Mark's Timeliness Anxiety
It was a biting cold breeze that woke up Mark that chilling morning. After turning over in bed to shut his window the cruel lips of Winter reminded him that he was going to be late for school yet again this week. Despite the best efforts of the cold breeze, once he had closed the window his eyes had begun to close and the voices of his parents calling for him faded with the breeze.
After a short pause, Mark sprung up and looked at his alarm clock... 7:59... one minute to get to class. He cursed and rummaged through his drawers to find his school clothes. After flying through his drawers, he was able to draw out a shirt, socks, and a pair of underwear, but he could not find any pants. Since his classes were purely online for the winter season, this would be the least of his worries. He ran down the hall to his crammed study space and ripped open his laptop... 8:01... he was losing time fast. His hands flying over the keyboard as he logged in, he was greeted with an update to his Remote Learning application. Flustered and out of time, he misclicked the update dialogue and opted to decline the update. Unfortunately for Mark, this update was a critical update to the software and so the software shut back down. Instantly, he reopened the software and accepted the update, frustrated with himself that he has wasted so much time. He nervously stared at the clock in the corner of his screen and watched as it counted up while the update was applying: 8:06, 8:07, 8:08, 8:09. At 8:10, the update had finally finished and he quickly dismissed the confirmation dialogue. In his haste, he had opted to reboot his computer. His screen being replaced with the familiar reboot screen highlighted his error and he threw his hands up in discouragement. With his computer rebooting, he quickly dashed down the hall to the pantry to grab a granola bar to satiate his appetite. Upon returning to his crammed office space, he noticed that his computer was almost back to the login screen. He quickly sat down and logged in moments after, with the same vigor as before. When he reached his desktop, he timidly checked the time... 8:14. His hands flying across the keyboard, he opened the Remote Learning application and joined the classroom... it was empty.
That is when the realization hit him like a cold breeze...