A Much Needed Weekend Away!

Dorm life was really starting to get to me last week.  I had been in the hall for two weeks straight and was starting to development a little twitch.  I don't know if it was the added stress of school work starting to pile up or what but my patience was beginning to wear thin.  The floor reached a new level of disgusting last weekend.  I don't know if I've said it before but we have an AMAZING cleaning staff.  Luckily my schedule lets me sleep in until they've been by in the morning and I always have a clean shower...Monday through Friday at least.  The cleaning staff doesn't come in on the weekends.  So by the time I got up on Sunday and headed to the shower all of the ones I normally use were filled with vomit.  Delicious.  So my friend (who came to visit for the weekend) and I wandered down the hall toting our shower essentials in search of puke free showers.  There was some silver lining to this experience.  We ended up in a bathroom I never use and discovered that the water pressure in this particular bathroom is 10x better than the one I normally use!  Frustrating experience but in the end beneficial.   

The following week was full of little frustrations like trash being left everywhere, drunken screaming at 3:00 a.m., and just all around rudeness.  During this time I was trying to put together a presentation that I had to give to housing employees on why I should be rehired in the Fall.  I had major writer's/creator's block and couldn't come up with a theme.  Can't imagine why it was so difficult to come up with reasons to ask them to let me do this again... Fortunately I came up with something at the last minute because regardless of the past week's annoyances I really do like this job.  

Needless to say when my mom phoned during that stressful week to ask if I wanted to go to Snow Mountain in Atlanta I said "ABSOLUTELY I DO!" And I'm so glad I did.  Outsiders looking in may think my family is a little crazy but we always have a good time.  I have gotten to where I intentionally do not put on mascara before a long car ride because I know I'm going to laugh so hard that I'll cry it all off before we reach our destination.  That was definitely the case this time.  Pops was already in Atlanta working this week so my mom, sister and I drove over Saturday morning to meet him.  On the way over we got to telling stories on each other and here come the tears.  If you're ever considering spending time with my family check your ego at the door.  Any and everyone is fair game.  We show our love by supporting each other but also and more often so by laughing at each other.  Hey, if you can't even take criticism from the ones you love then this world is going to be a hard place to live in.  And its not so bad, sure you're going to be the butt of the joke for a few minutes but it'll only remind you of something dumb someone else did and just like that the attention shifts and you're back to cracking on someone else. But don't be fooled by all the "meanness" we're the first to defend each other as well.  That's how we work and so far its kept us a pretty tight knit group.  

So all of that leads to me telling you that Dad bore the brunt of the jokes this weekend. Which is good because he probably handles it the best of us all.  After we got to Atlanta we met dad at the hotel, consolidated to one car and started out for a fun evening of snow tubing.   As we were pulling out of the parking lot the following conversation ensued...

Mom: "I don't have any cash and I need $10 to park."

Dad: "Don't worry I got you covered."

Sister: "Yo dad, you be stackin'?"

Dad: "Yeah, and I've got more waters and graham crackers in my car if anyone wants some!"

Me laughing hysterically: "No dad, she said 'stackin' not 'snackin'" 

Oh how I love my parents.  We ended up having a great time that night and then headed back to the hotel.  Since this was the first day in two weeks that I had been awake before 11:00 a.m. I was pretty exhausted when we got back.  I crawled in the bed and was asleep by 9:30!  The only problem with this was my body has gotten used to going to bed at 2:00ish and thought we were taking a nap.  So I snapped wide awake at 11:00.  Awesome. Now I'm up.  The street lamp is shining directly into our window and after 10 minutes of trying and failing to shut the curtains I give up and stare at the ceiling.  Turns out the curtains were really simple but that was only evident the next morning.  So I'm staring at the ceiling willing myself to go to sleep when I hear a familiar sound...a drunken girl giggling and laughing obnoxiously loud.  Seriously?  I drive all the way to Atlanta and I get stuck next to someone that might as well be one of my residents?  Lovely.  And now that I'm well rested from my "nap" I won't be sleeping for a while.  *Sigh* At least I'm back at my parents' house tonight.  The only person downstairs where its quiet, dark, and I have an amazing mattress that's actually large enough for me to roll over and not plummet to my death.  Or less dramatically and more likely a knot on my forehead.  So that's the plan for the rest of the night.  Wash my clothes for free, eat something I didn't pay for, and get some good sleep.  Then tomorrow I'm going back to school with a refreshed mind and better attitude towards the dorm.  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!  

Thus Says the Ugg Boot Army.

I've overheard some very interesting conversations since moving back into a Freshman dorm.  Some funny, some sad and some down right disturbing. For fun I thought I'd transcribe a few for you here.  Enjoy : )

Resident A (Standing in hall knocking on door): Hey its me.
Resident B (In room ignoring resident A): silence
A: Let me in. Its me.
B: Silence
A: Its me. You have to let me in. Come on. Talk to me.
B: No. Go away.
A: Let me in. ITS ME!
B: No I said I don't want to talk about it. You made me feel really sh**** last night.
A: Just let me in.

This is the last of the conversation I heard. I don't know how "me" "you" and "I" worked things out but "me" seemed ready to cooperate.

A common conversation you'll here goes a little like this...
-Hey are you going to dinner? (Dinner being are you eating at the sorority house)
-No. Are you going out?
-Yeah. What are you wearing?
-I don't know what are you wearing?
-Probably something with my leggings and boots.

I'm used to hearing that conversation but heard a pretty funny twist last night:

-Hey are you going out?
-Yeah. What are you wearing?
-I'm not sure yet. I can't decide if I want to dress really cute or really un-cute. What do you think?

Ohhhh so the un-cute look is intentional. Thanks for the insight ladies.

