I get home from the blind date gone nothing feeling terrible and I receive an email reminding me that I have to present at the Graduate Roundtable tomorrow morning. Ugh. Luckily I did my slides last week so I just need to review them. Right? Oh no wait, 25% of my slides didn't save. Oh and I have no idea how to hook my mac up to the projector tomorrow. I am a terrible grad student.
I also realized that I needed to have my NSF essays turned into my adviser Monday morning so he can review them. Now I had finished a draft of them last week, but KP had done the most incredible job editing them and they needed a shit-ton of work.
I work pretty hard for the rest of the night, get to bed around midnight and (of course) can't fall asleep or stay asleep. I think my body is trying to get back at me for the hot dogs still.
So yeah, Monday was a struggle but I think I may be back on track academically. I did more revisions to the NSF essays this morning before turning them in. The presentation went really well and I think I managed to answer questions pretty well, even though I was so tired I literally would forget the beginning of the question by the time the person had finished asking. I also managed to get some work done for the study I plan to start running soon, but it was really difficult to manually randomize 288 pictures that only differ slightly from each other.
The boy situation, however, is still a big question mark for me. After this weekend I really feel like curling up and just waiting to meet someone the normal way or dealing with being alone. That being said, The Ladies Man asked me to do dinner with him this week and since he is friends with some of my friends, I felt like I probably shouldn't say no. He is moving to D.C. in a month anyway, so whatever.
Sigh, and the Possible Virgin. I avoided him last week and was not terribly communicative with him when he did track him down, but he definitely hasn't taken the hint. He emailed me all day about random stuff, and then basically showed up at my doorstep to take me to dinner. He is such a nice guy, and an incredible resource (he has TA'd for the stats class for the past 2 years, I NEED that connection) but I don't know how to make things clear to him. He is trying to meet up with some girl for a blind date in Boston, and I think I have made it clear that I am seeking out other men (though not in great details), so I hope we can just drift into friendship.
Alright, with blog being updated I think I am going to spend the rest of the evening trying to think of a Halloween costume. Halloween is huge here and it's strange to have to come up with a non-group costume for the first time in a decade. Suggestions are welcome!
Oh, final note, for those of you who are my Facebook friend, I tagged some photos yesterday with me, KP, and some other first years - so check it out!
Monday, October 26, 2009
Did I just get stood up?
Ah Sunday morning. My parents were up in VT and wanted to stop by to drop off some things, so they came by at 10 am.
I was barely able to put on clothes I was shaking so bad and felt so incredibly awful. The parents, of course, thought this was hilarious and totally appropriate after my day of beer and hot dogs. We puttered around Hanover and I tried to have a salad and smoothie to start apologizing to my body.
They left at noon, my blind date was set up for 1:00 pm.
If I had this guys number, or thought he would check his email, I would have canceled immediately. I looked disgusting, I felt disgusting, and I was sort of an emotional wreck and wanting to run away from any sort of male attention. But of course, I had no way to contact him so I headed out to the bar to meet him.
I am sure I have ranted about this before, but NOTHING IN THIS FUCKING PODUNK TOWN IS FUCKING LABELED. Streets are not labeled. Streets often terminate in a giant circle with no discernible indication of direction. Places are rarely numbered.
I was supposed to be there at 1:00 and I didn't walk into the bar until 1:25. Totally my bad, and y'all know how insane I am about being on time. The bar is basically empty but there is one man sitting alone at the bar drinking a beer who sort of looks like the person from match.com. I walk up and say "Hi, are you Jeff?". He looks at me and says "No, I am Bob............but I could be Jeff."
The female bartender immediately asks if I am on a blind date, I tell her I am, but she doesn't think she has seen any other single guys in the bar. Did I get stood up????? Eventually she recalls that some guy did get a drink, sit at a table by the window, and left after about 20 minutes.
I asked her what he looked like, she said he was so ugly that she didn't bother glancing at him for more than a second. Nice.
Bob tries for about 10 minutes to hit on me (oh Bob, you are well intentioned but please don't make this worse) at which point I decide he either stood me up or I was too late. I got home and sent an email explaining what happened, but I never heard anything back. For the best?
I was barely able to put on clothes I was shaking so bad and felt so incredibly awful. The parents, of course, thought this was hilarious and totally appropriate after my day of beer and hot dogs. We puttered around Hanover and I tried to have a salad and smoothie to start apologizing to my body.
They left at noon, my blind date was set up for 1:00 pm.
If I had this guys number, or thought he would check his email, I would have canceled immediately. I looked disgusting, I felt disgusting, and I was sort of an emotional wreck and wanting to run away from any sort of male attention. But of course, I had no way to contact him so I headed out to the bar to meet him.
I am sure I have ranted about this before, but NOTHING IN THIS FUCKING PODUNK TOWN IS FUCKING LABELED. Streets are not labeled. Streets often terminate in a giant circle with no discernible indication of direction. Places are rarely numbered.
I was supposed to be there at 1:00 and I didn't walk into the bar until 1:25. Totally my bad, and y'all know how insane I am about being on time. The bar is basically empty but there is one man sitting alone at the bar drinking a beer who sort of looks like the person from match.com. I walk up and say "Hi, are you Jeff?". He looks at me and says "No, I am Bob............but I could be Jeff."
The female bartender immediately asks if I am on a blind date, I tell her I am, but she doesn't think she has seen any other single guys in the bar. Did I get stood up????? Eventually she recalls that some guy did get a drink, sit at a table by the window, and left after about 20 minutes.
I asked her what he looked like, she said he was so ugly that she didn't bother glancing at him for more than a second. Nice.
Bob tries for about 10 minutes to hit on me (oh Bob, you are well intentioned but please don't make this worse) at which point I decide he either stood me up or I was too late. I got home and sent an email explaining what happened, but I never heard anything back. For the best?
Saturday gets its own post
I woke up at noon and felt like absolute shit, but I remembered that my housing complex was hosting a Homecoming tailgate party in the laundry room/common space, and there would be free food. But wait, as I am getting dressed I noticed that Homecoming Indian had left his watch here. Great. I sent him a text to come pick it up.
I get out of bed, it is still POURING rain, I scamper over to the party and have some water, Coke, and hot dogs. They also had a full keg of Killians Irish Red, but oh god, still so hungover. I get to meet some cool people and eventually my friend comes by and we decide to watch Project Runway in my room because it is too gross to do anything else or go anywhere.
After that she decides to go home and I want to crash and watch movies, but wait, why not go back to the laundry room and grab some more food? I enter the laundry room at 1:00 pm, there are some cool kids I had met earlier eating the free food and drinking the practically untouched keg. I grabbed my dvds from the house, grabbed a beer...........at 10:00 pm we realized how pathetic, drunk, filled with terrible hot dogs, and exhausted we all were. Seriously, 9 hours solid of beer, hot dogs, and movies. Well no wait, I took 1 break to grab the watch and hand it back to Homecoming Indian.
They were all heading to a party off campus, but I didn't really feel like having to find a ride home if I wanted to leave, and there was a neato sounding disco party at midnight at one of the social houses (social houses are fraternities that do not call themselves fraternities). One of the kids who I will name The Ladies Man was heading to his friends house a few blocks away and then going to the disco party, so we teamed up. Yikes.
The Ladies Man was actually a decent guy but he was (a) very short, (b) dressed WAY too nice, (c) was way too into the fact that he was a "business man" (but I guess you need that if you live in Hanover and don't go to Dartmouth), and most importantly (d) he persistently and terribly did a Ladies Man impression the entire evening.
Our first stop was this amazing house that his friend lived in. His friend was the 5th of 11 kids in this family and they had a truly amazing place. We also got to have a few beers and smoke a little pot. After that we trudged back across campus to the Disco Party but WAIT, apparently at social houses you can only drink before the doors open to the public for the party. So we get there and all the alcohol was taken away, and you need a little booze to enjoy a disco party. We headed over to Canoe Club instead.
At Canoe Club, The Ladies Man started trying to make his romantic intentions slightly more well known by making his Ladies Man impression even more prevalent. At one point I had it and basically said "that is the worse impression I have ever heard of the lamest movie ever made. You must stop and you must stop now." He did not. During much of the evening I had also been getting texts from Homecoming Indian generously offering to hit up "Round 2" with me. As luck would have it, Homecoming Indian was also at Canoe Club and kept brushing by me and rubbing my back trying to get me interested. I was not. This is about the time that Possible Virgin (the guy in psych, see earlier posts) tried to get me to make plans to meet with him tomorrow.
Too many interested parties, absolutely no interest in any of them. At this point I gave up and decided to head home. The Ladies Man also said he wanted to head home which was conveniently in my direction, and the goodbye where he pulled out his very worst impression while uncomfortably grabbing the small of my back was ugly. I had stupidly given him my number earlier in the evening, so after I rejected him (nicely, mind you, but come on, stupid impression) he started sending out texts after what happened. I basically got home and had emails from BabySmoker, had to tell Possible Virgin no for tomorrow, had a barrage of texts from Homecoming Indian, and was also getting these awful texts from The Ladies Man.
I laid down to go to bed and that is when my stomach decided that a diet of only hot dogs and beer was not acceptable. I spent the entire night clutching my stomach.
See next post for Sunday!
I get out of bed, it is still POURING rain, I scamper over to the party and have some water, Coke, and hot dogs. They also had a full keg of Killians Irish Red, but oh god, still so hungover. I get to meet some cool people and eventually my friend comes by and we decide to watch Project Runway in my room because it is too gross to do anything else or go anywhere.
After that she decides to go home and I want to crash and watch movies, but wait, why not go back to the laundry room and grab some more food? I enter the laundry room at 1:00 pm, there are some cool kids I had met earlier eating the free food and drinking the practically untouched keg. I grabbed my dvds from the house, grabbed a beer...........at 10:00 pm we realized how pathetic, drunk, filled with terrible hot dogs, and exhausted we all were. Seriously, 9 hours solid of beer, hot dogs, and movies. Well no wait, I took 1 break to grab the watch and hand it back to Homecoming Indian.
They were all heading to a party off campus, but I didn't really feel like having to find a ride home if I wanted to leave, and there was a neato sounding disco party at midnight at one of the social houses (social houses are fraternities that do not call themselves fraternities). One of the kids who I will name The Ladies Man was heading to his friends house a few blocks away and then going to the disco party, so we teamed up. Yikes.
The Ladies Man was actually a decent guy but he was (a) very short, (b) dressed WAY too nice, (c) was way too into the fact that he was a "business man" (but I guess you need that if you live in Hanover and don't go to Dartmouth), and most importantly (d) he persistently and terribly did a Ladies Man impression the entire evening.
Our first stop was this amazing house that his friend lived in. His friend was the 5th of 11 kids in this family and they had a truly amazing place. We also got to have a few beers and smoke a little pot. After that we trudged back across campus to the Disco Party but WAIT, apparently at social houses you can only drink before the doors open to the public for the party. So we get there and all the alcohol was taken away, and you need a little booze to enjoy a disco party. We headed over to Canoe Club instead.
At Canoe Club, The Ladies Man started trying to make his romantic intentions slightly more well known by making his Ladies Man impression even more prevalent. At one point I had it and basically said "that is the worse impression I have ever heard of the lamest movie ever made. You must stop and you must stop now." He did not. During much of the evening I had also been getting texts from Homecoming Indian generously offering to hit up "Round 2" with me. As luck would have it, Homecoming Indian was also at Canoe Club and kept brushing by me and rubbing my back trying to get me interested. I was not. This is about the time that Possible Virgin (the guy in psych, see earlier posts) tried to get me to make plans to meet with him tomorrow.
Too many interested parties, absolutely no interest in any of them. At this point I gave up and decided to head home. The Ladies Man also said he wanted to head home which was conveniently in my direction, and the goodbye where he pulled out his very worst impression while uncomfortably grabbing the small of my back was ugly. I had stupidly given him my number earlier in the evening, so after I rejected him (nicely, mind you, but come on, stupid impression) he started sending out texts after what happened. I basically got home and had emails from BabySmoker, had to tell Possible Virgin no for tomorrow, had a barrage of texts from Homecoming Indian, and was also getting these awful texts from The Ladies Man.
