Waking Up for Evaluations

The alarm blares. It’s my second one. That means it’s really time to get up. I roll out of bed and hit the floor. My shoulder hurts a bit, but that’s mostly fine. I swipe my alarm off, as well as the next two, and stumble to my closet. Clothes. Those come next. I just grab the first thing I can that sort of fits together as an outfit. Today I just have the meeting that’s probably this year’s evaluations, and then my Medieval final at ten. I’ll do that, then collapse. I don’t need to look good, just passable. Last night, and honestly later today when I’m capable of thought, I know that there’s a eight-thirty time slot for finals, so Magister Paredes scheduled our meeting to end before then. But my head isn’t really awake right now, and so it’s mostly just cursing and yawning.

Dressed, I walk down the hall to Heather’s room. She and Vince are always late, so sometimes I take it on myself to make sure they don’t oversleep. Knocking on Heather’s door, there is no response. I knock again. Tara, Heather’s roommate, opens it a crack, and looks at her. “Sage, what is it?”

“Trying to make sure Heather isn’t embarrassingly late,” I say.

Tara shakes her head. “Sorry, Heather didn’t come back last night.”

Of course not. I sigh. “Alright, sorry for waking you up,” I offer.

She shakes her head. “It’s not a big deal. I probably should get some studying in before my final anyway.” And she closes the door on me. So, Heather never returned from the party. I send a text, asking her where she is. Rather than wait, I head down three stories to Vince’s room.

When I knock, a voice from inside asks, “What is it this time?”

“Hey, asshat,” I say.

“I’m awake,” Vince insists.

“Sure you are,” I reply.

After a moment, the door opens, and Vince stands before me in a onesie. “See, awake,” he manages to say while his eyes are clearly falling closed.

“Great, get moving.” As he closes the door behind him, I add, “By the way, Heather never made it back, evidently. Any idea where she might be?”

“Nah,” Vince replies, “I was at the same party she went to for about a minute, but she ended up dipping with AJ and their posse after Mickey showed up.”

“Invited?” I ask.

Vince shrugs. “Questionably. Not directly, but not like pointedly not invited, you know?”

I nod. “Alright, that means I need to coffee, cause she’ll be in town.”

“Maybe not,” Vince begins, then has to admit, “But probably.”

“Not even at her worst was Heather dumb enough to sleep with one of AJ’s clique.”

“Hey,” Vince takes offense. I give him a look, and he sheepishly adds, “Fine, yeah.”

As we make it to the lobby I start heading to the coffee machine, and wave him towards the door. “See you in the library,” I say offhandedly, and he’s already off at a snail’s pace, walking towards the door. Good. He might even make it to the conference room on time. I make myself a cup of the worst coffee I’ve had since the last time I had to endure this single cup machine’s output. I down the burning hot coffee as fast as I can manage, before making my way out to my car.

I drive through the Starbucks drive through to pick up my own cap and a latte to help Heather recover from her evening out. Heather texts me an address while I wait in the drive through for them to finish making my drinks. I press it, and start navigating. Traffic isn’t really starting up yet, thank goodness. I mean, DC area traffic is always present, just not to an extreme level yet. I pull up to the curb in front of an apartment building. It takes a moment before Heather rushes out of the building. “Sorry,” she mutters as she climbs into the back of the car.

“You know where the wipes are. And you never replaced your clothes in here, but I think there’re some sweats back there,” I say as I hand her the latte.

Heather takes the latte, and adds, “Thanks.” As I start to drive, she starts to change into my exercise sweats. Not her normal fit, but better than wearing her outfit from last night’s party. Bad implications to the other people at the party who don’t know things. Enjoying my cappuccino, I drive my way back to campus, to the library’s parking lot. I probably shouldn’t, but being close to on time is too important to follow the technical parking rules of the school. I can move it back to my space after the meeting, and everyone will understand. “Come on,” I tell Heather as I get out, and she follows. We head up to the third floor of the library, and get to the conference room. Vince is outside, waiting for us. “You two made it,” he says.

“Shut up,” Heather half-jokingly spit at him.

Vince grins. “Looking good,” he jokes right back.

Heather shakes her head. “I hate you,” she informs him. We head in, basically on time.

Magister Paredes is sitting by the front of the room. “Good on you. We’re waiting for Talia and you three,” she says. Talia, I think that’s one of the kids.

Vince chimes in. “Makes sense.” Clearly Talia had been at the party last night.

“So, does everyone have summer plans?” Magister Paredes asks, clearly trying to vamp but also gather info.

Jannick starts, asking, “You mean besides our internships?”

Gina laughs at her fellow junior’s statement, so I guess that was a joke. Maybe the two of them have really rough internships. “Let’s focus on the youth,” she says instead, “Let them shine.”

“We always shine,” I insist, “So how about you three?” I turn to the freshmen.

Sean shrugs. “I’m going to be going back home, working at my friend’s dad’s store.”

