lunch break

so, i'm back from the steamy south. have thoughts about Nimbus (like, actual non-squeeing-fangirl type thoughts about why i don't usually go to cons, and also the squeeing-fangirl thoughts as well [g]), and more russian tongue-twisters, and some other stuff, and i'll think it out and have more to say in about four hours. now: croissant pockets.

today's excitement:

i have just come from nearly -- like, within eight or ten inches nearly -- being hit by a car.

there's this crosswalk between where i live and the main classroom building on campus. it's a fairly major street that it crosses; four lanes of traffic are supposed to yield to pedestrians, and they know this -- there are signs, although there's no signal. a lot of the time, drivers are real jerks, and they'll see you waiting there and go on through anyway and not let you cross -- but if you're already crossing, they pretty much don't drive through in front of you and make you stand there in the rest of the traffic until you have a clear shot at the opposite curb.

after class today, i came to the crosswalk. coming from my left in the first lane, there was one car, and it slowed down. the second lane was empty; i waved my thanks to the driver and stepped into the crosswalk, looking to my right to be sure the one car coming from that direction was going to slow down since i was already out in the middle of the street.

next thing i know, screeching tires, and here's this car in the second lane coming from the left; it hadn't been there a minute before, and had obviously been speeding and then startled to see that, gosh, there's a pedestrian in the crosswalk. i could have stepped onto the hood just by lifting my foot. the woman in the passenger seat was freaked out, i could tell. the guy driving shouted something, i didn't hear what, and i managed to get the rest of the way across the street (to where a classmate was standing in mute horror) before i started shaking and couldn't stop for a couple of minutes. (i'm choosing to believe the guy was apologizing for not having seen me there, but the classmate thinks, and i agree it's more likely, that he was yelling at me to watch where i was going. which, just for the record, i was -- i was going across a protected crosswalk. there really needs to be a light there. it'd be a fucking drag, but there and in one other intersection, people get hit way more often than i'd be comfortable with if i were the university. or the city.)