I laid down to go to bed and that is when my stomach decided that a diet of only hot dogs and beer was not acceptable. I spent the entire night clutching my stomach.
See next post for Sunday!
How do I even begin to talk about the shit show that was this weekend?
Retelling the story of my weekend has typically been about a 25 to 30 minute conversation, so I am going go try my best to retell, because it is one hell of a hot mess.
Friday Night:
This weekend was Homecoming weekend which meant lots of free food, free beer, and a really awesome bonfire. A big group of us started off by grabbing free burritos around 5:30 and then we picked up a ton of beer and went back to the psych building to drink in one of the classrooms. Flash forward to 8:15, we are all pretty nicely drunk, and we head out for this amazing bonfire. As soon as we get outside it starts raining, so just imagine this giant group of people, everyone is drinking/hammered, this enormous fire is going in the middle, and all the freshman are running around this bonfire in Speedos. Oh, and me and my friend are also doing laps because we are drunk and it looks fun.
After the bonfire there is this free concert held at the student center with free beer for everyone over 21. We of course hit this up, are destroying the keg, and are basically rocking out and having a blast. The band finishes up so we decide to hit up the Canoe Club (the usual bar) where Irish Car Bombs are getting passed around and drinks are heavily flowing. I end up meeting this girl who is so drunk that she comes to believe I am psychic (Drunk Girl: I am from Winchester VA, Me: Oh cool, I am from DC so I love Winchester, Drunk Girl: OMG, how did you know I am from Winchester!??!?!? Buy this girl a drink). So she starts buying me drinks, and then some random guy tells the bartender to put all my previous drinks on his tab. Well okay then.
So Drunk Girl and her boyfriend and I head over to India Queen (oh India Queen) where things get ugly. I ran into BabySmoker and decided it was ridiculous that we see each other every weekend and don't say anything. I went up and said something like "hey, I see you every weekend, you're a nice guy, there is no reason we can't be friends". I have received about 5 emails from him so far. He is still entirely afraid of punctuation, and is still trying to convince me that I am the man for him.
Now enters the part of the story where I end my dryspell. I meet this rather attractive guy (he is Indian and only in town for the weekend - let's call him Homecoming Indian). We end up in a back corridor on the 2nd floor of the bar hoooking up when some guy walks by with his kid and is pissed. Dude, it's 1 am and you are at a bar? So we move to the 3rd floor, guy walks by again, we decide to take it outside because hooking up behind a dumpster in the pouring rain is always a great idea.
Homecoming Indian ends up coming home with me despite the fact that on the walk to my place he keeps telling me how small his penis is (even though I had already touched it?). Either way, we had some mediocre sex but then it was fantastic because we had already discussed the fact that he didn't want to stay and I wouldn't let him. Wonderful. As soon as he left I instantly missed Mr. Big (yup, that's what I am calling him on this blog, deal) and spent the next hour crying in a drunken, tired, hungry, sad, sexually frustrated mess.
See next post for Saturday's misguided adventures.
Friday Night:
This weekend was Homecoming weekend which meant lots of free food, free beer, and a really awesome bonfire. A big group of us started off by grabbing free burritos around 5:30 and then we picked up a ton of beer and went back to the psych building to drink in one of the classrooms. Flash forward to 8:15, we are all pretty nicely drunk, and we head out for this amazing bonfire. As soon as we get outside it starts raining, so just imagine this giant group of people, everyone is drinking/hammered, this enormous fire is going in the middle, and all the freshman are running around this bonfire in Speedos. Oh, and me and my friend are also doing laps because we are drunk and it looks fun.
After the bonfire there is this free concert held at the student center with free beer for everyone over 21. We of course hit this up, are destroying the keg, and are basically rocking out and having a blast. The band finishes up so we decide to hit up the Canoe Club (the usual bar) where Irish Car Bombs are getting passed around and drinks are heavily flowing. I end up meeting this girl who is so drunk that she comes to believe I am psychic (Drunk Girl: I am from Winchester VA, Me: Oh cool, I am from DC so I love Winchester, Drunk Girl: OMG, how did you know I am from Winchester!??!?!? Buy this girl a drink). So she starts buying me drinks, and then some random guy tells the bartender to put all my previous drinks on his tab. Well okay then.
So Drunk Girl and her boyfriend and I head over to India Queen (oh India Queen) where things get ugly. I ran into BabySmoker and decided it was ridiculous that we see each other every weekend and don't say anything. I went up and said something like "hey, I see you every weekend, you're a nice guy, there is no reason we can't be friends". I have received about 5 emails from him so far. He is still entirely afraid of punctuation, and is still trying to convince me that I am the man for him.
Now enters the part of the story where I end my dryspell. I meet this rather attractive guy (he is Indian and only in town for the weekend - let's call him Homecoming Indian). We end up in a back corridor on the 2nd floor of the bar hoooking up when some guy walks by with his kid and is pissed. Dude, it's 1 am and you are at a bar? So we move to the 3rd floor, guy walks by again, we decide to take it outside because hooking up behind a dumpster in the pouring rain is always a great idea.
Homecoming Indian ends up coming home with me despite the fact that on the walk to my place he keeps telling me how small his penis is (even though I had already touched it?). Either way, we had some mediocre sex but then it was fantastic because we had already discussed the fact that he didn't want to stay and I wouldn't let him. Wonderful. As soon as he left I instantly missed Mr. Big (yup, that's what I am calling him on this blog, deal) and spent the next hour crying in a drunken, tired, hungry, sad, sexually frustrated mess.
See next post for Saturday's misguided adventures.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Recent Developments
A little lunchtime blog update for all of you following along at home.
China Syndrome: I sent an semi-apology email to the two roomates who got yelled at and emailed, but things are still hostile on the homefront. I also called 22A Subletter again and asked her about me moving into her room in 22A, and then moving to the room that is opening up on Dec 24th. She said she was amenable to the idea and wanted me to just check with the housing people to see if it was okay. I went this morning but the woman is out until Monday. Oh well, just another setback. Keeping fingers crossed for Monday.
Match.com: How exciting, I have a date on Sunday! The guy seems pretty awesome so after a few emails we decided to watch football and drink beer at a local bar in West Lebanon. I'm excited! I will be very careful as well, so don't y'all worry about me.
Weekend Plans: It's Homecoming weekend here, so there should be some pretty cool stuff going on in addition to completing my week of free meals (seriously, you can eat dinner on someone else's dime every single night here. I am loving this). The big exciting thing is the GIANT bonfire they light on the campus green - I will be posting pictures, this thing looks epic.
Work: Ah yes, the reason I am actually here. I finally finished the drafts of these 3 awful NSF essays so now they are in the peer/adviser reviewing stages. From what I can tell, a minimum of 15 people should review your paper before you send it off - so I still have my work cut out for me.
Also, I have my weekly meeting with my adviser today, and I am hoping to nail down the final issues with my first study. I won't be doing it in the fMRI (yet), but it will be nice to have some data to play around with.
China Syndrome: I sent an semi-apology email to the two roomates who got yelled at and emailed, but things are still hostile on the homefront. I also called 22A Subletter again and asked her about me moving into her room in 22A, and then moving to the room that is opening up on Dec 24th. She said she was amenable to the idea and wanted me to just check with the housing people to see if it was okay. I went this morning but the woman is out until Monday. Oh well, just another setback. Keeping fingers crossed for Monday.
Match.com: How exciting, I have a date on Sunday! The guy seems pretty awesome so after a few emails we decided to watch football and drink beer at a local bar in West Lebanon. I'm excited! I will be very careful as well, so don't y'all worry about me.
Weekend Plans: It's Homecoming weekend here, so there should be some pretty cool stuff going on in addition to completing my week of free meals (seriously, you can eat dinner on someone else's dime every single night here. I am loving this). The big exciting thing is the GIANT bonfire they light on the campus green - I will be posting pictures, this thing looks epic.
Work: Ah yes, the reason I am actually here. I finally finished the drafts of these 3 awful NSF essays so now they are in the peer/adviser reviewing stages. From what I can tell, a minimum of 15 people should review your paper before you send it off - so I still have my work cut out for me.
Also, I have my weekly meeting with my adviser today, and I am hoping to nail down the final issues with my first study. I won't be doing it in the fMRI (yet), but it will be nice to have some data to play around with.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Another Nasty Email? Sure
So I came home tonight and the brand new sponge that I have placed all the way across the room with my dishes is gone. It looks like it is probably the one sitting in the sink in a pile of dirty standing water.
I walk upstairs and yell at the 2 roomates, they both have no idea what I am talking about it said it was like that when they got there...maybe...they don't know....*smile*.
Okay, so I slam my door for effect, and fire off an entirely unpleasant email to all 3 roomates basically saying "wtf, don't ever touch any of my dishes or any of the sponges in my drying rack again or I will stab you with a fork".
Will it take this time? Who knows...
Also, meeting with the Dean went well and I don't think he realized the full extent of unhappy people currently living in North Park. I will be meeting with him later in the spring to talk about this with the housing people. See that, I'm trying to change the system!
OOOO...speaking of, I am now officially one of the two department representatives for the Graduate Student Council. My basic platform is to spend less money on academic events that no one attends, and to spend more resources and planning on trivia nights and graduate student only nights at the local bars (4 bars starting in two weeks! 4!). Also, I get free dinner one night a month at the meetings. Sold.
Match.com update. It's really funny when you browse someone and literally vomit in your mouth a little, and then they email you a few hours later. I have sent out a few emails to potential cuties, but haven't heard back from most of them. There was one guy who isn't a member (so you can't see emails people send you) but I managed to read through his code and email his yahoo account. He emailed me back but I haven't heard a response yet. Fingers crossed though!
Okay, time to do some work. I feel super accomplished having finished some of the basic elements I need to run my first study, and I am really hoping that by my Friday meeting with advisor I can be ready to get started.
I walk upstairs and yell at the 2 roomates, they both have no idea what I am talking about it said it was like that when they got there...maybe...they don't know....*smile*.
Okay, so I slam my door for effect, and fire off an entirely unpleasant email to all 3 roomates basically saying "wtf, don't ever touch any of my dishes or any of the sponges in my drying rack again or I will stab you with a fork".
Will it take this time? Who knows...
Also, meeting with the Dean went well and I don't think he realized the full extent of unhappy people currently living in North Park. I will be meeting with him later in the spring to talk about this with the housing people. See that, I'm trying to change the system!
OOOO...speaking of, I am now officially one of the two department representatives for the Graduate Student Council. My basic platform is to spend less money on academic events that no one attends, and to spend more resources and planning on trivia nights and graduate student only nights at the local bars (4 bars starting in two weeks! 4!). Also, I get free dinner one night a month at the meetings. Sold.
Match.com update. It's really funny when you browse someone and literally vomit in your mouth a little, and then they email you a few hours later. I have sent out a few emails to potential cuties, but haven't heard back from most of them. There was one guy who isn't a member (so you can't see emails people send you) but I managed to read through his code and email his yahoo account. He emailed me back but I haven't heard a response yet. Fingers crossed though!
Okay, time to do some work. I feel super accomplished having finished some of the basic elements I need to run my first study, and I am really hoping that by my Friday meeting with advisor I can be ready to get started.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Ants & STELLAAAA!!!
Let's just go ahead and make this a terrible , two-part, roomate-centric post.
Part 1:
I get up this morning and go downstairs and find the entire kitchen covered in water. The counters, the floor, everything. Okay...off to work then.
I come home many hours later and find the kitchen crawling with ants. Yes, ants. Dozens and dozens of ants. This is disgusting. I see that the awful piles of clean/dirty dishes have been taken care off (good start). I put on running shoes and run away as fast and as far as I can go.
