Is It Friday, Yet?

It's a good week if I'm asking myself that on Wednesday or Thursday. It's a bad week when it's not even halfway through Monday and I"m begging the universe to somehow make it Friday.

This week, the first full week back to school, was a good one. I'm completely and utterly exhausted, and I feel like a social failure for it being only roughly ten o'clock and I'm ready to crash and burn, but I could care less. I adore my dorm bed-nest-thing, love sleep, and need to see what the weather's doing in the morning to decide if I'm making the forty-five minute drive home to hang with the family and get the oil changed in my lovely Oldsmobile.

The highlight of my week - for the most part - came on Tuesday when I had no less than four people cramming themselves into my tiny, under-the-stairs single as the Fire Marshal returned to see if I could actually live in the room. He took measurements, snubbed any and all questions I had, treated me like I was five and his job was incredibly difficult and required absolute quiet and concentration (which pissed me off beyond belief), and then left after saying that this was a conversation I wasn't allowed in on.

Before that, though, a very wonderful person in our Campus Safety department (they're lovely people, as people, and very willing to help anybody) took me around to the rooms they were thinking of moving me into, and let me see them. What do I do on the way back to the car? I slip on the snow, get airborne, land on my damn hip, and spill a little of my Starbucks peppermint mocha. I sat on my hat during class the next day, and my ass is still bruised.

Anyway, they'd all left and the next thing I know, while I'm knitting, Buildings and Grounds comes knocking on my door, saying they need to look at my headboard. So, I heard from them before I heard from Residential Education that they were allowing me to remain in my room for the remainder of the semester. Fine by me. As a result, they sawed off the cross-pieces of my headboard in order to not impede my progress to the window.

Fine by me, I just wanna stay in the damn room.

Side note: People have issues walking up and down the stairs in heels. I know this because I can hear them very clearly, and they sound like elephants.

Another side note: One of the frat houses is having a Jersey Shore party. As I've never seen an episode (and don't want to) I'm quite alright with staying in my little room, finishing this blog post, checkin' out Facebook updates, and then crawling into bed and sleeping for roughly ten hours. That sounds like a fantastic plan.

I feel kind of bad, though, in the mornings, because we have a little coffee pot (only four cups) and, well, what I consider a cup of coffee is actually probably two, maybe two and a half to anyone using a mug that might have come from your mother's cupboard. It's kind of like I'm making coffee for myself, as I seem to be the only person in the house drinking it on a regular basis. Or, more like dumping it into the travel mug right before I head out the door to my first class. But that works, too.

Then again, maybe I make up for the monopolizing of the coffee pot by baking every Thursday. Last week it was vanilla whoopie pies, and yesterday it was molasses cookies. Next week might have peanut butter, as I don't have any food allergies to work around.

I didn't realize there were more than one Sherlock Holmes movies recently produced, and therefore had Netflix deliver the wrong one. Takes a special kind of person to pull that off.

Side Note: Elephants. That's really all I have to say.

Knitting is a wonderful stress relief. Just throwin' that out there.

And on that note, I'm going to crawl into bed and not crawl out for another ten hours.

Shape

Not only does this tell me there are people out there who have it worse, but, no matter what shape we're in, we're doin' all right. The sun will always come up in the morning.

The Shape I'm In - Joe Nichols - Joe Nichols Videos

An Unhealthy Combination of FUBAR and SNAFU

[Kind of exciting news, especially if you're actually on campus with me - the first issue of martini and this article will be in there. I know it's rehashing something I've probably hashed to death, but, I wanted you to read what the rest of campus is going to read, because, well....it's a little more general and not so biased. Sort of. Anyway, until I hear whether or not I'm actually going to be moving, this is probably the last of this whole damn thing you'll be reading.

I wanted to share this with you. Then I'll find something fun to share with you, too.]

I’d like to think it takes a lot for me to get sufficiently and significantly pissed off. That being said, under no circumstances do I allow someone to walk all over me, but I’m not going to flip at the smallest thing, either. I’m pretty even-keeled. And over the course of my three years at this institution, I really haven’t much to say regarding how things are run, or even the policies. Ironic, considering I wrote for martini, the most opinionated publication on campus, and probably within a thirty-mile radius, too. I don’t normally, in a lot of cases, openly criticize our campus, either. Only when they’ve made a fairly big oopsie, do I really feel the need to say something.

At this time, it is entirely appropriate for me to say, to Res Ed, of all places, you need to get your shit together when dealing with students.

The first thing to keep in mind, whether dealing with someone who’s recently returned from being abroad or whether they’ve no plans to live anywhere but sunny Geneva for four years, is to remember that they are, first and foremost, a person. A living, breathing human who deserves to be treated as such, and not simply as a building name and a room number. I understand that we’re considered “residents” but, I do have a name, and I do have feelings.

