Ner (djner) wrote,

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The water is cold, the quads are afar, the university's quiet, and its time for a massive update

I thought of bringing my laptop to the coffee shop for my morning jaunt into the inner parts of the campus on the quest of caffeine but I enjoy just sitting and listening to people pass by. This morning, I knew an amazing amount of peole and got to chat with some of the "regulars", and even delay some of them as they tried to escape me and head for boring class. Also had fun engaging in some grand music trading, which when presented with people who have cool music tastes, I don't pass up the opportunity to wheel and deal: its great when you give the guy at the counter a stack of cds and he gives you coffee and the promise of more music. They can block all the ports for Napster but they can't stop the innocent music for coffee black market trading :D. On the great advice of Heath, the manager of the day there, I decided to try the cona mild today, so its the second 20 oz. cup that I'm consuming as I write this entry.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I think its really funny that though I am wordy and my entries are long, people wonder when and why I'm not updating, and if I pdate and its short of without substance, I get calls wondering if I'm ok. Glad I have fans :P. So now for the update, which is surprisingly fact filled and event fortified for your reading pleasure. Because I feel it'll end up being long, I'll cut it up so I don't fill too many friends pages with unwanted drivel. Choice is good right, read or not :).

Ever heard of that famous song, the water is Wide? If you're not into folk/Celtic you probably haven't, though a few "popular" versions have been recorded. It's basically about this couple who are separated by a large wide swth of water, probably the Atlantic Ocean. I'd love to rewrite it "the water is cold". I know some of the lyrics, and I bet I could do a number on it. Perhaps later today when I'm into the procrastination mood. Whats the reason for this you ask? Well on Sunday, I tried taking a shower, well I did succeed, but I knew the worst was in store as the water as getting cloder by the minute as I sudsed up. Apparently a steam pipe downstairs is either broken or they've stopped all steam to the building for some odd reason, and we'll have no hot water "until further notice". And its definitely no hot water too, its icy water. Luckily its not winter, because in the winter the cold water is really really cold. I surely hope the further notice clause they threw at me when I asked will not be further delayed by the fact that there's only like two people here living,me and the new RD (Resident director )for the building. I feel sorry for her, what a rude awakening to Gregson. She apparently moved in the day that the hot water died; somehow I find that funny, perhaps you'll understand if you continue reading.

The intersections's still a bit of a mess though its not completely destroyed. They've not done much in the way of reconstruction, but they did move the trees way off of the sidewalk which was nice.

All the official orientation sessions have ended. This means that the campus is pretty darn quiet save for the random construction workers and groundskeepers that are crawling the place making it all perty for the next influx of new students and returnees. Unfortunately, I'll be yet just another returnee, an eternal returnee :). I swear I'll finish at some point, maybe at some point in the next century. Gregson's crawling with painters today, most of which speak Spanish or think it'd be cool to put radios playing at full blast in the rooms that they're painting. That's cool, I can deal with both :), luckily I don't care.
That's today, a sleepy, quiet, hot day in the Ozarks. I'm still glad I'm here though and not in Little Rock, I've found in the past week how many friends I actually have here and how the circle expands on a daily basis for me. A quick smile and a hardy hello will get you far in life.

Yesterday however wasn't quiet and sleepy in the least. Larry and I had planned to meet with disability people and bitch at them about random problems that we had with them. My goal was to figure out housing, and we definitely got that done yesterday, wow. Larry's check payment problems also got fixed so he was happy to start on my problem and help me.