When I get back, I see that the ants are still running about, but somehow has gone ahead and started the rice cooker that lives on the floor.
Take a shower, someone has finally put ant traps around the kitchen. There are still ants, but there are less ants.
At this point I notice that somehow all of the remaining sponges I have been keeping with my clean dishes have migrated to the yellow chicken-part holder of death. Okay. I'm done.
I fire off an email to the roomates basically being like "WTF DID YOU DO TO THE KITCHEN!" I also confronted Least-Speaking English in the kitchen and was like, why do all my sponges end up there. Stop doing that. Never do that again.
She smiled. No email response back from roomates. I foresee another angry sponge-related email brewing.
UPDATE: Just confronted Most English Speaking about the sponges and it went hilariously. After some time explaining please never put my sponges there, she tried to hand me the old sponges and I said "oh no, you can just go ahead and throw those out". She tried to smile politely, I think it threw her off. Now I get to be the one who smiles.
Part 2:
Since I moved in, there has been some creepy as Asian kid who comes around the apartments around me and just YELLS at the top of his lungs for someone to come out. He does this 3 or 4 times a week, and just like, appears in the area, yells for a while, and then walks away. Since all the buildings are fairly close I was like..whatever.
I assume Tourette's.
No, turns out this is my roomates friend (boyfriend, perhaps, actually) and he has been calling her all these evenings. No phone call, can't ring the doorbell or knock. Nope. He yells the Chinese equivalent of STELLA!
P.S. Ended up signing up for Match.com for a month, and it is completely paying off in hilariousness. Seriously, I don't care if I don't get a date out of this, it's so funny.
Part 1:
I get up this morning and go downstairs and find the entire kitchen covered in water. The counters, the floor, everything. Okay...off to work then.
I come home many hours later and find the kitchen crawling with ants. Yes, ants. Dozens and dozens of ants. This is disgusting. I see that the awful piles of clean/dirty dishes have been taken care off (good start). I put on running shoes and run away as fast and as far as I can go.
When I get back, I see that the ants are still running about, but somehow has gone ahead and started the rice cooker that lives on the floor.
Take a shower, someone has finally put ant traps around the kitchen. There are still ants, but there are less ants.
At this point I notice that somehow all of the remaining sponges I have been keeping with my clean dishes have migrated to the yellow chicken-part holder of death. Okay. I'm done.
I fire off an email to the roomates basically being like "WTF DID YOU DO TO THE KITCHEN!" I also confronted Least-Speaking English in the kitchen and was like, why do all my sponges end up there. Stop doing that. Never do that again.
She smiled. No email response back from roomates. I foresee another angry sponge-related email brewing.
UPDATE: Just confronted Most English Speaking about the sponges and it went hilariously. After some time explaining please never put my sponges there, she tried to hand me the old sponges and I said "oh no, you can just go ahead and throw those out". She tried to smile politely, I think it threw her off. Now I get to be the one who smiles.
Part 2:
Since I moved in, there has been some creepy as Asian kid who comes around the apartments around me and just YELLS at the top of his lungs for someone to come out. He does this 3 or 4 times a week, and just like, appears in the area, yells for a while, and then walks away. Since all the buildings are fairly close I was like..whatever.
I assume Tourette's.
No, turns out this is my roomates friend (boyfriend, perhaps, actually) and he has been calling her all these evenings. No phone call, can't ring the doorbell or knock. Nope. He yells the Chinese equivalent of STELLA!
P.S. Ended up signing up for Match.com for a month, and it is completely paying off in hilariousness. Seriously, I don't care if I don't get a date out of this, it's so funny.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Boys Boys Boys
1) Okay, so the situation with the possible Virgin is getting a little....muddy. My goal this week is to create distance and continue to encourage him to seek out other women, but tonight we both went out with a small group and it got a little ugly when I tried to leave. He looked so upset, and so confused when I tried to leave with the rest of the group.
Buddy, I know that we have been spending almost every night together hanging out and drinking, but I told you I needed to stop spending so much time at the bar, stop boozing so much, and go home and eat a healthy meal and do work. It actually gets a little weird when you are holding onto my arm and pleading that I stay.
I know I made this mess, and I am sorry, and I am going to try to handle this in the least awkward fashion possible.
2) I have not let recent strangeness with Craigslist stop me from trying to use that resource, but I have gotten a little smarter and have made a new gmail email to use. Waiting for some responses.
3) I am trying to plan a Stoplight party using the Graduate Student Council resources to pay for booze and rent a place for the party. I think that will be really fun, and it seems like a good way to meet casual dates that are not in my department.
4) Somehow I found myself completing the free profile on match.com tonight and actually finding some interesting people on there? I also saw several people I already know, which is a scary reminder of how freaking small Hanover is. I got an email response back from a guy I sent something too, but I need to subscribe to view it. I tried going back into my profile and posting my gmail information to see if that will work, we shall see if that gets flagged.
Somehow it feels like subscribing would be paying $30 to have sex, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Will see if other emails pile up, and how bullet points 1-3 develop before I make that decision.
Buddy, I know that we have been spending almost every night together hanging out and drinking, but I told you I needed to stop spending so much time at the bar, stop boozing so much, and go home and eat a healthy meal and do work. It actually gets a little weird when you are holding onto my arm and pleading that I stay.
I know I made this mess, and I am sorry, and I am going to try to handle this in the least awkward fashion possible.
2) I have not let recent strangeness with Craigslist stop me from trying to use that resource, but I have gotten a little smarter and have made a new gmail email to use. Waiting for some responses.
3) I am trying to plan a Stoplight party using the Graduate Student Council resources to pay for booze and rent a place for the party. I think that will be really fun, and it seems like a good way to meet casual dates that are not in my department.
4) Somehow I found myself completing the free profile on match.com tonight and actually finding some interesting people on there? I also saw several people I already know, which is a scary reminder of how freaking small Hanover is. I got an email response back from a guy I sent something too, but I need to subscribe to view it. I tried going back into my profile and posting my gmail information to see if that will work, we shall see if that gets flagged.
Somehow it feels like subscribing would be paying $30 to have sex, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Will see if other emails pile up, and how bullet points 1-3 develop before I make that decision.
I am a hamster on a wheel
*Nerd Alert: This post contains nerdy information*
So, almost all biorhythm studies are conducted using hamsters. Hamsters are the ideal subjects because they run on a hamster wheel in regular, stereotyped time intervals. If you take away all external cues from a hamster, it will eventually fall into it's natural cycle.
I am now that hamster. All of the external cues of class schedules and/or work schedules from the past 25 years have disappeared from my life, and I find that all that training has basically gone to shit. I force myself to wake up no later than 9:30 or 10, but I will easily sleep until 11 am whenever. I spend most of my day waking up, and then around 9 pm I get motivated to write papers, send out emails, go workout, and get my shit together. I force myself to go to bed by 1 am, but I am usually up until 2 or 2:30. Strangely enough, I guess now that I am in grad school this might actually not be a problem? I basically have 4 meetings/class sessions I need to attend each week, and those all occur no earlier than noon. There are lunches and colloquiums to attend, but whatever, those are all afternoon. I guess we shall see if this keeps up or if I get a little busier.
Other news - Housing
Talked to the housing office and it is finalized that I will take over the lease of the girl in 22A. She moves out on December 24th, so I guess the 66 day countdown begins. To be fair, I will be gone for several of those weeks, and I hope to move most of my stuff into the empty room in 22A during the weeks before Christmas so I can maybe come back from Christmas break and not see the residents of 18A again.
Oh by the way The Chinese - it really fucks with my mind when the marinades you use on your meat make them looked cook, and then you leave them out on the kitchen table all evening. Oh, cooked chicken she thinks.....nope. ewl.
So, almost all biorhythm studies are conducted using hamsters. Hamsters are the ideal subjects because they run on a hamster wheel in regular, stereotyped time intervals. If you take away all external cues from a hamster, it will eventually fall into it's natural cycle.
I am now that hamster. All of the external cues of class schedules and/or work schedules from the past 25 years have disappeared from my life, and I find that all that training has basically gone to shit. I force myself to wake up no later than 9:30 or 10, but I will easily sleep until 11 am whenever. I spend most of my day waking up, and then around 9 pm I get motivated to write papers, send out emails, go workout, and get my shit together. I force myself to go to bed by 1 am, but I am usually up until 2 or 2:30. Strangely enough, I guess now that I am in grad school this might actually not be a problem? I basically have 4 meetings/class sessions I need to attend each week, and those all occur no earlier than noon. There are lunches and colloquiums to attend, but whatever, those are all afternoon. I guess we shall see if this keeps up or if I get a little busier.
Other news - Housing
Talked to the housing office and it is finalized that I will take over the lease of the girl in 22A. She moves out on December 24th, so I guess the 66 day countdown begins. To be fair, I will be gone for several of those weeks, and I hope to move most of my stuff into the empty room in 22A during the weeks before Christmas so I can maybe come back from Christmas break and not see the residents of 18A again.
Oh by the way The Chinese - it really fucks with my mind when the marinades you use on your meat make them looked cook, and then you leave them out on the kitchen table all evening. Oh, cooked chicken she thinks.....nope. ewl.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Very Creepy Story
I debated at length about whether or not to post this story on here since the person I am posting about reads this blog. I am still not sure this is a good move, but hopefully they understand that this probably came off very differently than they intended? ....and that was bad.
You may all recall reading about J-far, the Craigslist guy who was coming into town this past weekend and wanted to meet up. We had left it at him sending me an email this past Wednesday to make plans and set stuff up. In large part due to the housing situation, but also because I was just not feeling it once it came around, I never responded to the emails he sent Wednesday and Friday.
On Saturday I got a random nonsensical text from a friend, but I figured it was probably a mistake. I then got a text from the same person (I shall dub him Friend-far for continuity) on Sunday afternoon asking "Why did you never email J-far back?".
What? How does he know him?
After several text messages with Friend-far, it becomes clear that my friend was actually pretending to be J-far. So my mind immediately creates the following scenario:
My friend (who is living with his girlfriend of...6 years?) had a meeting up in Hanover this weekend, decided to get a little extra play, and thought it was so hilarious when he saw my response to his Craigslist post that he decided to go along with the gag and then it would all be a hilarious joke when we met up.
Not so, it turns out.
Friend-far knew my passion for Craigslist and planted a post for Dartmouth with the specific intent of getting me to respond for the one weekend his girlfriend was out of town. I think is is amazing that I actually responded, but once that was done he kept up the illusion and was planning on driving up to meet with me? and have sex? without his girlfriend?
A few things that come to my mind when I think about this story:
(1) I feel violated. I know this seems strange, but I would have felt so much better if my friend had just called me and been like "I want to cheat on my girlfriend and come have sex with you." I don't think anyone likes being the naive subject on an elaborate scheme, and I really feel like...yikes....how long have you been planning this? Why me? Why after all these years? I am not flattered, I am sort of upset. Especially since I am in such an emotionally fragile place with men these days.
(2) I think the picture of the person Friend-far used is really interesting, because I wonder what thoughts went through his head (he must be attractive to her but also believable). Who was the guy he sent the picture of?
(3) Please don't come to me to cheat on your girlfriend of many years for the first time. Lord knows I have been down that path, but I am not trying to be that person. Especially since I feel there has always sort of been this hostile past with his girlfriend, I...I can't even imagine if she ever found out.
Overall, I really don't know what to say to this person. I hope we can still be friends, but please don't try to pull this stuff on me in the future.
You may all recall reading about J-far, the Craigslist guy who was coming into town this past weekend and wanted to meet up. We had left it at him sending me an email this past Wednesday to make plans and set stuff up. In large part due to the housing situation, but also because I was just not feeling it once it came around, I never responded to the emails he sent Wednesday and Friday.
On Saturday I got a random nonsensical text from a friend, but I figured it was probably a mistake. I then got a text from the same person (I shall dub him Friend-far for continuity) on Sunday afternoon asking "Why did you never email J-far back?".
What? How does he know him?
