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Jodi Johnson

Ryan Bartlett

English 101

6 February, 2012

Bad Habits

Before I started college being punctual was a huge problem in my life. Even simple things like

getting out of bed on time, or stopping myself from doing just one more thing before I left the

house were habits that were hard for me to form. One day I decided that enough was enough. I

decided that being late to everything I went to wasn’t going to get me where I really wanted to be

but I didn’t realize this until I learned the hard way.

I’m someone who loves to travel and likes to do so often when I get the time or funds. So during

my last year of high school I decided that I would plan a trip to go to Japan. Knowing that the trip

would be expensive, I got a part-time job and started saving. Along with that I applied for and got

accepted into an exchange program to go into Tokyo. My grades were alright and some of my

good friends applied to go to the same exchange program so I was excited. This was because I

assumed that if I kept my grades up that this trip would be the best trip of my life. There was no

way that this could go wrong, because all I had to do was show up to the exchange program's

meetings and I would be ready to go.

In order stay a member of the exchange programs we were assigned to go to several meetings

before the beginning of the trip.

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One of the first meetings we had to do was a garage sale. The sale went perfectly, but the next

meeting, which was the carwash, went horrible. I showed up late and unprepared. There were

other people at the meeting who had already washed about four cars when we only had about

nine. Showing up late, I killed my reputation with everyone because it seemed as if the trip was

not important to me. I remember that even though it rained heavily, people still came to help out.

When this happened I thought I had finally learned my lesson about being punctual.

The next time I saw everyone from the exchange program was before we left to Japan. The night

before the morning of the trip, I told myself that I would pack everything that I needed into only

two bags. I set the alarm clock to 5:00am even though the plane left at 10:00am. In the night

before 5:00pm slowly became 6, then 7, and then 11:00 o’ clock at night. I kept telling myself that I

would pack for the trip; instead, I kept putting it off so that I could do other things. Eventually

midnight came, and I sat down in the middle of my bedroom to draw up a list of items to pack

while I watched T.V. The Simpsons, my favorite show, ran in the background as I brainstormed all

of the things that I might need during a two week stay in a foreign country. Would it be alright to

buy a few things before I went on the trip? It would be fine of course, it was midnight, and I

thought my four hours of sleep would be easy to function on if it was only a plane I needed to

catch. But before I got to finish making my list, packing, or finish watching television, I had fallen

asleep!

The next thing I knew I was waking up. It was bright outside, unusually bright for 5:00am in the

morning, so I instinctively looked at my clock and was in shock. It was already 8:00am and I hadn’t

even packed. The plane would leave in two hours and it took 45 minutes to get there!

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Quickly I gathered clothes, perfumes, my purse, blankets and presents and threw them all into my

luggage bags. I didn’t have time to pack anything warm, but I was sure that I would get at least one

chance to go shopping if I really needed to, but whether I could or not didn’t matter at the

moment. The main thing I wanted to accomplish was to try and get to the airport on time. About

an hour later I had time to get in the car and ride to the airport, but the only thing is that the

traffic was horrible. It was Memorial Day weekend so everyone was out and trying to get to their

destinations. I remember my father even saying that I had pushed my luck too far, and he was

right! Because I got there so late that I ended up refunding my ticket because I didn’t catch the

plane in time.

Needless to say, It all ended in catastrophe, but I definitely learned my lesson. From that day on I

struggle with being on time, but I am a lot better then I was before and even though it was a bad

experience, I’m still thankful for it because it could have been a lot worse then it was. I could have

never gotten the chance to go back to Japan again, but in the spring after I tried again and was

successful and on time.