The First Days of School

     School started on Thursday.

     WHAT?  Why not on Monday or a Wednesday?  What kinda sense does that make?  Who knows.  All I know is that I was there.  Coming back, getting into the swing of things is really cool.  Now that I am in my second semester of University, I feel that I have everything under control and I am all Kool-n-the-Gang.  Now, for some simple observations.

     1.) I moved back into the dorms (which I am not in love with) but, since I didn't have a job, I gotta go with what I can afford.  However, this will probably be my last semester in the dorms, for two reasons.  the first is, I don't care for it here.  It's small and I share it with another dude.  We sleep  a foot away from each other.  My dorm room is the size of a hotel room because, it USED to be a hotel room.  My dorm is a converted Motel 6/Super 8/fill-in-the-blank.  I also have a good amount of things.  And you can't have people over. Especially, if you want female company (not THAT kind of company, perverts).  Just sayin'.  Plus, I didn't get my old roommate and it takes patience to put up with me at times.  He "got" me.  And that is saying a lot when you live  *that* close together.
    
     Second reason:  The dorms are cool, but I will be looking for a "real" job or internship soon and I need to start establishing for the future.  A more space with furniture and cooking facilities future.  The grown-up look future.  The, "Hey, let's get together at my place." future.  See where I am going?

     2.) People keep asking my stuff like I know things.  This is cool because it means I look like I belong.  SWEET!

     3.)  The college bookstore is a racket.  Every time I go there, I feel my wallet screaming from getting ass-raped.  I am taking a statistics class. $100+ for the book and $175 for a F'ING GRAPHING CALCULATOR?!?!?!  Another $175 and I would have a netbook and I could do the calculations while surfing the web through this boring class.

     4.)  I am going to my first college football game.  I am really excited for that.

     5.)  I GOT A JOB!!!  I start the paperwork tomorrow.  It is working for the Catering department at my University.  It wasn't the job I was really looking for, but hell, I need money sooo, yea.  Back to skills that pay the bill.

The Move Out (or how to fail at moving out of a dorm) PART 2

This is the continuation of events that took place on the second weekend in May, 2010.  It was a Friday.

     O.K.  So after having all those issues with leaving the dorm, I was finally in the truck, on my way out.  It was still raining.  I went to the storage facility.  Everything was going well and things were looking up.  I park the truck outside of my storage and I get out and go around to the passenger side to start unloading my stuff.  Suddenly, I heard a crash.  Now, I am thinking to myself, "Now, what?'  Well, the what was a bottle of Fanta that I had put in the passenger side seat so that I could drink it when I unloaded the U-haul (side note:  For those who don't know, I LOVE bottled soda.  I will take bottle over plastic any day.).  I had bought that Fanta as a quick pick me up on such a horrible starting day.  The bottle broke in the middle of the road of the storage place.  I had to clean it.  In the rain. 

     I unloaded the u-haul and realized that half my stuff was soaked (luckily, anything electronic was in plastic bins).  At this point, I didn't care anymore.  I threw everything into the storage, locked it and went to the truck to take it back . . .only to discover . . .there were no keys in the ignition.  I checked my pockets.  Nothing.  Door panels, floors, truck bed.  Nada.  Checked my messenger bag.  No dice..  I thought, "CRAP.  I must have dropped them in the storage."  Unloaded the storage.  Reloaded the storage.  Frustration is mounting.

     I took a deep breath.  Counted it out.  Looked around again.  I found the keys in the bottom of my messenger bag.  Drove off.  The time is now 4pm.  I have to turn in the U-haul and catch a bus to Dallas by five.  Get to the U-haul.  I wait for them to drive and drop me off at my bus.  I wait.  And wait.  Finally get dropped off in time to miss my 5pm bus.  No problem.  There is a 6pm bus.  But I will miss my connecting bus which will leave me stranded at the bus station for several hours.  I am travelling with alot of luggage. And I realise that I won't get back to my home until 5 in the morning.  I call a good friend of mine and explain my dilemma.  She agrees to put me up for the night.  I don't get home until 36 hours after I wanted to.  So, in the end, it worked out.  A very frustrating day of fail.

     "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."-Robert Burns

The Move Out (or how to fail at moving out of a dorm) PART 1.