After several text messages with Friend-far, it becomes clear that my friend was actually pretending to be J-far. So my mind immediately creates the following scenario:
My friend (who is living with his girlfriend of...6 years?) had a meeting up in Hanover this weekend, decided to get a little extra play, and thought it was so hilarious when he saw my response to his Craigslist post that he decided to go along with the gag and then it would all be a hilarious joke when we met up.
Not so, it turns out.
Friend-far knew my passion for Craigslist and planted a post for Dartmouth with the specific intent of getting me to respond for the one weekend his girlfriend was out of town. I think is is amazing that I actually responded, but once that was done he kept up the illusion and was planning on driving up to meet with me? and have sex? without his girlfriend?
A few things that come to my mind when I think about this story:
(1) I feel violated. I know this seems strange, but I would have felt so much better if my friend had just called me and been like "I want to cheat on my girlfriend and come have sex with you." I don't think anyone likes being the naive subject on an elaborate scheme, and I really feel like...yikes....how long have you been planning this? Why me? Why after all these years? I am not flattered, I am sort of upset. Especially since I am in such an emotionally fragile place with men these days.
(2) I think the picture of the person Friend-far used is really interesting, because I wonder what thoughts went through his head (he must be attractive to her but also believable). Who was the guy he sent the picture of?
(3) Please don't come to me to cheat on your girlfriend of many years for the first time. Lord knows I have been down that path, but I am not trying to be that person. Especially since I feel there has always sort of been this hostile past with his girlfriend, I...I can't even imagine if she ever found out.
Overall, I really don't know what to say to this person. I hope we can still be friends, but please don't try to pull this stuff on me in the future.
Virgin?
So another night of drinking with new possible crush, and I stumbled on the unbelievable but possible fact that he might well be a virgin. He is 28.
After many nights of digging around my dark (and by dark I mean totally out there) secrets, I finally was like...dude, you tell me nothing about you and hide behind your being reserved.
So I find out he hasn't had a girlfriend since he moved to Hanover, and before then he was raised in an extremely conservative culture and never really had a serious relationship.
Every single part of me says run away and never look back, but he is so cute and sweet, and he clearly likes me a lot. I think that worries me even more though - I could happily have causal sex, but oh god, what if I am his first?!? This is bad. Run away!
After many nights of digging around my dark (and by dark I mean totally out there) secrets, I finally was like...dude, you tell me nothing about you and hide behind your being reserved.
So I find out he hasn't had a girlfriend since he moved to Hanover, and before then he was raised in an extremely conservative culture and never really had a serious relationship.
Every single part of me says run away and never look back, but he is so cute and sweet, and he clearly likes me a lot. I think that worries me even more though - I could happily have causal sex, but oh god, what if I am his first?!? This is bad. Run away!
Quick Housing Stuff - then the juicy stuff
So, I got an email from 22A subletter last night basically saying like "I'm sorry, I have no desire to ever move back to apartment 18A", so I sent off an email being like "OMG, help me understand what I am missing. You live in CA, you will never step foot in this apartment, what is the problem?!?.
She emails me back with the brief response "I will be back next semester".
....oh
.....so I sent her an apology email. I think we are on better terms. I will go the housing person tomorrow and secure my move into apartment 22A in December..at which time 22A subletter will become my new roomate. Oh joy!
She emails me back with the brief response "I will be back next semester".
....oh
.....so I sent her an apology email. I think we are on better terms. I will go the housing person tomorrow and secure my move into apartment 22A in December..at which time 22A subletter will become my new roomate. Oh joy!
Oh right, Baby Smoker
I neglected to mention that last night I headed to the dreadful India Queen (only bar open past 12:45!) and Baby Smoker was there, trying to be cool, quasi-standing behind the bar trying to seem like he was being a bartender.
I'm so happy that I get to see him every single weekend since I've come to Dartmouth. Note, we both definitely saw each other on each occasion, we both definitely did not say anything to each other. I love high school.
I'm so happy that I get to see him every single weekend since I've come to Dartmouth. Note, we both definitely saw each other on each occasion, we both definitely did not say anything to each other. I love high school.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Drunk Post
...on my way home from the bar tonight, some 5'1" man asked me if I was Rose, and then we had a bet that whoever had less money on them would have to strip.
I won.
Dude, Hanover kinda sucks. We did dinner and Taboo tonight with a bunch of psych people and friends, and then I got dropped off with Ali at 12:45 and decided to go to the only bar that is open in town. Oh, right...the only bar in town sucks. Oh, and we did the same thing last night with a group of people.....because there are only 3 bars in Hanover.
So I have been keeping this semi-secret blog but I told KP about this today, so I guess it is fair game to talk ab0ut. There is this guy in the Psych department that I have basically spent every night with this past week. He is cute, tall, funny, smart, and really nice, but he totally reminds me of Brendan and is never going to make the first move. I sent him the most unbelievably sexual texts last night, drove over to his place at 11 o'clock at night, had a romantic/scotch-filled walk, and at 2 am I finally gave up because it was clear this wasn't going anywhere.
I also hate that I am probably only interested because I am lonely and need to have sex. I am debating going to the Graduate Student Council to request funds to hold a Stoplight Party/Single's Mixer so I can finally meet some available guys who are not in my department. Why is it so hard to find a guy who doesn't want to date but wants to be more than friends?
Anyway, drunk me is going to put her ass to bed.
I won.
Dude, Hanover kinda sucks. We did dinner and Taboo tonight with a bunch of psych people and friends, and then I got dropped off with Ali at 12:45 and decided to go to the only bar that is open in town. Oh, right...the only bar in town sucks. Oh, and we did the same thing last night with a group of people.....because there are only 3 bars in Hanover.
So I have been keeping this semi-secret blog but I told KP about this today, so I guess it is fair game to talk ab0ut. There is this guy in the Psych department that I have basically spent every night with this past week. He is cute, tall, funny, smart, and really nice, but he totally reminds me of Brendan and is never going to make the first move. I sent him the most unbelievably sexual texts last night, drove over to his place at 11 o'clock at night, had a romantic/scotch-filled walk, and at 2 am I finally gave up because it was clear this wasn't going anywhere.
I also hate that I am probably only interested because I am lonely and need to have sex. I am debating going to the Graduate Student Council to request funds to hold a Stoplight Party/Single's Mixer so I can finally meet some available guys who are not in my department. Why is it so hard to find a guy who doesn't want to date but wants to be more than friends?
Anyway, drunk me is going to put her ass to bed.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
After knocking back some Johnnie Black
Okay so I was mad. I went home and cried and yelled at my mom, not because I am stuck living here until January, but because I can't understand how such a perfect solution did not come to pass.
So I went to the bar, knocked back some Johnnie Black and Jameson, and calmed down.
I am going to give 22A Subletter one more very calm phone call tonight, and just ask her to put herself in my shoes and think of how she would feel moving to a new town, not knowing anyone, and living with 3 people who all speak Swahili.
If that still doesn't work, I am just going to settle for not really being comfortable or happy until January 2010. I will also probably send 22A some email later that says something like "I really hope if you are ever in a situation where you feel outnumbered and misunderstood, the person you reach out to for help treats you better than you treated me".
I also fully intend to launch my full scale attack on North Park housing practices by writing some sort of email about the many problems with North Park housing assignments (for myself and many others) and asking my friends in different departments to distribute to the incoming first years in spring. I know North Park had trouble filling spaces last year, I can only hope that makes it even harder for them in the future.
So I went to the bar, knocked back some Johnnie Black and Jameson, and calmed down.
I am going to give 22A Subletter one more very calm phone call tonight, and just ask her to put herself in my shoes and think of how she would feel moving to a new town, not knowing anyone, and living with 3 people who all speak Swahili.
If that still doesn't work, I am just going to settle for not really being comfortable or happy until January 2010. I will also probably send 22A some email later that says something like "I really hope if you are ever in a situation where you feel outnumbered and misunderstood, the person you reach out to for help treats you better than you treated me".
I also fully intend to launch my full scale attack on North Park housing practices by writing some sort of email about the many problems with North Park housing assignments (for myself and many others) and asking my friends in different departments to distribute to the incoming first years in spring. I know North Park had trouble filling spaces last year, I can only hope that makes it even harder for them in the future.
Am I Wrong Here?
Here is the email I got from 22A Subletter:
Hey
I am sorry for being not so responsive but I really have a ton to deal with at the moment. However I did think about it and I am afraid I cannot do the swap now. I know roommates situation can be tough but I am a little confused about why it is making u so miserable if the other girls are at least respectful. I am not physically there so I cannot know more. But sounds like either they are really hard to get along or u have some problem with them for being non native speaker(I am also Chinese I feel a little uncomfortable honestly) I really want to help but I cannot spend time on this given my other matters to deal with. I am sorry again
and here was my response back:
The girls are respectful but it is impossible to carry on a conversation with them because we just don't have the ability to communicate. In as much, the situation is extremely uncomfortable to
me because I feel like this outcast when they are all hanging out downstairs chatting with their friends, then stop talking and can only smile at me as I walk by. This has nothing to do with them being Chinese, I would have the same problem if they all spoke Spanish or French or German - any situation in which there is a major power imbalance and no ability to communicate is going to make the isolated party uncomfortable. Aside from being uncomfortable, it makes getting
past the minor cultural differences into major problems just because it is difficult to explain the situation.
So, I am sorry that you feel uncomfortable, I probably could have explained the situation more tactfully. I am also sorry that you are so busy at work, but I am really struggling with the idea that you are unwilling to make a switch that will not effect your life and will have a major impact on mine.
Hey
I am sorry for being not so responsive but I really have a ton to deal with at the moment. However I did think about it and I am afraid I cannot do the swap now. I know roommates situation can be tough but I am a little confused about why it is making u so miserable if the other girls are at least respectful. I am not physically there so I cannot know more. But sounds like either they are really hard to get along or u have some problem with them for being non native speaker(I am also Chinese I feel a little uncomfortable honestly) I really want to help but I cannot spend time on this given my other matters to deal with. I am sorry again
and here was my response back:
The girls are respectful but it is impossible to carry on a conversation with them because we just don't have the ability to communicate. In as much, the situation is extremely uncomfortable to
me because I feel like this outcast when they are all hanging out downstairs chatting with their friends, then stop talking and can only smile at me as I walk by. This has nothing to do with them being Chinese, I would have the same problem if they all spoke Spanish or French or German - any situation in which there is a major power imbalance and no ability to communicate is going to make the isolated party uncomfortable. Aside from being uncomfortable, it makes getting
past the minor cultural differences into major problems just because it is difficult to explain the situation.
So, I am sorry that you feel uncomfortable, I probably could have explained the situation more tactfully. I am also sorry that you are so busy at work, but I am really struggling with the idea that you are unwilling to make a switch that will not effect your life and will have a major impact on mine.
A non-housing post
Okay so enough bitching about housing, lets talk about Zombie Movie Fest last night. First of all, they were not kidding when they said they lived in rustic cabins in the middle of the woods. Someone was kind enough to let me follow them to the houses, otherwise I think I would have turned around and assumed it was so mean joke they were playing on the new first year.
Movies were awesome. We watched Zombieland again (still hilarious), and totally random 6 minute foreign film, and Dollhouse. Dollhouse is this fantastic Brit zombie movie about a town filled with man-hating zombie women and the doomed group of men who take their friend there to help him get over his recent divorce. It's as ridiculous and funny as you would imagine from that description. It was also really nice to hang out with some of the older kids and not feel like I was out of place or the awkward newbie in the mix. Best part, the older kids don't really think the alpha-bitches matter at all, so take that alpha-bitches.
Last little amusing note. I was heading out last night and needed to let my dinner dishes soak in the sink for a bit. Least English Speaking roomate was in the kitchen so I turned to her and said something like "I don't know who washed my dishes last night, and thanks for doing that (lie!), but please don't wash my dishes tonight. I will do them when I get home". Least English Speaking literally stares at me, tilts her head, and smiles. I try again with "please don't wash these dishes, I can do it later". Least English Speaking says "oh, I don't know". Sarah picks up her 6 pack and walks out the door.
