Unlucky

Every time we miss the ball or screw up a play, the Sussex volleyball coach Dave says, “Unlucky.” Here has been my series of “unlucky” recent events:

First and foremost, the tragic loss of my camera. I took it to a repair shop today, but they told me I may as well buy a new one, for what it would cost me to get it repaired. So much for having any money left over at the end of this trip.

Second, I am now most unluckily sick. I woke up with a progressively worse sore throat the other day, which promptly turned into some sort of fever last night, and now I am stuck with whatever illness comes next. What’s more, I thought I was done looking like a moron in shops, but now I am hunting for yet more foreign goods, namely throat lozenges. Would you believe that Halls don’t come in bags over here? Apparently, British people buy rolls of throat lozenges they way I am accustomed to buying rolls of mints or Lifesavers in grocery store checkout lines. Now, I’m trying a brand called Lockets because it appears to have more medicine and less sugar than Halls. Go figure.

Third, the Study Abroad Office here has buggered me again (hooray! finally an instance to use that word “bugger”—it’s so British). They refused to allow me to sell my Lewes Walk ticket back, even though I could feel myself getting sick and didn’t think I would make it to the event. The starting cite was the Lewes train station—a place no one I asked had ever heard of—but since I was stuck with the ticket, I was going to go on this walk. I Googled and bus-routed until I could determine exactly which line would get me to Lewes and which streets I should walk down in order to get from the bus stop to the railway station. That evening, I was nearly late to getting my first bus down to Churchill square, where I needed to catch my line to Lewes. However, when I got there the bus number was nowhere to be seen on the departure signs. I searched and I searched, and finally, after re-examining the schedule I had brought with me, I realized that the line I needed, 85, only ran during the daytime—that is, until 6pm. It was 6:30. Blast inconvenient public transportation, and blast human stupidity!