Ooops, I'm starting out with a bad track record

I decided not long after arriving in Perú that it would be a smart move to start meeting with a Spanish tutor, just to help me with pronunciation, slang, and grammar that I don’t use often enough to feel confident with. Meredith knew of a woman who tutored at a reasonable rate so we set up an appointment to meet and discuss tutoring possibilities. This meeting was last Friday at 10:00am at her apartment. Meredith and I got out a map and saw that Giovanna lived not too far from us, less than 10 blocks. So Friday morning I got myself up and ready and left the house around 9:30 to give myself plenty of time to get there. I am a very “on-time” person, and I get frustrated when I show up late to things, and I of course wanted to make a good impression on my first visit. Meredith had given me decent directions to where she thought Giovanna’s apartment would be, but when I came to the “crossroads” of sorts I saw that the street sign was indicating that her block number was in the opposite direction. I pondered for a bit, trying to decide if I should go with Meredith’s advice or follow the street signs, ultimately deciding that the street signs knew what they were talking about. I learned a valuable lesson that day: Peruvian streets signs are not to be trusted. After power walking 15 blocks in the wrong direction, realizing that I was on the “right block” but in the wrong district, I jumped in a cab that brought me back to the place where I started. I walked in the direction that Meredith had originally told me to go, and after two blocks I arrived at Giovanna’s front gate. Awesome. By this time I was sweaty, tired, frustrated with myself – and I was a half hour late. Giovanna was completely gracious, understanding that I am still getting to know the city and how the layout is lain out. I stayed for an hour and we decided that my sessions would be on Mondays from 9:00-11:00am. I left feeling better than I arrived, and appreciated how gracious Giovanna had been to me.
I have been fighting an annoying head cold for the last week, with the normal sore throat, congestion and cough, which of course makes it hard to sleep at night. After an intense morning at church yesterday, with our missions presentations (which went really well by the way), I was so looking forward to the fact that I didn’t have anything scheduled for today. I planned on staying home all day and getting work done. Last night was another night where I didn’t fall asleep until about 2:30am and so I didn’t wake up this morning until about 10:00. We had a plumber come not long after I woke up to check out the upstairs bathroom so I stuck close to my room, booted up my computer, and planned on getting started with my list. As soon as I logged into my email a “Reminder Bell” sounded and a note popped up on my screen from my calendar that said “Tutoring, 1 hour overdue”. And then I realized.
It was Monday, it was 10:30am by that point, and I had slept through my first tutoring session. I couldn’t believe it. I turned my phone on and realized that I had missed a call from Giovanna and I felt horrible. I called her right away and explained how I’ve been sick, how I can’t believe I forgot about tutoring today, and apologized as best as I could for having overslept. Once again she was gracious, and overly patient with me saying that I shouldn’t worry about it, rest today and let her know later on in the week if I want to reschedule or just wait until next Monday. I hung up the phone feeling incredibly sheepish and irresponsible and realizing that I am earning myself a horrible track record with Giovanna. Ooops. I think I will show up next week a half hour early, armed with a plate of cookies. Maybe then I’ll feel better.