Julie smiles, nervous about all the attention on her probably. She’s used to hanging out with Talia, who takes a good amount of focus from almost any room she’s in. “Um, well, I’m, yeah, a uh.”

Mike saves her. “Well, I for one am planning on just relaxing, making sure I remember all this stuff, and trying to destressify my life.”

I look at Mike, judgmentally. “So you don’t have plans,” I state. This causes Gina, Sean, and Heather to laugh. Vince shakes his head, likely because he, too, has no plans. This laughter gives Julie enough time to come up with an answer.

“Right, sorry, I’m actually going on a trip to Europe with my family,” the last present freshman says.

“Cool,” I say, “Better than no plans.”

“What about you?” Sean counters. “Shiney sophomores?”

“I prefer the term Sparkling Second Years,” Vince states firmly with a smirk, before adding, “I’m just helping out my family back home, because I care.” Which, to translate, means hanging out and doing nothing, but claiming to be a functional member of society.

I laugh with Heather, then shrug. “Well, I’m staying here working on my nonsense. Got the forms filled out to stay in the dorms over the summer.”

Heather nods, “Cool,” she says, “And I don’t have any plans, but unlike some people around here, I can admit it. I’m going to go back home and you know, try to enjoy myself.”

Gina shakes her head. Jannick adds to this, “You really should focus more on your futures, rather than doing nothing. You know, you can press for internships and future positions during your sophomore summer.”

I shrug, because I know that, but I don’t need to share my actual reason for staying here. “Magister Paredes, are you doing anything interesting?” I ask.

There’s a moment, and she shrugs. “Working on my paper, nothing important,” she states, lying through her teeth. Not that she has any clear tells, she’s just not the sort of person to spend multiple months doing nothing important.

Before anyone can ask follow up questions, Talia stumbles in, visibly hung over. “Crap,” she says, “I was counting on you being late,” she mutters at Vince.

“Some of us have friends that will wake us and our roommates up at six-thirty in the morning when you are hung over.” Vince replies.

“Friends?” I ask.

Vince groans. “Fine. Acquaintances,” he jokes.

I shove him, which causes him to stumble, revealing that, in fact, his balance is not right this morning. Magister Paredes taps some papers on the desk. “So, I know you non-freshmen are all excited about complaining about me today, but unfortunately for you, we got handed out something a little different, too. So, there is the standard evaluation sheet for my progress. Fill them out and technically some people will likely read them, but not very much so vent as much as you like. Then we have everyone’s least favorite activity: the self-evaluation.”

Gina groans at that, but the rest of us are just confused. So Magister Paredes explains, “Every two or three years, beyond the standard evaluation of me as an advisor, you also get a bunch of additional questions about your own progress and experiences related to the rest of the Villa. And the groan, as well as the extra time in the schedule, is due to the length.” And she demonstrates the size of the packet, which is a full packet, rather than the single sheet front and back we got last year.

I sigh and raise my hand. “Can we send someone downstairs to get donuts or coffee or something?” I ask.

Our advisor shakes her head. “It’s not that bad. I had to do it twice back in my Apprenticeship.” She starts passing the forms out. I continue to sip the dregs of my cap.

She sits back down as we get the evaluation packet. I quickly run through the main evaluation, which is the exact same as last years’ eval. And, quite frankly in my current state of mind, I am writing basically the exact same answers as last year, too. Then we get to the rough bit. Because the rest of the packet is new, and more importantly, in theory introspective. Which is rough for me while I’m half asleep and hoping to retain information about the mystic history of medieval Europe. I’m going to need to study again after this.

The process of answering all the questions in the packet takes an hour. I’m not the last to finish, because Talia is fully struggling, but as I finish and look around, I get the sense that I’m the only one who took it seriously. Or, at least, other than possibly Sean or Jannick, as they’re both hard enough workers that they would probably be able to take each question seriously and finish before me. I look over at Talia. “You alright?” I ask her.

She looks up at me. “No, but I’m almost done. Then it’s down stairs and across the street to donut city.”

I smile. She’s got a good idea there, I can study my textbook anywhere. “I’ll probably see you there, then,” I say. She nods as I head over to Magister Paredes. Handing over the packet, I add, “If I’m honest,” I admit to her, “I didn’t really think about the first page.”

“That’s okay, the rest of it is the part people will read,” she admits right back, “As I said last year, almost no one actually reads and cares about the evaluations of me.”

“Odd use of almost,” I note.

She laughs. “I can’t say more than that, but I promised I wouldn’t lie to you.”

I shake my head and start to head out. “Welp, now I’ve got to study again.”

“Good luck,” she says as I leave. I head back to the parking lot, and drive the three blocks to my dorm’s lot. Rushing back to my room, I grab my bag. Time to go get donuts while studying my books and notes. I feel awake enough by now after the driving, the coffee, the introspection, and the jogging, I might actually be able to pull an A.