I'll keep the post PG and not go into the convos that virtually set women's equality back 100 years.  I'll be on the look or listen out for other funny comments.  Happy weekend everyone!

Insert Witty Post Title Here.

Okay, quick disclaimer from my last post. I mentioned living with spoiled 18 year olds. That was stereotypical and wrong of me.  They're not all 18 years old.  Just kidding, they're not all spoiled either.  I've met a few who have been super nice and genuine.  However the evidence would show that there are some spoiled brats who live on our floor.  Or maybe they're not spoiled.  Maybe they're just illiterate and can't read the "No food in the sink" or "Please place trash in the trash room signs".  I mean come on people.  Is it really that difficult?  How do you look the cleaning lady in the eye when you know you've made her morning absolutely horrible.  There is just such a lack of respect for others.  As RA's we're required to have a new bulletin board each month.  Mine was up for about a week before it started being torn down.  It doesn't hurt my feelings that it was torn down.  Honestly I didn't spend that much time on it and it didn't look that good to begin with.  But have a little respect for yourself and where you live.  It looks tacky.  Alright, I'll get down off of my high horse and stop complaining now.

I haven't had many RA duties to perform lately.  We had our first floor meeting of the semester where I introduced myself to the girls.  I couldn't really get a good read on whether they liked me, thought I was a loser, or didn't even care to notice we were in the same room.  I must have made an impression on one girl though because she sought me out for assistance later that night.  I successfully helped her open her jar of pickles.  Glad she soft tossed me my first time at bat.  I should be glad that there's not much going on and I'll probably regret saying this later but I'd like something semi-exciting to happen.  How can I practice my newly acquired RA skills if no one has a roommate conflict, passes out in the stairwell, or gets in a loud fight with the boyfriend?  Like I said, I'll probably regret that but is one little cat fight too much to ask for?

I've finally started my classes and I'm both excited and a little scared about the next year and a half.  The classes are going to be tough but I'm up for the challenge.  What's really scary is the fact that I'm enjoying my social welfare policy class.  Me enjoying policy?  I guess that makes sense given my love of history but I never really connected the two before.  For our big assignment we have to analyze either an era in social welfare policy, or an individual who has made a significant difference in social policy or its delivery.  We did an assignment similar to this is undergrad but it was a group project and we were not allowed to chose which policy we wanted to study.  That was not fun.  I know most of you could care less about social policy but if you have any cool ideas for this project let me know!

Finally I'd like to end this post with a great big ROLL TIDE ROLL!  We beat Kentucky tonight in basketball. Way to go boys!

Reporting for Duty

Well if you've gotten sick of my incessant ramblings and have been wondering when I was actually going to start blogging about the Resident Advisor experience you're in luck!  If you've already quit reading then you suck.  Just kidding, but I could say that if I want because you won't see it.

So last Thursday I drove down to report for RA training.  The email I received said training would start at noon on Thursday.  What the email did not say was that it wouldn't end until 7:00 p.m. Saturday.  I don't know what all I expected RA training to entail but I certainly wasn't planning on three days.  I had made plans for the weekend but those were quickly cancelled.  The training itself was fairly painless.  The RA Olympics were another story.  Those turned out to be full of pain and not all physical.

I realize I'm completely out of shape (except maybe a round one)  but I have maintained a small amount of my previous athleticism. And although I've temporarily misplaced most of my athletic ability I've never shelved my competitive spirit.  That being said it was extremely difficult to be the only all girls dorm competing in the RA Olympics.  Sure we won Trivia, Rock, Paper, Scissors, and a round of corn hole but dodge ball, volleyball, and basketball were a disaster.  The biggest disaster being dodge ball.  During the round I was 'fortunate' enough to participate in we played an all guys team. I say guys because they were most certainly not gentlemen.  I get being competitive believe me I do, but when you can beat us by throwing the balls at half speed what's the point in hurling them as hard and fast as you can?  Do you really want to hurt us that badly?  I'm new! What have I done to make you mad?  Anyway, while I was pointing out a ball to one of my teammates a guy threw a ball and it hit my wrist. Hit my wrist so hard my whole arm went numb for a minute. Was that really necessary?  Do you have to beat up on girls? What would your mother say? Ok enough ranting about the olympics.  We finished up our training Saturday night and I got to jump right into action with my first night of on call duty on Sunday.

On call duty is from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. During that time the two RAs on call have to be in the building and have their phones on them at all times.  Its our duty to respond to whatever crisis may occur, make rounds of the building, ensure the safety of the residents, and enforce housing policy and protocols.  I was pretty tired by the time that Sunday rolled around but excited nonetheless to start my first night of on call duty.  Since Sunday was the day most residents had just moved back in the night went by rather slowly.  The only things I had to do were submit a few work orders and politely tell a male guest it was past curfew.  At our dorm male guests are only allowed to visit during certain hours and must check in with the front desk.  When the guy hadn't checked back out by curfew another RA and I went to go find him and remind him of the time. No big deal, he and the girl who checked him in were super nice about it.  Other than that my first night was pretty dull.  The only thing I did wrong was forget for a brief moment that I was on call and take a dose of nyquil.  Oops?  Good thing my phone still wakes me up when I'm snoozing with the best sleep you ever got with a cold medicine.

This post has been pretty boring but I've been working on a 1,000 piece puzzle (lame I know but my all day orientation got cancelled) and am determined to finish it before tomorrow.  I promise to post about the funny stuff that's been going on later this week.  Like the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling and living with spoiled 18 year olds who are completely disgusting.  Which reminds me, I need to make some "If you sprinkle when you tinkle..." signs for the bathroom.  Thanks Cori for reminding me of that lovely little rhyme!