Tomorrow I take possession of my apartment on-campus. It will signal the end of a difficult three week period when I spent on average 12-15 hours a week using transit. It seems however, fate is not without a sense of the dramatic.
Do you remember the end of Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan? Kirk had finally outwitted Khan. As Khan’s crippled ship drifted and Khan himself was dying, he ignored Enterprise’s demands to surrender. Instead, he armed the Genesis device which threatened to blow himself and the Enterprise with him. Kirk realizes this and immediately turns the Enterprise around to get away, but without warp capability they won’t make it. In a classic scene, Khan mutters the line, “No… You can’t get away… From hell’s heart I stab at thee…”
Fate is Khan and I am the Enterprise. After three weeks of commuting, I avoided nearly everything that could go wrong. I wasn’t late for class a single time. I didn’t get diarrhea on the bus. None of my buses were late nor did they break down. I missed a stabbing incident at the Lougheed Skytrain station by less than 30 minutes. I managed to avoid catching an illness from all those unwashed commuters…. oh wait , what’s this?
Sometime this afternoon, I felt every muscle in my body ache and sing out that they were sore. Granted I did play hockey for the first time in three weeks yesterday, but these were the aches and pains that you feel when you’re about to be knocked on your ass by something. I don’t know what this is going to be, a cold, a flu? Who the hell knows. I do know that I just want to drink warm fluids and lie down. However, in between reading for my classes, an assignment, and packing the remainder of my stuff, I won’t be able to rest. I hope I’ll be in a half-decent condition to move tomorrow.
Incidently, the last line before Khan dies is, “For hate’s sake… I spit my last breath at thee!” The only question that remains is, do I have a Spock who will save the day?