Also, this morning I went to grab something from the freezer, and made a mental note to take a picture when I get home. It is like a very tiny version of a meat packing facility. Maybe December is too long to wait?
Movies were awesome. We watched Zombieland again (still hilarious), and totally random 6 minute foreign film, and Dollhouse. Dollhouse is this fantastic Brit zombie movie about a town filled with man-hating zombie women and the doomed group of men who take their friend there to help him get over his recent divorce. It's as ridiculous and funny as you would imagine from that description. It was also really nice to hang out with some of the older kids and not feel like I was out of place or the awkward newbie in the mix. Best part, the older kids don't really think the alpha-bitches matter at all, so take that alpha-bitches.
Last little amusing note. I was heading out last night and needed to let my dinner dishes soak in the sink for a bit. Least English Speaking roomate was in the kitchen so I turned to her and said something like "I don't know who washed my dishes last night, and thanks for doing that (lie!), but please don't wash my dishes tonight. I will do them when I get home". Least English Speaking literally stares at me, tilts her head, and smiles. I try again with "please don't wash these dishes, I can do it later". Least English Speaking says "oh, I don't know". Sarah picks up her 6 pack and walks out the door.
Also, this morning I went to grab something from the freezer, and made a mental note to take a picture when I get home. It is like a very tiny version of a meat packing facility. Maybe December is too long to wait?
For Those Of You Following Along At Home
New day = new housing update.
So last night around midnight (9 pm her time) I called 22A Subletter (who I may slip into calling Cunty McLiesalot), following up to the email I had sent her that day. She emailed me back and said "I am sorry you are miserable I am too busy at work to handle this right now I will try to call Friday".
How can you have time to tap out that email to me, but you can't just email the housing people?
So I sent her a response back like "I am sorry you are so busy at work. If you don't call until Friday afternoon I highly doubt I will be able to move out over the weekend and will probably be stuck there at least another week. Is your only question about if you lease will still only go until February? Do you have other questions you can send me really draft versions of and I can write the housing person an email about it?
No response, of course. Cunt.
So I went to the housing people this morning. Basically explained that 22A Subletter keeps telling me she will call and doesn't, and I really don't understand what is going on. Housing person was at least sympathetic, but understandably can't change a lease without the permission of 22A Subletter. Housing person did, however, send her an awesome email saying the following:
"Sarah Henderson has come to me having a room swap and I think that is perfectly fine. Your lease will still only extend until February. Please respond to this email and let me know if you will switch."
I know it doesn't seem like much, but it is progress. It at least lets this girl know that the housing people are involved and gave her a pretty direct yes/no directive.
Also, as a final escape from Chinaland scenario, I know that one of the girls in Apt 22A is only staying until December. It would suck, but the housing people said I could definitely take her spot when she leaves if this doesn't get resolved. It's not a great solution, but I think spending the remaining 8 months in the better apartment is better than nothing.
Shall keep you all posted.
So last night around midnight (9 pm her time) I called 22A Subletter (who I may slip into calling Cunty McLiesalot), following up to the email I had sent her that day. She emailed me back and said "I am sorry you are miserable I am too busy at work to handle this right now I will try to call Friday".
How can you have time to tap out that email to me, but you can't just email the housing people?
So I sent her a response back like "I am sorry you are so busy at work. If you don't call until Friday afternoon I highly doubt I will be able to move out over the weekend and will probably be stuck there at least another week. Is your only question about if you lease will still only go until February? Do you have other questions you can send me really draft versions of and I can write the housing person an email about it?
No response, of course. Cunt.
So I went to the housing people this morning. Basically explained that 22A Subletter keeps telling me she will call and doesn't, and I really don't understand what is going on. Housing person was at least sympathetic, but understandably can't change a lease without the permission of 22A Subletter. Housing person did, however, send her an awesome email saying the following:
"Sarah Henderson has come to me having a room swap and I think that is perfectly fine. Your lease will still only extend until February. Please respond to this email and let me know if you will switch."
I know it doesn't seem like much, but it is progress. It at least lets this girl know that the housing people are involved and gave her a pretty direct yes/no directive.
Also, as a final escape from Chinaland scenario, I know that one of the girls in Apt 22A is only staying until December. It would suck, but the housing people said I could definitely take her spot when she leaves if this doesn't get resolved. It's not a great solution, but I think spending the remaining 8 months in the better apartment is better than nothing.
Shall keep you all posted.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
OK, I'm done
You may recall that last night 22A subletter sent me an email saying she had contacted the housing department. I checked in with them this morning, and they still haven't received an email from her. WTF?!? It is one thing to ignore me, but now you are lying 22A subletter?
I sent a semi-nasty email to both of 22A subletters email addresses and put the housing people on it and was like..okay, no, I am done, Reply All to this email with any questions you have and lets get this fucking noise handled...... you slutbag.
If I don't hear back (and I will call all evening if I must), I am storming into the housing department tomorrow and I will throw an epic shit fit.
Oh, totally unrelated but something else that annoyed me today. I went in to buy a bottle of wine and they asked for ID. New Hampshire (for god knows what reasons) issues these pathetic black and white paper licenses and sends you the real version in 6 weeks. The guy sees this and asks me to please not come back until I have a real ID. What?!?! This is your retarded state, why are you punishing me because there is a 6 week wait for an ID. Also, don't tell me you understand that but won't let me buy.
I sent a semi-nasty email to both of 22A subletters email addresses and put the housing people on it and was like..okay, no, I am done, Reply All to this email with any questions you have and lets get this fucking noise handled...... you slutbag.
If I don't hear back (and I will call all evening if I must), I am storming into the housing department tomorrow and I will throw an epic shit fit.
Oh, totally unrelated but something else that annoyed me today. I went in to buy a bottle of wine and they asked for ID. New Hampshire (for god knows what reasons) issues these pathetic black and white paper licenses and sends you the real version in 6 weeks. The guy sees this and asks me to please not come back until I have a real ID. What?!?! This is your retarded state, why are you punishing me because there is a 6 week wait for an ID. Also, don't tell me you understand that but won't let me buy.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
THAT JUST HAPPENED
....I'm not sure I am emotionally ready to tell this story, but here it goes.
I got home from dinner with Ali (....mmm..yeah..not sure I am gonna blog about that cuz it was sort of awfulness) and walked into the decaying fish smell kitchen...and that's when I saw it.
I had left a pot in the sink and wasn't able to wash it out when I got home. The Chinese had washed the pot and somehow my sponge, which is identical to their sponges, is mixed in.
Which one is my sponge? I need to rewash the pot before it infects the rest of the clean dishes!
Ewl!
I got home from dinner with Ali (....mmm..yeah..not sure I am gonna blog about that cuz it was sort of awfulness) and walked into the decaying fish smell kitchen...and that's when I saw it.
I had left a pot in the sink and wasn't able to wash it out when I got home. The Chinese had washed the pot and somehow my sponge, which is identical to their sponges, is mixed in.
Which one is my sponge? I need to rewash the pot before it infects the rest of the clean dishes!
Ewl!
A Quick Update
I'm waiting around for 20 more minutes to go on my dinner date with Alessandra so I felt like updating.
Okay first off, I may actually fall in love with Alessandra. She emailed this morning like "oh hey, would steak and risotto be okay for me to make for dinner?" Um....are you kidding? Could you possibly put together a more delicious meal? She also insisted on doing the shopping. I love with woman already. This also could not have possibly come on a better night - I got back from the gym and was so assaulted by the odors coming from the kitchen my eyes started watering. Not that I could cook anyway - they've been down there for 1.5 hours and show no signs of stopping.
Second, I FINALLY got a response from 22A subletter and she apologized, said she was busy at work and had just emailed the housing people. I will wait patiently to see how that goes tomorrow.
Third, so there is a lot of groundwork to be done preparing my first fMRI study - recruitment, I need to find some appropriate movie clip stimuli, etc. I was talking to my adviser today and mentioned that I think it would be neat to try to validate a pretty well known executive functioning task for a regulatory depletion task (no I don't expect any of you to know or care what that means). Adviser says "Awesome, you should have that up and running to pilot next week". What?!?! I don't even know where to get the software required to set this up, I have no idea how to recruit subjects using the Dartmouth system. Oy! I really want to make this work though, I feel I have definitely not proved myself worthy yet and would really enjoy this opportunity to do so.
Okay first off, I may actually fall in love with Alessandra. She emailed this morning like "oh hey, would steak and risotto be okay for me to make for dinner?" Um....are you kidding? Could you possibly put together a more delicious meal? She also insisted on doing the shopping. I love with woman already. This also could not have possibly come on a better night - I got back from the gym and was so assaulted by the odors coming from the kitchen my eyes started watering. Not that I could cook anyway - they've been down there for 1.5 hours and show no signs of stopping.
Second, I FINALLY got a response from 22A subletter and she apologized, said she was busy at work and had just emailed the housing people. I will wait patiently to see how that goes tomorrow.
Third, so there is a lot of groundwork to be done preparing my first fMRI study - recruitment, I need to find some appropriate movie clip stimuli, etc. I was talking to my adviser today and mentioned that I think it would be neat to try to validate a pretty well known executive functioning task for a regulatory depletion task (no I don't expect any of you to know or care what that means). Adviser says "Awesome, you should have that up and running to pilot next week". What?!?! I don't even know where to get the software required to set this up, I have no idea how to recruit subjects using the Dartmouth system. Oy! I really want to make this work though, I feel I have definitely not proved myself worthy yet and would really enjoy this opportunity to do so.
Still Annoyed
I talked to 22A subletter on the phone yesterday and she said she would call the housing office. I even offered the $100 and she said it wasn't necessary.
I sent 22A subletter an email in the afternoon asking if she had called the housing people yet, or if she could just send an email because that is a bit easier.
I called 22A subletter last night and she picked up and said she was in a meeting and would get back to me.
...I emailed housing office this morning and they said they had not heard a word from 22A subletter.
WTF?!?!
I sent 22A subletter an email in the afternoon asking if she had called the housing people yet, or if she could just send an email because that is a bit easier.
I called 22A subletter last night and she picked up and said she was in a meeting and would get back to me.
...I emailed housing office this morning and they said they had not heard a word from 22A subletter.
WTF?!?!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The Housing Situation
I have so many terrible stories about the Chinese from this weekend, but I don't know how many stories I can write about raw eggs and chicken and terrible China-pop dance parties, so I will leave that be for now.
First, let me tell you about my new friend Ali. I got a response back from the mass email the GA sent around asking for female room swappers, and it was this girl Ali who basically said "I live with 3 guys, doubt anyone would want to switch but I will throw it out there". I, of course, would much prefer this so I send her an email telling her as much and then try to truthfully but nicely explain the China situation. Ali responds with "When I say I live with 3 guys, I meant I live with 3 Chinese guys". Ha! Basically she had no interest in changing and doubted I would want to anyway, but she asked me to do dinner with her Tuesday night, and basically be her friend since we both know how lonely and miserable the situation is. I wrote her back something ridiculous like "where the fuck have you been for the last 3 weeks! Yes we will eat dinner and hang out and get away from the awfulness that is raw meat". She seems really nice and went to undergrad here, so she is almost certainly a good resource for places to go and things to do.
Okay, on to the funny story/potential good news.
You all remember the horribly bitchy response I got from the girl when I went to visit the house Thursday night, right? Well Friday I had stopped back over with my friend Andrea to meet the other roomates and hopefully see if it might still be an option. When I rang the doorbell this girl Judith (pronounced Yudith) opened it and basically explained that the bitchy girl had talked to her about it, they both realized they would probably get someone anyway so at least they knew who I was. Judith was really nice and funny, and made me feel a lot better about the situation. We left it with the fact that I would send bitchy girl and apology email for showing up, and Judith would send me an email when the 3rd roomate got back that night so I could meet her.