This event took place on the second weekend of May 2010. It was a
Friday.

     Uhaul? Check. Boxes packed? Check. Dorm Checklist? Check. These were the thoughts that I had on Thursday, as I was having thoughts about moving out of the dorm. Everytime that I have moved, in my adult life, things have never gone as planned. I was determined that this was going to be different. I had until Friday, 5pm, to move out, but since my last exam was Thursday, Friday had to be the day.  I had to move my stuff to storage, get checked out of the room and catch a bus to Dallas by 4pm and there was no room for error. I had lined up everything perfectly. You now the saying of the 6 Ps (Proper Preperation Prevents Piss Poor Performance)? I was going to be THAT guy.

Oh, how silly of me to think things would go my way.

I get up Friday Morning, 9 am. I had reserved a pickup truck to be ready at 11am.  I got a ride to the U-haul, picked up my truck and got to the dorm. So far, so good, right? WRONG! As I pull up to the dorm, a flash flood warning is sounded. A rapidly forming thunderstorm was making it's way into the region. As soon as I got out of the truck, it starts pouring. Buckets of rain. I had yet to start moving my boxes out.

So, I get the RA to come and start checking my room. He then informs me that he can't start checking out my room until the boxes were out. SO, I had to move my boxes out of the room. In a torrential downpour. So, as you can imagine, I was EXTREMEMLY happy about this. After this feat was accomplished, the RA has several small things that he would like to have cleaned up.  I did them.  He came back and pointed out several more.

     Now, at this point, I am starting to get pissed.  I had already (I thought) cleaned the room, along with my roommate.  All my stuff is in the open bed of the truck getting wet/soaked.  I had to be out of the dorm by 5pm or risk getting a $100 cleaning charge.  I had to take my stuff to storage, still.  I had to get the U-haul back so that I could catch a bus, to Dallas.  ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS LEAVE.

     Finally, the RA looks at me.  He looks around one last time.  He shrugs.  Sensing my frustration, he signs off on the room.  I get to the truck, thinking the worst part of the day was over.  It was now 2:30.  I was way behind schedule.  But, I made space for that "just in case" time in my planning.  So I thought to myself, "All good.  Get to the storage, take the u-haul back and you still have an hour to spare."  What could get worse, right? 

So, I missed a deadline?

O.K. So I missed my first deadline for posting.  I promise to be better about that.  But, hey!  I am new to writing deadlines for things that I am not required to do.  But to make up for that, this will be a double post week.  I may even do that today.  YAY!!!

                So…speaking of missing deadlines, I messed up major.  I had a paper due last Monday.  Consequence of e-mailing it in late was a 20% reduction in grade, OFF THE TOP.  Mid week, of the week it was due, I e-mail the professor about his stipulation for “scholarly sources” using a news/journal website as an example.  I also asked him his definition of scholarly. He said the journal was fine and news sources were great.  So, I wrote this paper, sourced the paper and had it ready to turn in.  On the due day, I go to class.  For some reason, in the e-mail I sent the professor, I neglected to ask him to clarify what he meant by scholarly sources, exactly.  So, in class, I asked him.  He wanted six, peer-reviewed, journal citations.

  “OH $h!t”, went through my mind.  

     I only had two and many newspaper/magazine sources.  This paper was due at midnight of due day.  E-mailed.  This class is all electronic.  So, at seven in the evening, I am in the library trying to find sources.  At eleven, I am back in the dorm accessing the online electronic journals.  At two in the morning, after reading/skimming HUNDREDS of pages of journals, trying to find relative sources, I am twenty minutes away from finishing the paper.  The entire time, I am praying that the professor will give leeway/consideration to the fact it was in before s/he woke up.    As I am accessing my last journal, the screen responds, “Webpage Unavailable.  No internet connection.  Would you like to run a diagnosis?”

$hHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     This fail was brought to you mostly by me, because I didn’t completely follow through on my assignment as early as I should have.  But I would be remiss if I didn’t thank the internet service that is provided by a company that services the internet to the dorms.  Who I won’t name.  But it starts with and “A” and its name means, “The point in an orbit around the Earth that is most distant from the Earth.”

Proper Preparation Prevents (Piss) Poor Performance. 

PEACE!!