Wrench In My Plans - Whatchoo Tryin' Ta Say?

I picked out all my outfits - professional, tasteful, stylish, but not too stuffy or over the top - packed my bags and headed to the airport yesterday. When I arrived at O'hare, I saw that my 5:40 p.m. flight to Raleigh/Durham had been cancelled. Argh! Waiting in line with about 30 bitchy people, on the cell phone with customer services, etc. etc., I had the possibility to try to fly standby (11 p.m.) or connect through St. Louis and arrive today at 1:20 p.m.. My lovely Polish agent tried hard to find me another spot, but to no avail. So I got back on the train at approximately 6:30 p.m. to head back to my apartment. Within 20 minutes, my flight to St. Louis had been cancelled!

After spending 30 minutes of my bus ride to my apartment on hold with customer service, I got booked on the 5:40 p.m. flight to Raleigh/Durham tonight. So I have to skip my entire day at Duke. Funny enough, I was in the cancelled flight line with a young woman who was going to the same place. Listening to her on the line with customer service, I pegged her as a not very friendly person, and one without a lot of warmth. Harsh it seems, but I introduced myself to her anyway. She was a PhD candidate in Psychology and Neurology and said that Raleigh was "okay."

"That's not really a glowing review," I said.
"Well," she said, "Raleigh is okay. I don't really like the program, so..."

Hmm. I realized that she didn't view me as a friendly soul seeking to chat in the airport, but rather as a competitor for a seat on a flight to Raleigh/Durham. Huh.

I think it would be too flaky to interpret these signs"from the universe" as a "no" towards Duke, but none of that made it seem more appealing. Rather than trying to split the little time I have left in North Carolina between Chapel Hill and Duke, I'm just going to go in depth at Chapel Hill. It may be my number one choice at this point anyway. Also, on the "good people" scale of life, I emailed my student host how my flight had been twice cancelled. She called me immediately and we chatted about it, and we talked about my upcoming visit, etc. She was sweet, flexible, and friendly, and said that she was that way because that was how people were when she visited Chapel Hill. Nice!

Being home this extra day has been a good opportunity to take some time to relax. I've been also able to email some of the professors that I'm interested in at UNC. Does it seem like I'm trying too hard to find a moral or silver lining in all this? Well here it is:

When life hands you cancelled flights and thunderstorms, use that extra time to take a bubble bath.

Or, something like that.