I have horrible eyesight.

I started wearing glasses when I was in second grade, then I got contacts in the ninth grade.

Since I started wearing glasses at such a young age, I really don’t remember how it is to be able to see without help.

I remember when I first wanted contacts.

It took me a long time to bring myself to put the lens in my eye the first time.

It just seemed weird to me.

Also, when I first started wearing contacts I had a bad habit of dropping the lens when I was trying to put it in my eye.

Imagine me, blind as a bat, crawling around on my hands and knees trying to find my contact lens.

Not a pretty picture.

Let’s just say I would have been in bad shape if Brooks hadn’t helped me out.

If I was in the bathroom trying to put my lenses in and all of a sudden I yelled &uot;Hey, Brooks, I need your help,&uot; she would say, &uot;You dropped your contact again?&uot;

But she always helped me find it.

Well, I finally got the hang of putting the contacts in and I hardly ever drop them anymore.

I discovered that my contacts are amazing; I like them better than glasses.

However, since I am extremely nearsighted, once I take out those contacts I can’t see anything unless it is right up at my face.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem because I could just put my glasses on.

Unfortunately, my glasses are old and one day I lost them.

This really isn’t a big deal because I wear my contacts all day.

The only time I don’t wear them is when I am asleep at night.

However, I recently realized that perhaps a pair of glasses would come in handy.

Go back to April 18 at Barton College.

I had a big day.

My important Shakespeare presentation was due the next day and I was nervous about it.

Dr. James is tough and I just knew she would ask me a question that I did not know the answer to.

So I spent most of the day in the library researching &uot;Henry V.&uot;

It was also my good friend Victoria’s birthday, so some of us had gone out to eat dinner.

As soon as I got back from eating, I spent the rest of the night preparing for the presentation.

Just like any other normal college student, I don’t even consider going to bed until around midnight, usually later.

Finally, I decided that I was tired of studying and I went to bed.

Picture me, dead to the world at 3 a.m.; I usually go to sleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

All of a sudden, I heard a rather loud, annoying, blaring noise.

When I finally woke up, I realized it was the fire alarm.

Let me tell you, you have not lived until you have experienced an early morning fire alarm in a dorm.

Blue lights are flashing everywhere and, of course, the alarm is blaring all over the place to ensure that everyone leaves the building.

I scrambled off of my bunk bed and ran to the bathroom to put my contacts in because I didn’t have glasses.

I shoved my feet in my flip-flops and ran downstairs with everyone else.

When I got downstairs, other people from the dorm were standing there.

I had no idea if it was a false alarm or if something was on fire.

We had several false alarms earlier in the semester.

By good fortune, I had missed all of those.

Once I got outside, I found my good friends Meredith and Rebecca and we stood around together waiting to go back inside.

Suddenly we saw flashing lights and several fire trucks drove up.

&uot;Great,&uot; we said.

&uot;This is no false alarm.&uot;

An hour and a half later, after being shuffled around from place to place and shivering outside in the cold in my pajamas and flip -flops, we finally got to go back inside.

The firemen never found out why the alarm went off.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep in my room by myself.

I slept in Meredith and Rebecca’s room.

After that whole episode I decided this summer when I came home I was going to visit my eye doctor and get some glasses.

So the other day I visited Mr. Tom and he helped me pick out frames that I like.

Now I will be prepared in case there is another 3 a.m. fire alarm.