Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Didn't God Say the Weekend was for Relaxing?!?



Hello, everybody. Pardon me if I sound a bit less than coherent in the following sentences. The last three days have been, in a word, hellish. (Well, four days, but most of this was written on Monday.) My hands are cut and paper-cut, my fingernails are cracked, I have random bruises over my body, my toenails are purple from the bruises in my toes, and my clothes have been covered in sweat and a little blood.

But I'm finally done moving.

On Friday, I was basically packing up everything I had. There's a saying that goes "You never know how much you have until you move." (If there's no saying like that, there is now.) In addition to simply packing up stuff, I had to decide what I was going to throw away. For some reason, I still had all my notes and junk from the past two years. I think I had kept them to sort through them some free day, and just forgot. Well, that day wasn't free, but it was as good as any (better, even). So I threw away recycled an entire garbage bag of paper. Then I had to pack up all the rest of my things, including my TV, my computer, my printer, my surround sound system, my book, my clothes...my room was an absolute mess. More than once, I simply spun around and ran my head through my hair in frustration.

Pretty much, I spent all Friday packing, from 10am - 2am. And I had to get up at 7am for the closing day at CKC. And I couldn't sleep. So I was groggy when I got up. Now, there were two main types of room condition reports I filled out. One was for the residents who were very curteous and cleaned up everything, spic and span. The other was...well, everyone else.

(Oh, a quick aside: one of my room checks was very profitable. In fact, it was my suite mate's. I was pretty upset because he had let a bunch of stuff in the suite that I had to clean up in order not to get charged. Anyhoo, I was looking in his closet, and I notice that there's something in the far corner of the high shelf. So I stand up on a chair to take a look. "Oh!" I exclaim, "It's a dollar bill.......wait, it's not a dollar bill...it's a hundred dollar bill....nice." And no, I'm not going to return it, for two reasons: 1. Any items left behind after move-out time are legally considered property of the State of California or an employee thereof (i.e. me). Him even attempted to get it back would be considered theft against the state government. 2. He made me clean up the place! Plus, I was a good suite mate. This is my payment! Unfortunately, that was the only hard cash I made.)

I think the worst room was my next-door neighbors, the Crew guys. (And I won't even get started on my opinions on Crew [the team whose members would steal my sensitive RA notebook and physically attack my female coworkers].) It took me an hour to write down all damages and other stuff. It was like a very localized hurricane had passed through. There were holes in the wall (they were punched through earlier in the year so that they could "find the electrical wires"), a completely ruined, beer-soaked carpet, a smashed toilet, broken closet doors, trash everywhere, a funny smell, a cabinet full of about 5 gallons of assorted alcohol, and stolen street signs, which is a felony to have! I took pictures of a lot of the stuff just so I didn't have to write down everything (plus, it's photographic proof of their illegal shenanigans). Personally, I hope they get fined to the poorhouse...or expelled...or locked away, really. It would be a benefit to society were they to simply disappear.

So I later had a meeting for my summer staffing position, which lasted a couple hours. Basically, the meeting told us, "You have to move in tonight...but you also have to have this, this, and this done before tomorrow."

So, I went back to my room. Thankfully, I still had my laptop, and was able to make what I was in charge of. Unfortunately, I had no printer. Blah. I then waited until 10pm before I could start(!) moving. This is because I had told one of my coworkers (who was also doing summer sessions) that we could help each other move. Thing was, he needed a van to move, which wasn't available until that time.

Keep in mind, just because I started moving at 10pm doesn't mean I finished by, say, midnight. No, sir (or madam), I first had to take his first load down, then we did my stuff, then we came back and did his second load. I won't bore you with all the details, but we finished at 4am! I congratulated my coworker, telling him that he was seeing me as close as I would ever come to being drunk. I was lightheaded, dizzy, tired, and basically wanted to die.

As it turned out, I didn't die, but I did fall asleep as soon as I hit the bed (amidst a bunch of still-packed boxes and bags). I had to get up the next morning, however, because now everyone else was moving in. So I spent basically from noon to 8pm helping people in, answering questions, meeting and greeting, etc. I then had to have a floor meeting, and try to get people together for every little thing.

So far, I think things are going well. My residents for the summer are much more active than my academic year residents. In fact, I would guess that, in two days, I've had more residents participate in programs than in the whole of my academic year (no hyperbole there, folks). They seem really nice, too, and they seem to like me.

It's also really interesting in that the majority of summer students are international students, from Asia and Europe primarily. I in particular have a lot of Germans and Finns, with a few Chinese and Koreans, a smidgen of Indians, and some domestic students. They seem to be coexisting rather well.

One tricky thing is that I'm being asked a lot of questions about things I know nothing about; namely, policies concerning international students. Not being one myself, I'm not sure how much I can help. I think people just need some time to settle down.

Oh, did I mention that I also had to rearrange my room? Yeah, even though I'm in a room by myself, it's a double. (I can't use the normal RA room, because it will be in use during fall training.) So, there was a bed on one side, a bed on the other side, and two desks in the middle, almost completely separating the two. Very inefficient for only one person. So, I did what many people did: I moved the two beds together on one side, and then put the desks in a corner on the other side. This should have been easy, except that, as mentioned, I had a bunch of my junk in boxes everywhere. So, I could only move a desk or bed a few inches or degrees before I had to rearrange about 4 different bags or boxes. It was a long, slow, tedious process, but it's done now, and the room looks somewhat livable (despite the fact I haven't put sheets on the bed yet). Here's some pictures:

So that's that. Oh, I'm also on the eight floor. So I have a view. I'll get to that later. After that mess of a weekend, things should look much easier (and more fun). If anyone's interested in mailing me, here is my new address:

2650 Haste St.
Berkeley, CA 94720

So that's all for me right now. I don't have to move for another three months, which is good (some people have two move again in a couple weeks). Talk to y'all later!


Squall said...

congrats on the move.

Anonymous said...

Hi Drew
The view looks better than I expected. I'm glad you ave a good vibe from your peeps so far. I think it will continue and i thik foreign students will be more fun. Obviously they will be more intersted in discovering and learning things and therefore participate and be friendly. They are a long way from home.The room seems OK. Hope it all goes well and I will call soon.
Jen and I going to SA today. We'll try and reach you wile we're together.
Love you, Mom

Anonymous said...

PS Sorry I didn't spell check. Yikes............