Right now, I’m feeling incredibly frustrated and, honestly, disgusted.

Namely because you’ve given me a room, allowed me to move into it, and then, for some unknown reason, our buddy the fire marshal has deemed the space unlivable. Now, I’m not an idiot – I get there are certain regulations and codes the fire marshal has to follow, but what I don’t understand, and what nobody’s really answered for me yet, is why the room I’m currently occupying (writing this article, to be honest) was used regularly only a couple of years ago, used a bit last semester, previously okayed by the fire marshal, and suddenly, with only a change of tenant, has become a big freakin’ issue.

I’d be a little more understanding of this whole clusterfuck, if someone could actually tell me what was wrong with room and, maybe, how we could fix it. Like if someone in JPR has an extension cord, they simply remove the cord. Someone in Odell’s has curtains, they remove the curtains. These are violations that have a set rule to follow. This? This is pure asshattery on someone’s part because I’ve no idea why in hell I’ve got to move from a place that was offered to me by Res Ed (once cleared through the fire marshal to be active as a room again), which I took, moved in, and have been living here since last Tuesday, and in that time, nobody’s given me a damn answer.

Hell, Res Ed’s gung ho to move me outta here without telling me why I need to move, other than repeating over and over “the fire marshal.”

The fire marshal is a man who looks for infractions in the regulations and rules set down by the fire code. The regulation can tell me there’s something to fix; the man has to tell me the regulation I’m breaking.

So far, communication sucks.

Then again, that seems to be a growing trait on this campus.

What really frustrates me is that when you have an issue in your housing, Res Ed encourages you to go to your RA or to your Area Coordinator, or to their office because they want to help you. They want to provide you with an environment in which you can study and achieve what you want to achieve. They want to look to help you in small ways, to start at the bottom of the action ladder and work their way up; to avoid drastic action for as long as possible because they want you to see if you can stick it out with your roommate and make things work. If you have roommate issues, you’re going to through this whole process before they’ll commit to moving you to a different location. It’s almost like you have to fight to move from a situation that you’re not benefitting from, that’s hurting you.

In this case, we’re bypassing the whole damn ladder and starting right in with the drastic action that should, usually, be avoided. The truly frightening thing about this whole mess? Well, let me put it this way. When the fire marshal does his first rounds at the beginning of each semester, if you have something that infringes on the rules – say, an extension cord – you get a letter on your desk or your bed that informs you of your violation and then gives you a certain amount of days to make it go away. That or he just takes your extension cord. If you don’t remove the infraction, or fix it, in the certain number of days, you get fined and then, well, you’d damn well better get rid of whatever’s upset him. Or, rather, upset the regulation.

There wasn’t a paper on my desk or my bed, and there was nothing in my email, either, about any infraction that the room – including how it was laid out – or the stuff in it, was in violation of any fire code. Or any part of the fire code, as the thing is quite massive. Again, that’s a massive breakdown of communication right there. I’m living in a space suddenly deemed unlivable, but with no idea why it’s unlivable. I haven’t got ESP, I don’t have a direct link to the fire marshal’s brain, and I can’t tell what the hell goes on in the administration on a daily basis, and, quite frankly, I don’t want to. I have enough to deal with being a student.

And you don’t need a degree to realize you can’t fix something when you don’t know or understand how it’s broken to begin with.

Moving someone is a last resort, not a first option, no matter who they are, what grade level, and whether they live in the little room under the stairs or a forced triple in Jackson. And that, by the way, is just absolutely insane.

So, if Res Ed really has my well-being as a student and as a resident – and maybe as a person, too, as that’s also important – at the forefront of their actions, they’ll leave me the hell alone in the room they offered to me and let me continue to function as I’m currently functioning both socially and academically. That would be in my best interests.

Round Two

One of the good things about writing and doing layout for the campus's alternative publication is that, well, other than controlling what goes on the front page and maybe doing the horoscopes on the back, is that you have the opportunity to inform the campus. How else can you get semi-important to important (and stuff that's by no stretch of the imagination important at all) to nearly everyone on campus, staff and faculty included? We have a lot of readership on the campus (more than The Herald) and, well, a lot of the time we come jam-packed with a sense of humor, even if it's slightly cynical.

Which is why I'm very happy I took the time and figured out how to write a semi-neutral article detailing the issues and lack of communication between the students and some of the departments on campus. My own battle at the moment? Still with Residential Education. The fire marshal makes round two to my room tomorrow, along with a person from campus security, and someone else on behalf of Student Activities.

If this wasn't important, I'd be a little worried about fitting all those people in this small but lovable room. As it is, we'll be crammed in here and, honestly, if there's a violation, I can't fix it if I don't know about it.