We started by calling housing, and being that it was near lunch tim e(1 pm ha ha), we couldn't get anyone to talk to us. So we said screw em and figured that since I had the backing of the disability department, Larry and I would drive down to housing on the golf cart and sit three until someone helped us. Nice sit in eh guys? :). I first asked if they'd just reaswsign the guy who they put in the room that I'm in now, and they said that'd be impossible. I don't know how just writing a different room number down on their contract would be too hard but apparently when its assigned it might as well be written in stone. Apparently, they "didn't know that I was coming back next semester" so that's why they reassigned my room. What the hell? I even called them last semseter to make sure they didn't reassign my room. As happens in a university setting, communication tends not to be a paramount quality of the institution. My ultimatum to them was that if I couldn't stay in this room in this dorm, that I wanted to get in the quads, and that they could do. Oddly enough, I had met on Saturday in the coffee shop over lunch, met Justin, the full time resident director in the quads so using a bit of political intervention and manipulation and in Trail of Tears style, I secured myself a new place in the Northwest quads, the newest dorms on campus. Involuntary reloaction at its finest I suppose, where's my Gregson Hall severance package though I wonder? I'm in building b, second floor if you're curious and want to see how premo my room's location is. For those who can't see the plans from the above web site, building b basically as everything in it, its the main building. On the first floor, there's the dining hall, lounges, computer lab etc. So basically all I have to do is go downstairs, well, diwn the elevator, and I can get something to eat. Each room is organized like a suite, so basically, you have four bedrooms that lock etc. leading to a central living area that you and your suite mates share. You also share a bathroom with one other person which should be an ok deal; hey its not a community bathroom so I'm happy :). Down the hall, oretty much next door is a full kitchen and next to that is vending machines and a lounge with couches and stuff in it. The floors are all co-ed so though the suites have all guys or all girls for example, I'll be living next door to a girls suite. So that's kind of nice to have things mixed. It seemed to work well in Australia when I was there.

I have mixed emotions about the move. We were able to go over there and see the room that I'll be in, and it was nice, but it does border on a very busy street which I'll have to brave and cross. Its possible, but because of traffic flow patterns, I probably won't be crossing much at all by myself. One of the projects I hope to embark upon will be getting an audible pedestrian signal installed there so that I'll at least know when its safe to cross. Its dangerous there even if you *can* see as there have been people killed at that intersection, so hopefully having a signal might make it just a bit more safe. I figure a semester of inconvenience for me might help to spur people on in the city highway department moreso than if I were not living across there. There's a bus stop close by so I'll be able to get to places around campus but it will be inconvenient, even if what I'm doing will help people out in the long run.

I DO HATE MOVING THOUGH, even if Larry says we'll do it no problems. MOVING JUST SUCKS no matter how you look at it. Staying here would have been the better deal as I'd have just been able to transition into the semester, but we figured that since I'd be getting kicked out next year (This dorm will be all freshmen next year, this year it'll be one floor of freshman), we might as well just get it over now. I hope to goodness that I'll have a good group of room mates and that they like dogs. If they don't like dogs or are alergic to them, That could be a problem, but we'll get to that when we get there I guess. Even though I don't really neeed it, I DO get a "handicap" accessible room which pretty much means the room's a bit bigger. the huge drawback of the Quad "experience" is that you have to like the people you're living with. Of course you can lock yourself in your room and be a hermit but that would leave lots of living space unused and that wouldn't be fun. We'll see how it goes, move in day is the 15th of August, so we'll probably pack up all my crap, store it at Larry's, and then move all the crap over to the NWQ a bit later than the 15th as I have a bachellor party for Philip, my sister's fiance, to go to that ends on the 15th. It was a bit stressful figuuring the logistics of the move but I think it'll all work itself out. Pray and hope I get some good room mates :P.

I went over to Larry's yesterday afternoon to take a shower, and we figured that we might as well make a day out of the deal and get tasty non union food. So we went to a local Mexican food restaurant, and drank entirely strong margaritas and ate very tasty food. I scarfed down a chimichanga in like 3.5 seconds, so you know I was missin "home cookin". We had just finished a good day and gotten a lot ddone me and Larry, so we decided we would pinnacle the day off with tasty food.

And that's about all that is from here. The quest for hot shower locations continues, so hopefully this afternoon I'll be heading over to one of the dorms to use their showers. Miss Cathy, the desk worker whotaught me how to crochet and was here at Gregson when I first came to the university six years ago is working at a hall next door to us over the summer, and she is happy to help me over there so I can borrow some hot water. I'm hoping the showers won't be gross and sisgusting, but she assures me that she knows where the "safe" ones are in the building. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing but I'll leave you with that thought :).

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