Flash forward to Saturday night, still no response. Situation is not looking good.
I am out with KP who gets a call from Andrea. Andrea was hanging out at a party with Judith and the 3rd roomate (Rebecca). Here is how the story goes
On Thursday evening at about 7 pm, Judith and Bitchy get an email from some girl who asks if she can come over and check out the empty room. They respond that tonight is not a good night as one is studying for a test and the other is very sick. At 8 pm, I show up at the door and ask to come see the room. (Can you see now why the one girl was so bitchy about it). When I come back over Friday night, Judith is still under the impression that I am that girl, so she sent the follow-up email to the other girl asking her to come over and meet the 3rd roomate.
The other girl, having never come by in the first place, ignores the emails for a bit but finally tells them that she doesn't want the room afterall because she has some disability that prevents her from living on the first floor (yeah, I have no idea either). Judith and the other three roomates basically think "okay great, she comes over when we ask her not to and then she doesn't come back when we tell her to. Fuck her".
Judith approaches Andrea at the party and asked why I changed my mind so suddenly, and why I keep introducing myself as Sarah but signing my emails as Ali.
Funny right? So Andrea straightens out the whole situation, everyone thinks it is really funny and I got to email Judith and go over to meet the 3rd roomate and joke about this with Judith today.
Overall, I am (a) really happy that I have a new friend Ali to hang out with, (b) am not competing with anyone else for the spare room, and (c) have the blessing of the 3 roomates to move in. If the housing office doesn't have any problem with this I will hopefully be moved in to the new place by the end of the week and will never have to write about the chicken parts thawing in a container of raw egg on the counter again.
First, let me tell you about my new friend Ali. I got a response back from the mass email the GA sent around asking for female room swappers, and it was this girl Ali who basically said "I live with 3 guys, doubt anyone would want to switch but I will throw it out there". I, of course, would much prefer this so I send her an email telling her as much and then try to truthfully but nicely explain the China situation. Ali responds with "When I say I live with 3 guys, I meant I live with 3 Chinese guys". Ha! Basically she had no interest in changing and doubted I would want to anyway, but she asked me to do dinner with her Tuesday night, and basically be her friend since we both know how lonely and miserable the situation is. I wrote her back something ridiculous like "where the fuck have you been for the last 3 weeks! Yes we will eat dinner and hang out and get away from the awfulness that is raw meat". She seems really nice and went to undergrad here, so she is almost certainly a good resource for places to go and things to do.
Okay, on to the funny story/potential good news.
You all remember the horribly bitchy response I got from the girl when I went to visit the house Thursday night, right? Well Friday I had stopped back over with my friend Andrea to meet the other roomates and hopefully see if it might still be an option. When I rang the doorbell this girl Judith (pronounced Yudith) opened it and basically explained that the bitchy girl had talked to her about it, they both realized they would probably get someone anyway so at least they knew who I was. Judith was really nice and funny, and made me feel a lot better about the situation. We left it with the fact that I would send bitchy girl and apology email for showing up, and Judith would send me an email when the 3rd roomate got back that night so I could meet her.
Flash forward to Saturday night, still no response. Situation is not looking good.
I am out with KP who gets a call from Andrea. Andrea was hanging out at a party with Judith and the 3rd roomate (Rebecca). Here is how the story goes
On Thursday evening at about 7 pm, Judith and Bitchy get an email from some girl who asks if she can come over and check out the empty room. They respond that tonight is not a good night as one is studying for a test and the other is very sick. At 8 pm, I show up at the door and ask to come see the room. (Can you see now why the one girl was so bitchy about it). When I come back over Friday night, Judith is still under the impression that I am that girl, so she sent the follow-up email to the other girl asking her to come over and meet the 3rd roomate.
The other girl, having never come by in the first place, ignores the emails for a bit but finally tells them that she doesn't want the room afterall because she has some disability that prevents her from living on the first floor (yeah, I have no idea either). Judith and the other three roomates basically think "okay great, she comes over when we ask her not to and then she doesn't come back when we tell her to. Fuck her".
Judith approaches Andrea at the party and asked why I changed my mind so suddenly, and why I keep introducing myself as Sarah but signing my emails as Ali.
Funny right? So Andrea straightens out the whole situation, everyone thinks it is really funny and I got to email Judith and go over to meet the 3rd roomate and joke about this with Judith today.
Overall, I am (a) really happy that I have a new friend Ali to hang out with, (b) am not competing with anyone else for the spare room, and (c) have the blessing of the 3 roomates to move in. If the housing office doesn't have any problem with this I will hopefully be moved in to the new place by the end of the week and will never have to write about the chicken parts thawing in a container of raw egg on the counter again.
Weekend Recap
I have a ton to write about my search for new housing, but I think I am going to roll that all into another post, so this will be purely about what I did this weekend.
Friday night was totally low key but was awesome. I think all of us were sort of looking for a relaxing night and a really delicious home-cooked meal, so we convinced our friend Jim to let us come to his place and cook dinner. We made an amazing pasta primavera (literally 90% veggies) with homemade garlic bread and brownies. It was a super satisfying meal and then we drank red wine and hung out around their fireplace. Such a lovely evening.
Saturday was Oktoberfest at the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor VT, so a group of us headed down to that and drank great beer, ate sausage, and played keg bowling. It was, however, fucking cold. How did it get so cold so suddenly? That closed up at 6:30 so we came back to my place and tried to awkwardly cook around a party of 10 Chinese people and then watched episodes of Always Sunny on my computer in my room - can you feel the magic?
After that we headed to a super low key party some of the psych kids were throwing, and then we had heard about a party in North Park (where I live) so we drove back in and went to that party.
I walked in and saw The Hispanic at the party, so I spent a good hour talking to him and making him think "damn, why didn't I ever email her back about grabbing dinner?". Reminds me, I need to email him today. There was a competing party down the block so we headed to that but (a) it was insanely lame, (b) Baby Smoker (the one who wrote me the terrible poem) was there, and (c) some awful Psych kids had gone in and tried to take off with their food and an entire handle of Absolut - which was so dick and made us all feel really awful for knowing them. After that we didn't want to go back to the other party, so we headed out to the bar for a drink.
While standing in the bar I saw a really familiar looking guy who I thought was from GW. I had seen him before but been like "no Sarah, this is your mind not letting go of GW, you need to let go!", but this time I was sure. Turns out it was Josh Hartman (I think most of you GW people probably would recognize him - he basically did every single thing possible at GW), so we caught up a bit.
That was about it for the evening. I am heading to the movies this afternoon with the really nice 4th year guy I talked about last Saturday (no it's not a date, just two people who love zombies going to see Zombieland). Perhaps I will have an update about that later.
Friday night was totally low key but was awesome. I think all of us were sort of looking for a relaxing night and a really delicious home-cooked meal, so we convinced our friend Jim to let us come to his place and cook dinner. We made an amazing pasta primavera (literally 90% veggies) with homemade garlic bread and brownies. It was a super satisfying meal and then we drank red wine and hung out around their fireplace. Such a lovely evening.
Saturday was Oktoberfest at the Harpoon Brewery in Windsor VT, so a group of us headed down to that and drank great beer, ate sausage, and played keg bowling. It was, however, fucking cold. How did it get so cold so suddenly? That closed up at 6:30 so we came back to my place and tried to awkwardly cook around a party of 10 Chinese people and then watched episodes of Always Sunny on my computer in my room - can you feel the magic?
After that we headed to a super low key party some of the psych kids were throwing, and then we had heard about a party in North Park (where I live) so we drove back in and went to that party.
I walked in and saw The Hispanic at the party, so I spent a good hour talking to him and making him think "damn, why didn't I ever email her back about grabbing dinner?". Reminds me, I need to email him today. There was a competing party down the block so we headed to that but (a) it was insanely lame, (b) Baby Smoker (the one who wrote me the terrible poem) was there, and (c) some awful Psych kids had gone in and tried to take off with their food and an entire handle of Absolut - which was so dick and made us all feel really awful for knowing them. After that we didn't want to go back to the other party, so we headed out to the bar for a drink.
While standing in the bar I saw a really familiar looking guy who I thought was from GW. I had seen him before but been like "no Sarah, this is your mind not letting go of GW, you need to let go!", but this time I was sure. Turns out it was Josh Hartman (I think most of you GW people probably would recognize him - he basically did every single thing possible at GW), so we caught up a bit.
That was about it for the evening. I am heading to the movies this afternoon with the really nice 4th year guy I talked about last Saturday (no it's not a date, just two people who love zombies going to see Zombieland). Perhaps I will have an update about that later.
Friday, October 9, 2009
What is it like to live with the girl from The Ring?
When I started this post I only meant to imply that I live with the girl from The Ring because of all the disgusting black hair, but then I realized that leaving unexplainable pools of water everywhere was also a hallmark of that character.
So yes, I live with the girl from The Ring.
Sorry the picture quality isn't great - I seem to recall that evil can interfere with camera equipment.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
How do you solve a problem like China?
I have reached critical mass at this point - there is absolutely no solution to this housing issue that can result with me still living here. So, I went to go see the graduate advisor liaison (GA) who is super nice guy, in the psych program, lives in North Park.
After the required discussion on how I should hold a meeting with them to go over some issues, we talked about an actual solution of me moving. Here is my plan of attack:
1) There is a Chinese girl trying to sublet her apartment 4 houses down. The GA let me look at the other roomates and that seems like a possibility. I emailed her tonight, hopefully I will hear back.
2) The GA can send out an email to everyone in North Park and say that some people have asked about switching and is anybody else interested. This is promising, but he mentioned that several other people in my situation have already come to him, so it seems like there are lots of orphans and no stable house to put all of us in together.
3) The GA can send out targeted emails to the 2 girls the housing office gave me who are both Chinese and living with 3 American roomates.
In sum, it seems like this change will not happen overnight, but I will hopefully be able to make a move by the beginning of November. 3.5 weeks to go......
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: Dropped by the apartment for the sublease to meet the other potential roomates. Received the unfriendliest welcome possible - not sure I can blame them. Apparently the other roomate never moved in, so I would be asking them to go from 3 roomates to 4. I think it's time to go with gameplan #2.
After the required discussion on how I should hold a meeting with them to go over some issues, we talked about an actual solution of me moving. Here is my plan of attack:
1) There is a Chinese girl trying to sublet her apartment 4 houses down. The GA let me look at the other roomates and that seems like a possibility. I emailed her tonight, hopefully I will hear back.
2) The GA can send out an email to everyone in North Park and say that some people have asked about switching and is anybody else interested. This is promising, but he mentioned that several other people in my situation have already come to him, so it seems like there are lots of orphans and no stable house to put all of us in together.
3) The GA can send out targeted emails to the 2 girls the housing office gave me who are both Chinese and living with 3 American roomates.
In sum, it seems like this change will not happen overnight, but I will hopefully be able to make a move by the beginning of November. 3.5 weeks to go......
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: Dropped by the apartment for the sublease to meet the other potential roomates. Received the unfriendliest welcome possible - not sure I can blame them. Apparently the other roomate never moved in, so I would be asking them to go from 3 roomates to 4. I think it's time to go with gameplan #2.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Photo Essay re: F The Chinese
Photos:
1) This is the spot on the counter where both clean and dirty dishes are held. How can you tell them apart? Never come up...
2) Here are 2 of 4 rice cookers and the microwave that has been permanently moved to the floor.
3) The open container of dried fish that has been here since I moved in. Could that be why everything smells like death?
4) Cover raw meat? Why bother?
5) Final exhibit, here you can see the Styrofoam container used for chicken now holding the "gateways to clean" (i.e. sponges and the only things they use that include soap)
Waiting in my office, why not post about stuff
I know that I should be working, but I am not. I did turn in a paper today for prosem long before anyone else has finished, so I feel slightly better about my academic progress and abilities. In fact, I feel much better, because the questions were interesting and fun for me to write about, and everyone else seemed confused. So go Sarah. They still all seem to be working really hard on stuff and I don't have much to do, which is still not sitting so well with me.
