Another Year

I'm taking in the year at large and some choice moments come up as the most hilarious moments known to my existence. First there is how I met my best bud. In way of introduction there it has been the accepted norm that there are two kinds of people, those who watch things happen, and those who make things happen, Drama Queen ( my best bud) and I have managed to prove that there are those who are smack in the middle of the two groups. No matter how well planned and bullet proof the occasion, something always happens. Most likely we haven't figured out that time will not bend to our wishes, (it's early yet, stranger things have happened!) On the first day of our graduate course we were the first and only international students ( in the history of the class) to miss the coach for our field trip (which was weighted only because it was our first assignment!!!!) fresh off the banana boat, not knowing the back end of England from the front, we got on a train and were waiting for the rest of the class at the site! Oh yes we set precedent alright! Even though we were half petrified of ending up in Plymough instead of Didcot, met a man dressed like a leprichaun, and managed to charm the train ticket master into overlooking our tickets going in the wrong direction.... we made it. Let's just say we introduced our very starchy, and extremly english advisor to the finer elements of international time.... 5 minutes and an hour same difference ;D

Of course then there's the fact that I must be the only person to get dug out of mud by an excavator! I work on a construction site and would you know it I got stuck in mud. I'd been doing pretty well getting out of scrapes that my boss seemed to find amusing to get me into. I'm new meat... it goes with the territory, what can I say? Well I've been there three months and nothing had stuck, ok maybe a little (there was the instead with painting the wrong house, but that's another story) So here was he's big chance, the year was ending and I was going to get off scott free, yeah right. Lulled into a false sense of security, thinking he'd given up, I was only too happy to do he's bidding, very simple really.... go close the gate. Now the gate he had in mind isn't really a gate more like a panel of fencing that we use to secure the site (litigation reasons) and since some of the guys couldn't be bothered to walk all the way out of the site to the shop on the other side of the fence, they slip through the fence. There was a path that had led to and from the site through the fence, all I had to do was follow this path...right? Well the funny thing about construction is nothing stays the same, what was there an hour ago... ain't! Well I knew where the swamp bog was (deep muddy pond that accummulated water when raining) so I thought I was safe. Lucky for my boss the ground workers had started filling the foundations around the swamp bog, everything was now nice and level, thanks to the previous nights rain, the digger operator had no problems smoothing everything over and making it look nice and flat and safe... So going out there I think, 'Oh this is nice, I just have to walk in a stright line towards the gate/panel and secure it', everything was fine, terra firma was in my favour, until I got to the point of no return. I was half way to the gate and right at the edge of the now filled in swamp pond. What I thought was firm ground turned out to be filled up (in other words worked up to a find dough texture) swamp pond! I was sinking into the very cold mud very quickly! I'm now up to my boots (midcalf!) In my haste I was taking large steps and my legs were now stuck at 110 degree angle. I had two options, I could either fall foward, or I could fall backwards, getting out of my boots, with socks Godwilling, and try and crawl on my belly to firmer ground! Considering which option would be less embarrasing, I hear guffaws of painful laughter, the digger operator was literally weeping! After a good five minutes...i'm not sinking any slower! He decided to come to my rescue. Bringing the digger over to where I'm standing the operator advises me to ditch my boots and step into the digger (slopping all over with mud). He then manouvers the digger closer to my first boot, crouching on the digger floor and using both hands I manage to pull the first boot out, then closer to the other boot, I manage to pull it out as well, and in the process introducing my bottom to the muddy digger floor! My shame is complete. I look like I was mud wrestling with the gate. The digger operator brings me closer to the gate I hop out of the digger, shut the damned gate.... hop back on the digger and am placed back on firm ground. As for my boss, lets just say he had a wonderful vantage point and was selling front row tickets, he's office faces said gate! He was smilling all of the two weeks to Christmas break, I'm surprised he's face didn't split in half.
But the new year will bring with it new challenges and more embarrasing situations, and just when I think I got the hang of it!