play to deal with this, yes?

Apparently not so much.

After the warm fuzzy sentiments of the last post, I decided that a good way to relieve some of the deadline-induced stress would be bake and decorate Christmas cookies. I decide that I am going to be particularly artistic, and thus purchase reams of cookie cutters, icing, and sprinkles.

However, when I set to starting my baking, despite being fully stocked in pine-tree shaped cookie cutters... I have no flour. And the fluffy snow I described below has degenerated into a barrage of gray sleet.

I manage to grab a few cups of flour from my upstairs neighbours, then contently mix my dough. And then I notice that the dough needs to be chilled for a few hours.

Frustrated at the delay, and recognizing that fitting this oversized metal bowl full of doughy goodness into my apartment sized fridge would be an exercise in futility, I decide a great idea is to cover the bowl with a pizza pan, and nestle it in the snow in my front yard.

After a few hours, I bring the bowl back in. I try to roll out the dough, but the snow is apparently not functioning as well as refrigerator, and it resembles toffee. It doesn't help that I have no flour to sprinkle on the rolling pin to prevent the mixture from pasting itself on to ever viable surface, and I am too embarrassed to make a second flour request.

I try to chill the dough for longer outdoors.
The pizza pan somehow gets slightly shifted, and my delicious cookie dough becomes infused with the deliciousness that is city rainwater.

As I look into the gray coloured water with mountains of dough sticking out, it strikes me that I feel especially pathetic at that moment, with my kitchen strewn with baking materials and my clothing smeared with various ingredients. My inability to make a batch of sugar cookies, which is generally one of the simplest things on the planet to accomplish, feels like a failure of momentous proportions. I throw myself onto my bed, and inexplicably begin to sob.

The worst thing (besides crying over cookies?)? The fact that me, someone who helps people regain their perspective, didn't even have the insight to remember that my good reliable friend, the End of Semester Crazy, was visiting.

I honestly thought it was all about the cookies.