Namely, don't just tell me I can't live here, give me the concrete reasons why. Give me a legitimate reason that you're going to uproot my social and academic center of stability and attempt to move me - possibly into someplace smaller - because this whole we don't have to give you a reason for why we say you have to do something stopped being a valid form of communication with me past the age of eight. As a legal adult who can not only buy cigarettes (not that I smoke) and lottery tickets, as well as legally drink? You owe me a little bit more than it's unlivable.

As a full-time, living-on-campus student paying a near-ridiculous amount of money for this education, you damn well better have a legitimate reason for upsetting my apple cart.

It's a good thing I have a handle on everything else, otherwise I'd be more of a spaz than I already am on a regular basis. As it is, to get out of this place for a bit, I'm going to go sit in the living room with my knitting and just practice my Shakespeare lines. Then I'm going to go to bed and tomorrow, I'm going to do what I normally do and get up and go to class. Then come back here, be invaded by a bunch of people who don't know me, don't know my situation and background, and don't know that I've already gone through this frustration once in the past month. Heathrow, anyone? That was fighting to get home, and now I'm fighting to keep the home that I've made on campus.

There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

On the bright side, at least they respected my request to be present when the man comes back. It only took about four emails.

So. For right now, I still live where I live and do what I do. Right now, that's enough.

Irony. Oh, the Effing Irony

Thank. God. It's. Friday.

That was my first thought after I turned on the coffee pot this morning before getting in the shower. Starbucks cinnamon coffee in a travel mug to warm my hands while walking to my first class of three? Absolutely amazing. The rest of my classes today - great. Even the one where physical chemistry II is a synonym for quantum mechanics was great, and my two geoscience courses? They're going to be a nice change of pace. I have my first line of my Shakespeare monologue memorized, and, as Hatch says, if you do a line a day, you'll have that thing memorized in no time.

Academically speaking, life is groovy. As I have a potential goal for after graduation, this, right now, puts me on a great track. I feel confident and I do the reading, and it makes sense - even the chemistry - and it just works.

What's not working so well right now is this complete and total asshattery that's between me and Residential Education. Which, incidentally, also involves the room I moved into upon arrival on campus three days ago.

Let me say, right now, for the record, and as I have said many times to many people of varying importance in the past day and a half, I absolutely love this little room. I was a little leery of it when I first saw it, but after I moved in, got settled, got unpacked, and made it my own - as I have this habit of making home wherever I go - I've made home in this little room in this wonderfully awesome old house.

The Fire Marshall, on the other hand, has deemed this room that was offered to me, that I have moved into, and that I have been living in since I arrived, unlivable.

There is so much wrong with that previous statement in terms of details and cases and things that happened last semester - including someone living in a room that's apparently unlivable - that it just blows my mind.

I feel a little like I'm living on borrowed time. That I'm going to settle further into my routine, into my campus and collegiate life where I'm at, and then they're going to, if they continue like this, uproot me and move me somewhere where I get to start the whole process over again. There are a few things that I've learned while trying to make nice with people, and trying to understand how one thing can work one day, and the next it simply can't function the way it should with nothing broke.

The only good news to come out of this - along with immediately helpfulness and a let's see what we can do to fix this, or make this less frustrating and painful for you attitude from Student Affairs - is that the Fire Marshall and someone else is going to come back on Monday and reevaluate the room. Sadly, I won't be here when they do. Which means, they won't be able to ask the student that lives, works, and generally lives in the space what she feels, how she likes it, and what options she has.

Reminds me of a bunch of aging men trying to decide in Congress what to do in regards to a young woman's body and her decision of what do with it. Last I checked, they didn't have the means to grow another human inside of them and continue to help the species flourish and have never had to have a gynecology appointment. Quack, quack, anyone?

That, however, is a matter for another time.

Ironically, my academics I'm fine with - I have a handle on those. The other side of the coin? Living and socialization? With the exception of this absolute clusterfuck, I'm good.

Maybe someone should ask the student living there what's best for her in terms of keeping her on an even keel so that she can continue to do her studies and achieve what she can hope to achieve. I am, after all, a full-time student paying full-time student fees. Work with me a little bit.

Wordless Wednesday

The room under the stairs. (The picked-up, straightened, and tidy version.)




What you're not seeing is the "bathroom" in which you can sit on the toilet and whack your head on the sink when you sit.

Dichotomy

I've wanted to do this post since I was staying in a hotel room in central London nearly exactly one month ago. Now I'm finally doing it.

dichotomy: division into two usu. contradictory parts or opinions

See the following:




Before





After


It's not a trick of the light. The shoes really, in this case, do say it all. Very eloquently, too.