Craigslist guys update: Named J-local for the person here and J-far for the person who is only coming into town for a weekend.
*J-local is almost certainly a creep and cheating on someone else. He says he raises money for schools and lives nearby in New Hampshire. He didn't respond all weekend, then Monday morning he sent me an email asking for more pictures and then tried to video-chat me without even asking. Hello social norms? I refused the video request, but we did chat a bit. He seemed okay but when I was like, "lets meet up" he got strange and said he was going out of town or something. I have a feeling this is the guy who is just going off the fantasy/chats/pictures and has no intention of meeting. Which is just fine with me. His emails were also a bit strange because he kept saying "can't wait to laugh our asses about how ridiculous meeting on Craigslist is". Well dude, way to keep repeating that and showing me how clearly uncomfortable and self-conscious you are about it. So attractive. Also, he used the phrase "have a glass of vino" 2 times in an email, which just smacks of effort to me. Vino? Really? Are you trying to be cool? Over it.
*J-far is a bit more promising. He sent me a picture and he looks cute! He seems funny, a little under-confident (he assumes I will be too smart for him because I go to Dartmouth- boy is that a ridiculous statement), but overall genuine and nice. He is coming up in a few weekends to discuss some business deal involving polymers with the Chemistry department and will be staying nearby. I am still not sure if I will actually meet up with him. I guess I have some time to make a decision.
Not too many other updates. I had 2 other encounters with "alpha-females" from Saturday and they proved to be totally bitchy to me on both occasions, so I am just going to stay clear of them as much as humanly possible. Yesterday I was going to visit my friend in the hospital with her advisor again and she sent me an email saying to meet at 4 and that the alpha-females (can I just say the bitches?) would be joining. I felt like, maybe I had misread the situation Saturday and should give it another go. I walked up there and said "hi", bitches turn towards me and stare. One finally says hello back, the other says nothing. I wait awkwardly for a bit and then was like "I am going to go later I think, peace". I also called today to find out about bringing my friends meds and when she announced it was me on the phone, I heard one of the bitches say something like "oh, ugh, Sarah". So, ya know, fuck 'em. I shall try my hardest to avoid them and then turn others against them if I ever have the chance. See how much I am growing as a person ;)
In all seriousness, these experiences have made me try a little harder to be nicer to one of the first years who I don't love so much, so I think some personal growth might be happening.
Craigslist guys update: Named J-local for the person here and J-far for the person who is only coming into town for a weekend.
*J-local is almost certainly a creep and cheating on someone else. He says he raises money for schools and lives nearby in New Hampshire. He didn't respond all weekend, then Monday morning he sent me an email asking for more pictures and then tried to video-chat me without even asking. Hello social norms? I refused the video request, but we did chat a bit. He seemed okay but when I was like, "lets meet up" he got strange and said he was going out of town or something. I have a feeling this is the guy who is just going off the fantasy/chats/pictures and has no intention of meeting. Which is just fine with me. His emails were also a bit strange because he kept saying "can't wait to laugh our asses about how ridiculous meeting on Craigslist is". Well dude, way to keep repeating that and showing me how clearly uncomfortable and self-conscious you are about it. So attractive. Also, he used the phrase "have a glass of vino" 2 times in an email, which just smacks of effort to me. Vino? Really? Are you trying to be cool? Over it.
*J-far is a bit more promising. He sent me a picture and he looks cute! He seems funny, a little under-confident (he assumes I will be too smart for him because I go to Dartmouth- boy is that a ridiculous statement), but overall genuine and nice. He is coming up in a few weekends to discuss some business deal involving polymers with the Chemistry department and will be staying nearby. I am still not sure if I will actually meet up with him. I guess I have some time to make a decision.
Not too many other updates. I had 2 other encounters with "alpha-females" from Saturday and they proved to be totally bitchy to me on both occasions, so I am just going to stay clear of them as much as humanly possible. Yesterday I was going to visit my friend in the hospital with her advisor again and she sent me an email saying to meet at 4 and that the alpha-females (can I just say the bitches?) would be joining. I felt like, maybe I had misread the situation Saturday and should give it another go. I walked up there and said "hi", bitches turn towards me and stare. One finally says hello back, the other says nothing. I wait awkwardly for a bit and then was like "I am going to go later I think, peace". I also called today to find out about bringing my friends meds and when she announced it was me on the phone, I heard one of the bitches say something like "oh, ugh, Sarah". So, ya know, fuck 'em. I shall try my hardest to avoid them and then turn others against them if I ever have the chance. See how much I am growing as a person ;)
In all seriousness, these experiences have made me try a little harder to be nicer to one of the first years who I don't love so much, so I think some personal growth might be happening.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
F the Chinese
I am so over this bi-cultural experiment. I went out to lunch with my parents, KP, and another first year friend and it just brought all the anger to a boil.
I am sick of the disgusting pools of water that occur every single time my roomate takes a shower. I am now imagining that she pushes the curtain aside entirely and just showers. Like a retard.
I am sick of the disgusting kitchen habits. You CANNOT CLEAN UP RAW MEAT ON THE COUNTER IF THERE IS NO SOAP!!!!!!!!! Also, new horror story, is that they have been putting unwashed utensils from the counter in the dish drainer that I use for my clean stuff. Are you kidding? Did you use this? Did you wash this? Oh my god. And yes, the disgusting chicken-parts sponge holder is still in existence. The other day I saw another chicken part container in the sink and was getting ready to panic, but then I saw that they washed it out and put it in the garbage. Question from the floor - WHY DID YOU WASH IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!
If I walk downstairs one more time while you have a group of your freakish asian friends practicing some bizzare pop music dance routine and you all stop and look at me, I will tear your fucking eyes out. I'm serious. And no, you can't eat them in some awful abomination of an omelet later.
On that note, I believe this is a residence and not some sort of a lounge for your friends to hang out in when you are not there. You can and should have friends over, you can and must be present when they are here! Part of me doesn't want to open this up for discussion because I do have friends crash on the couches, but I think that is a different story. Right?
I drink cold water. Is that really the most fascinating thing that you and your friends have ever seen in your whole lifetime and feel the need to mention every single time I go get a class of water? Yup, still drinking it from the Brita pitcher in the fridge. I know.....what a crazy ridiculous thought to drink cold water. Stop asking, start contracting salmonella poisoning.
You are welcome to say hello when you see me, we will probably even make small talk if we are both doing something in a room for an extended period of time, but every time you see me does not require you to stop what you are doing and act like you haven't seen me in 3 weeks. Nothing new from when I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth and when I walked back to my room. Fo realz.
I understand things are different in China, I really do, but I am 100% confident you all lived with electricity and heaters before. I know this because I ask you, politely, when you leave every light in the house on overnight or turn the heaters up to max power and then open the windows because it is too hot....on a 75 degree day. Also, if you blow a fuse and the electric outlets don't work, kindly put in a work order (yes they know how to do this as I've done them before) instead of moving the microwave to the floor.
I just bought a mini-fridge from Walmart because I can't deal with them shoving around all the stuff I put in the fridge, and it really angers me that I have only finished week 3 of 50 weeks that we will be occupying the same living space.
I am sick of the disgusting pools of water that occur every single time my roomate takes a shower. I am now imagining that she pushes the curtain aside entirely and just showers. Like a retard.
I am sick of the disgusting kitchen habits. You CANNOT CLEAN UP RAW MEAT ON THE COUNTER IF THERE IS NO SOAP!!!!!!!!! Also, new horror story, is that they have been putting unwashed utensils from the counter in the dish drainer that I use for my clean stuff. Are you kidding? Did you use this? Did you wash this? Oh my god. And yes, the disgusting chicken-parts sponge holder is still in existence. The other day I saw another chicken part container in the sink and was getting ready to panic, but then I saw that they washed it out and put it in the garbage. Question from the floor - WHY DID YOU WASH IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!
If I walk downstairs one more time while you have a group of your freakish asian friends practicing some bizzare pop music dance routine and you all stop and look at me, I will tear your fucking eyes out. I'm serious. And no, you can't eat them in some awful abomination of an omelet later.
On that note, I believe this is a residence and not some sort of a lounge for your friends to hang out in when you are not there. You can and should have friends over, you can and must be present when they are here! Part of me doesn't want to open this up for discussion because I do have friends crash on the couches, but I think that is a different story. Right?
I drink cold water. Is that really the most fascinating thing that you and your friends have ever seen in your whole lifetime and feel the need to mention every single time I go get a class of water? Yup, still drinking it from the Brita pitcher in the fridge. I know.....what a crazy ridiculous thought to drink cold water. Stop asking, start contracting salmonella poisoning.
You are welcome to say hello when you see me, we will probably even make small talk if we are both doing something in a room for an extended period of time, but every time you see me does not require you to stop what you are doing and act like you haven't seen me in 3 weeks. Nothing new from when I walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth and when I walked back to my room. Fo realz.
I understand things are different in China, I really do, but I am 100% confident you all lived with electricity and heaters before. I know this because I ask you, politely, when you leave every light in the house on overnight or turn the heaters up to max power and then open the windows because it is too hot....on a 75 degree day. Also, if you blow a fuse and the electric outlets don't work, kindly put in a work order (yes they know how to do this as I've done them before) instead of moving the microwave to the floor.
I just bought a mini-fridge from Walmart because I can't deal with them shoving around all the stuff I put in the fridge, and it really angers me that I have only finished week 3 of 50 weeks that we will be occupying the same living space.
A little bright spot
After reading the last post you might ask "well shit Sarah, if it was so terrible why did you stick around?".
So, there is this guy who is in his 4th year, is really nice, extremely smart, and seems to think that Sarah might actually be someone worth talking to and getting to know. Shocking right? I don't know that I see anything romantic coming from this (though he is single), but it's comforting that I might be able to find at least one person who can help me navigate through the department. He is also obsessed with zombies, and we know how I feel about that.
So, I tried to spend as much of the apple party and the after party at India Queen getting to know him better. I hope to have more good updates about him in the future.
So, there is this guy who is in his 4th year, is really nice, extremely smart, and seems to think that Sarah might actually be someone worth talking to and getting to know. Shocking right? I don't know that I see anything romantic coming from this (though he is single), but it's comforting that I might be able to find at least one person who can help me navigate through the department. He is also obsessed with zombies, and we know how I feel about that.
So, I tried to spend as much of the apple party and the after party at India Queen getting to know him better. I hope to have more good updates about him in the future.
Very Social Weekend, Sort of Dissapointed
Saturday was supposed to be an awesome day, and in many ways it was, but in the end I sort of felt lost.
The rundown:
10:30 am - meet with first year friends to drive over to Poverty Lane Apple Orchard
11 am - meet with rest of Psych people to pick apples for party
12 am - head to advisor's house (insane insane insane house) to begin apple pie baking/ soccer game watching/ lunch / dinner / booze festival.
8 pm - head back to Hanover to get ready for a much hyped graduate student and med student semi-formal party.
So I woke up and it was cold and raining. It was off and on, but the theme throughout was rain. We met up (4 cool psych people, not the other 3 in our year who never show up) drove over, and there was a moderate showing of 8 other people, but it was definitely not worth the effort of picking the apples.
Highlight - got to meet my advisors family and they are all much funnier and cooler than anyone ever (his kids are 8 and 13). His house is absolutely amazing. I also definitely felt like we got to talk and bond a bit over the course of the day, and I feel a lot better about working with him and feeling like he doesn't see me as a pain in the ass.
Lowlight - the psych department is extremely close-knit and has a LOT of history together, which is good, but nearly impossible for any outsiders to break in. The pie-baking competition is supposed to be fun, but like 5 people were all over it and basically cannot pull themselves away from the past enough to include any of the new people. My advisors wife was even like "guys, let go of the past and realize that it sort of sucks to be new here and not have any idea what you are talking about". This is probably not helped by the fact that past graduate students show up to these events and it's even more of a throwback that the newbies just can't be part of. So overall, I had a good time and ate some fantastic food, but I'm realizing more and more that I might just need to stick to my first year friends and give up any hope of being close with other years.
