So earlier, I was telling Brad how my morning had turned out to be a little hectic, and he said he hoped my evening was less so. I was inwardly amused by this, because all I had was ESL, something that has become so routine to me by now that it seemed laughable that it would end up being any more hectic than it usually was.

Well...as it turns out...even ESL itself turned out to be a mess, since the normal teacher for my class wasn't there (meaning Sarah was teaching it), and she had me volunteer another class of students (who, coincidentally, also had a sub, and this sub happened to be the first, awesome teacher that was teaching my normal class when I first came to the IIB...) It was actually really interesting, since I've become so accustomed to the normal students and their own personal skill levels and quirks that it felt like an actual job to try to learn that for a whole class of new ones. They were also at a much higher level than my normal group, so they were attempting to write (or rather copy with the correct information put in) a letter to their town rep about the allocation of funds to adult ed. It was a definite challenge for most of them, though I have to admit that I found it pretty amazing how much they were able to do on their own.

Anyway, after ESL, the first sign that something was wrong was when I was just about to descend into the Downtown Crossing station when I saw a couple students from the new class just emerging. They said that the trains weren't running, but, of course, being partially illiterate, they hadn't thought to look for any signage that might indicate what was going on. So, we all walked up to Park Street, and along the way a dishevelled old Spanish lady said that "algo pasó en Braintree". Approaching the Park Street station, there was already a considerable crowd waiting outside of busses that didn't seem to be boarding. I decided to go down into the station to see what was going on...and it was completely nightmarish. The station was overrun by confused people, since there weren't many personnel (this was at like 9.15PM), and those that were there didn't know what was going on, either. It was the most disorganized I've ever seen the T, and I've been present at some crises like this before. Nobody knew what was happening, or why, and people just kept throwing rumors and false instructions around, only to have them later refuted.
I partnered up with this random girl who wanted to get to Harvard, and we ended up being shuttled between the downstairs station (where people were saying to go upstairs to catch shuttle busses into Cambridge), and upstairs outside (where people were saying to go back down and catch the Green Line to Lechmere, since there would be shuttles there while the only ones at Park Street were going to Ashmont.) There were also just about no Green Line trains coming through the station...one like, every ten minutes, which was not nearly enough to accomodate the swelling crowd.

Finally, I got on a Green Line bus that was less crowded because its last stop was Government Center. I figured it couldn't hurt to get sort of closer to Lechmere where there might be an 87 or 80 to get to Arlington. While I was waiting at Government Center for another Green Line, there was an announcement saying that the whole mess was caused by a fire on the Longfellow Bridge, and that passengers should go to Park Street to catch a shuttle to Kendall. Like hell I was going back there...so I waited for yet another Green Line train, which was less full than the others (probably since those at Park Street were now trying to catch shuttles)...and upon arriving at Lechmere, the crowd was enormous, and there was like one shuttle bus. I ended up calling my dad and making him come all the way to Cambridgeside to pick me up, since there was clearly no way I was going to get a shuttle within the next hour or two; and this is even with all the busses coming in being reallocated as shuttles.

As I was departing the insanity, I saw some girls coming from the Galleria (probably to catch a bus), seeing the crowd, and groaning quite audibly...and it occurs to me--what if you were depending upon an actual bus from Lechmere? All of the busses were now being crowded with people and sent off to Harvard (Harvard was the only destination listed for shuttles while I was still around to check...) And it's like, if you need the 88 or something, you're more screwed than the misplaced Red Line people. Not to mention that still nobody knew what was going on. I was just lucky my dad WAS willing to come get me.

If it had been another time or another day, I probably would have accepted this as a kind of adventure and managed not to be too displeased--but as it is, I caught a fever from my mom and have been living on Tylenol all day--which had very much worn off even before the whole ordeal began. I think I'm developing a cough, too...and this all adds up to a really unhappy Rai. Who so does not and did not need to be stranded in Boston. And the fact that if I'd helped out in my normal class (which was taught by Sarah, and thus let out at 7.30), then I would have avoided this whole mess...so isn't helping.

So yeah. That really sucked. I think I'm going to go crawl up in bed and cry so that I don't end up fainting out of my chair.