Over the course of this past week my apartment building’s fire alarm has gone off an exceptional amount; three times to be exact. Whenever an inconvenience– like a fire alarm going off when there is no real fire– happens to anyone it is normal to get slightly flustered as it is an incredibly bothersome occurrence. However, when the alarm goes off three times in one week, it is just plain annoying. Whenever it goes off, I have to stop whatever I am doing and stand outside for 20-30 minutes until the building is cleared, two of the three times it has been close to midnight and raining.

Each time the alarm has gone off, I was doing something relatively important, once I was at the gym, the second time I was awoken by the alarm, and the third time I was finishing a quiz. Being suddenly stopped from whatever I am doing at the moment is hard enough without adding in the distraction that the alarm causes. The third time the alarm went off and I was paused mid-quiz I had a hard time going back to finish the quiz for at least an hour after we were let back into the building. The same went with the other times as well; I never ended up going back to the gym, part of this could have been because I was freezing by the time we were allowed back inside as it was cold and raining and I was wearing shorts and a tank top. This also happened when I was awoken by the alarm. Even though it was almost one in the morning, I could not go back to sleep and ended up staying up for another two hours. I am really not sure why I get so distracted by the alarm and have such a hard time going back to my regular activities, I believe that it may just be a result of the abrupt occurrence which continues to surprise me.