Semi-Formal - I probably should have mentioned that I was the designated driver for the earlier part of the day, so by the time we got the dance I had been a little drunk earlier, but was definitely not drunk like everyone else. Which was fine, but ya know. We get to the dance which is held in a tent in the woods (I know, it's Dartmouth) and it is literally a giant puddle of mud. It is disgusting. I wasn't even wearing very nice shoes/clothes, and I was totally thrown off my how terrible it was to move around. The music was also completely terrible and unacceptable to dance to. The beer, however, was delicious and flowing, so I think we all tried to forget about the mud by boozing.
A disappointing aspect of the dance was that I had met a bunch of people during my two weeks here, and they were all either not at the dance, or had already found their own group of people to hang out with and weren't really in the mood to be social. So, I spent most of the dance hanging out with my friends and a few of the older psych people who came, but it wasn't the awesome social event I had been expecting.
After the dance, my two best friends were hammered and decided to go home. I probably should have followed suit but it was only 11, and I was sort of not willing to give up on the prospect of meeting some new people that night. The word on the street was that the psych people had headed to the late night spot (India Queen, yeah....) so I took my other 2 friends (who are very nice, but not terribly outgoing or into the party scene) and we trudged over there in a our muddy shoes.
Lowest-light - India Queen was not a good thing. All the people from the apple party earlier had gone to India Queen, but they were all the people who were just not having me as a friend or someone to include. They were the entirety of the bar, there was absolutely no avoiding them, and I eventually got kinda snappy towards one of them which I think might have been the downfall. Okay snappy isn't the right word, I just responded a little more Sarah-esque and little less like "oh you're so awesome and amazing and right" as everyone else does (not because I was drunk, but I was sort of sick of his attitudes and him acting like he was better than me). I should mention that this was the kid who basically runs the whole show and it was not a smart move.
I spent the rest of the time outside and when I finally came back in to use the bathroom the guy was like "oh you're still here", and I said "yup, I was just outside", to which he responded "well it has no bearing on my life in anyway, so whatever". Dick. Then the other girl who sort of runs things was making the like talky-talky-talky motion with her hands, possibly towards me, and I responded with "I just answered his question" and I walked away.
Maybe I am being over-sensitive and they were just joking around, but I don't think so. I have definitely sensed some fangs coming out from the two "alpha-females" who are used to running everything.
It sucks, but I feel like my gameplan for the foreseeable future is just going to be to stick to my first year friends and not really try to engage with anyone else unless they seek me out. It isn't a good feeling when people don't seem to like who you are.
The rundown:
10:30 am - meet with first year friends to drive over to Poverty Lane Apple Orchard
11 am - meet with rest of Psych people to pick apples for party
12 am - head to advisor's house (insane insane insane house) to begin apple pie baking/ soccer game watching/ lunch / dinner / booze festival.
8 pm - head back to Hanover to get ready for a much hyped graduate student and med student semi-formal party.
So I woke up and it was cold and raining. It was off and on, but the theme throughout was rain. We met up (4 cool psych people, not the other 3 in our year who never show up) drove over, and there was a moderate showing of 8 other people, but it was definitely not worth the effort of picking the apples.
Highlight - got to meet my advisors family and they are all much funnier and cooler than anyone ever (his kids are 8 and 13). His house is absolutely amazing. I also definitely felt like we got to talk and bond a bit over the course of the day, and I feel a lot better about working with him and feeling like he doesn't see me as a pain in the ass.
Lowlight - the psych department is extremely close-knit and has a LOT of history together, which is good, but nearly impossible for any outsiders to break in. The pie-baking competition is supposed to be fun, but like 5 people were all over it and basically cannot pull themselves away from the past enough to include any of the new people. My advisors wife was even like "guys, let go of the past and realize that it sort of sucks to be new here and not have any idea what you are talking about". This is probably not helped by the fact that past graduate students show up to these events and it's even more of a throwback that the newbies just can't be part of. So overall, I had a good time and ate some fantastic food, but I'm realizing more and more that I might just need to stick to my first year friends and give up any hope of being close with other years.
Semi-Formal - I probably should have mentioned that I was the designated driver for the earlier part of the day, so by the time we got the dance I had been a little drunk earlier, but was definitely not drunk like everyone else. Which was fine, but ya know. We get to the dance which is held in a tent in the woods (I know, it's Dartmouth) and it is literally a giant puddle of mud. It is disgusting. I wasn't even wearing very nice shoes/clothes, and I was totally thrown off my how terrible it was to move around. The music was also completely terrible and unacceptable to dance to. The beer, however, was delicious and flowing, so I think we all tried to forget about the mud by boozing.
A disappointing aspect of the dance was that I had met a bunch of people during my two weeks here, and they were all either not at the dance, or had already found their own group of people to hang out with and weren't really in the mood to be social. So, I spent most of the dance hanging out with my friends and a few of the older psych people who came, but it wasn't the awesome social event I had been expecting.
After the dance, my two best friends were hammered and decided to go home. I probably should have followed suit but it was only 11, and I was sort of not willing to give up on the prospect of meeting some new people that night. The word on the street was that the psych people had headed to the late night spot (India Queen, yeah....) so I took my other 2 friends (who are very nice, but not terribly outgoing or into the party scene) and we trudged over there in a our muddy shoes.
Lowest-light - India Queen was not a good thing. All the people from the apple party earlier had gone to India Queen, but they were all the people who were just not having me as a friend or someone to include. They were the entirety of the bar, there was absolutely no avoiding them, and I eventually got kinda snappy towards one of them which I think might have been the downfall. Okay snappy isn't the right word, I just responded a little more Sarah-esque and little less like "oh you're so awesome and amazing and right" as everyone else does (not because I was drunk, but I was sort of sick of his attitudes and him acting like he was better than me). I should mention that this was the kid who basically runs the whole show and it was not a smart move.
I spent the rest of the time outside and when I finally came back in to use the bathroom the guy was like "oh you're still here", and I said "yup, I was just outside", to which he responded "well it has no bearing on my life in anyway, so whatever". Dick. Then the other girl who sort of runs things was making the like talky-talky-talky motion with her hands, possibly towards me, and I responded with "I just answered his question" and I walked away.
Maybe I am being over-sensitive and they were just joking around, but I don't think so. I have definitely sensed some fangs coming out from the two "alpha-females" who are used to running everything.
It sucks, but I feel like my gameplan for the foreseeable future is just going to be to stick to my first year friends and not really try to engage with anyone else unless they seek me out. It isn't a good feeling when people don't seem to like who you are.
The Other Side of a Spinal Tap
Friday was an interesting day as I was finally the person staying with a friend in the ER and telling her that everything was going to be okay, and the hardest part of the spinal tap is the local anesthesia (false). My friend who thought she had the flu was staying at the school infirmary all week and her advisor was sending us email updates about how she was getting better and would probably be going home Friday.
I will break to say this is sort of a nightmare situation - no friends in the area (do you have friends after 1 week?), family is in Canada, just bought a cell phone a day before she got sick, no sense of the how the health insurance plan works (again, she's from Canada), and your advisor is the person coming to your bedside which is a little awkward. So I really feel for her, and it makes me appreciate all of my friends even more for being there with me through all the strange and unexplained illnesses. Thanks guys!
But yeah, so things were really jumbled Friday when she called me and asked if I could ride along with her the the hospital for some "final tests before she got released". So I don't bother eating lunch and just grab a book and head out to meet her. As soon as she gets to the ER they make it clear that she is definitely not leaving the hospital and may have some form of meningitis. Awesome. So glad we all shared drinks with her and I am sitting next to her with no form of protection.
Then this poor girl who has never even had an IV in her arm, has to go through that process, at CAT scan, and MRI (which was funny that she was nervous since she literally scans people in an MRI all day long), and the dreaded spinal tap. I have no concept of if my spinal tap was that bad, but the fellow was completely unable to "tap" her, then they had to inject more anesthesia, then they had to go back in and try to tap again. It was awful. I am so glad I had no idea what that looked like prior to mine, or there is no way I could have done it. And Matt, I tip my hat to you good sir.
After that I got a ride back to Hanover, went to pick up her stuff and found her very worried advisor milling about trying to help. We grab her stuff from the infirmary, drive to the hospital, realize her cell phone is missing so we drive back and get more of her stuff, get to the hospital again and realize the phone is dead and worthless without a charger, drive to her house, break into her bedroom to get the charger, and finally drive back. Definitely good bonding time with a faculty member, but a little odd for the first lengthy encounter (so, how do we sneak into her house?).
Overall an exhausting Friday, but I was glad to give back to the medical helping karma fund.
I will break to say this is sort of a nightmare situation - no friends in the area (do you have friends after 1 week?), family is in Canada, just bought a cell phone a day before she got sick, no sense of the how the health insurance plan works (again, she's from Canada), and your advisor is the person coming to your bedside which is a little awkward. So I really feel for her, and it makes me appreciate all of my friends even more for being there with me through all the strange and unexplained illnesses. Thanks guys!
But yeah, so things were really jumbled Friday when she called me and asked if I could ride along with her the the hospital for some "final tests before she got released". So I don't bother eating lunch and just grab a book and head out to meet her. As soon as she gets to the ER they make it clear that she is definitely not leaving the hospital and may have some form of meningitis. Awesome. So glad we all shared drinks with her and I am sitting next to her with no form of protection.
Then this poor girl who has never even had an IV in her arm, has to go through that process, at CAT scan, and MRI (which was funny that she was nervous since she literally scans people in an MRI all day long), and the dreaded spinal tap. I have no concept of if my spinal tap was that bad, but the fellow was completely unable to "tap" her, then they had to inject more anesthesia, then they had to go back in and try to tap again. It was awful. I am so glad I had no idea what that looked like prior to mine, or there is no way I could have done it. And Matt, I tip my hat to you good sir.
After that I got a ride back to Hanover, went to pick up her stuff and found her very worried advisor milling about trying to help. We grab her stuff from the infirmary, drive to the hospital, realize her cell phone is missing so we drive back and get more of her stuff, get to the hospital again and realize the phone is dead and worthless without a charger, drive to her house, break into her bedroom to get the charger, and finally drive back. Definitely good bonding time with a faculty member, but a little odd for the first lengthy encounter (so, how do we sneak into her house?).
Overall an exhausting Friday, but I was glad to give back to the medical helping karma fund.
Craigslist Guys
Yeah that's right, I've already resorted to meeting guys (or trying to meet guys) on Craigslist. I figure that I've been forcing it as an option on y'all for years, it's probably time I try it out myself. First, it's incredible how few posts there are for this area, like maybe 1 new post every 2 weeks. I also hate how difficult it is to summarize long email chains in this blog.
So far, I have made some connection with a very cute guy who is coming to the area in two weeks and is staying for the weekend. Hopefully that will work out.
Another guy seemed promising but I was busy all day Friday and didn't respond to his last email for a bit, so maybe he lost interest? Or maybe he is a freak?
Either way, can't wait to write a post about the really incredible or ridiculous or terrible dates I hope to go on in the future.
So far, I have made some connection with a very cute guy who is coming to the area in two weeks and is staying for the weekend. Hopefully that will work out.
Another guy seemed promising but I was busy all day Friday and didn't respond to his last email for a bit, so maybe he lost interest? Or maybe he is a freak?
Either way, can't wait to write a post about the really incredible or ridiculous or terrible dates I hope to go on in the future.
Friday, October 2, 2009
GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM
What the fuck has my roomate been doing in the bathroom for 39 minutes and counting?!? I hear the shower go on and off, I hear her moving around...what the fuck is she doing????
I just want to brush my teeth and take my drunky little ass to bed.
Hate.
I just want to brush my teeth and take my drunky little ass to bed.
Hate.
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