That's All Folks!

Well, I'm a little late in posting this but the time has finally come. I am no longer employed as a Resident Advisor!  My last day at work was a little over a week ago and it already feels like I've been gone a month. I honestly cannot believe how quickly this year flew by.  I remember the first night I moved back into the dorm.  I already felt out of place because I was a 22 year old graduate student and most of my coworkers were undergrads and either 19 or 20 years old. For the first time that I can remember I felt old. As I turned off the lights and crawled into bed thinking "what did I get myself into?" I looked up and noticed the previous resident had left glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. And then I felt ancient.

The year was full of surprises, both good and bad.  Good surprise: My boss was a rock star and my graduate assistant was a teammate from the rowing team my freshman year. Bad surprise: Tripped out drunk girls can run up stairs much more quickly than I can. Undetermined surprise: A candy cane left on my door handle by one of the girls on my floor. I could only think of about 1 out of the 90 who might want to poison me but I don't like candy canes enough to be comfortable with those odds.

I'll be the first one to admit that I went into this job with a lot of apprehension and not much enthusiasm. There were days when I wanted to set the building on fire and laugh maniacally while it burned. There were days when I wanted to run away and live under a bridge with a hippie named Rainbow Destiny and bathe at the gas station. But surprisingly there were a lot of days where I loved my job.

Okay, maybe love is a strong word. Enjoyed is more like it. However, I'll be the first to admit that being a RA taught me a lot about myself, others, and has already opened doors for me in other endeavors.

So, if you are a college student who is looking for a job that provides housing I recommend the RA position. Be warned that you will have to comfort a drunk, sobbing girl whose boyfriend just dumped her. You might have to chase a girl up 8 flights of stairs. There's a good possibility that when you go to brush your teeth in the morning the sink will be filled with oatmeal and vomit. Its pretty much guaranteed that you will be on call the night before a big paper or exam and everyone in the building will be locked out of their room.

There's also a chance that you'll succsuccessfully resolve a roommate conflict and watch two declared enemies become friends. Perhaps get the opportunity to help someone choose their career path. Maybe even impart a little wisdom only to find that you received much more knowledge than you gave.

It was a year of stress and frustration but it was also a year of growth, learning, and a lot of fun.  I met so many wonderful people working in Housing that I never would have had the opportunity to know otherwise. That's the best thing I'm taking away from this crazy year. New friends who I am going to miss quite terribly. Thanks for making it a year to remember! I love you all and wish you good luck next semester because we all know you're going to need it!

This Semester in Tweets

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a problem. This semester has been much more eventful and full of blog worthy events than last semester. That's not the problem. The problem is I'm taking 15 hours of graduate school, working two jobs and haven't found the time to share them with you. Sorry if that sounded whiny. Not complaining, I did it to myself. Just explaining. This is why I have fallen in love with Twitter. 140 character blurbs is about all I've had time for sharing lately. So I've just decided to go back over the past few months and revisit tweets from some of our more interesting nights. If you follow me on Twitter I apologize for the duplication. If you don't follow me on Twitter what's wrong with you? I jest, enjoy!

Sep 23 "My job satisfaction level could easily be improved with a pellet gun. Of course I'm sure a lot of people could say that."  I'm going to guess this was during one of my 2am-5am shifts...

Sept 27 "At class. Went to the restroom and found a girl on the bathroom floor needing medical attention. RA spidey senses kicked in. #alwaysoncall"


Sep 29 "Watching this week's extra creepy Criminal Minds while working the desk. I wonder what the girls are thinking as they walk by..." Turnabout is fair play. Sometimes they scare me. Sometimes I scare them.

Sep 30 " Drunk girl who can't walk or much less stand upright is involuntarily doing the Bernie as her friend leads her by the hand." In case you're unfamiliar with the Bernie. She looked most like the guy in the purple

Sep 30 "So I thought the girl hanging out at the desk was smelling extra funky but turns out there were old jalapeños in the trash can. Yuck!" You can't blame me for jumping to that conclusion.

Oct 1 "Watching the game with 2 girls I've never met. Both from out of state. Thus starts their real education." I was on call so I had to watch the game in Tut. Let's just say they found my game watching superstitions slightly ridiculous.

Oct 2 "On Criminal Minds psychopaths kill you. In grad school psychopathology reports kill you." This doesn't have anything to do with Tutwiler. Just further evidence of my obsession with Criminal Minds and stress level this semester.

Oct 2 "Awkward moment where I almost made someone's mom check in bc she looked like a man..." And yes, she did realize what I was assuming and then later thanked me for being diligent about my job of keeping her daughter safe. Sorry, but if you're rocking a Peter Pan haircut, men's cut polo, jorts, and I can't see your face I've got to go with my gut.

 Oct 9 "Pulled a girl's key card to do a lock out. Her emergency contact is listed as her "unkle". Hooray for high standards UA." Yeah, I hate to say anything negative about my lovely school but c'mon. I guess its true what they say, text talk and spell check are ruining this generation.

 Oct 9 "One little burnt cup of mac n cheese evacuates the entire building. Microwave safe containers only por favor!" This woke me up from an amazing Sunday afternoon nap. That wasn't cool.

Oct 10 "Emailing my boss abt the pee situation from Sat. Subject: "Situation in Rm ###: Is it okay to pee in the bed? Just Depends" Couldn't resist" If you missed the post about this lovely situation you can find it here: http://8thfloortales.blogspot.com/2011/10/oh-is-this-not-bathroom-my-bad.html

Oct 12 "Just when I lose hope for these girls the right resident comes along and brightens my day. I love it when they prove me wrong!" GLIMMER OF HOPE!

Oct 13 "To make room for a futon, 2 of my girls have pushed their beds side by side. Anyone want to make a bet on how long this lasts?" And yes, this is actually still the way their room is situated. I never thought it would last.

Oct 17 "The bigs have been decorating their littles' doors. My hall looks like the girls drank too much and threw up glitter, streamers & balloons." Every time this happens it looks like Ke$ha exploded on my hall.

Oct 20 "Thinking about doing my late shift tonight in my gorilla costume. Thoughts?" Okay, disclaimer: I didn't actually work in the costume but I did come downstairs in it and I did get to scare a few of the more inebriated girls. Worth it.

Oct 24 " Had a wallet turned into the lost and found with 5 different licenses in it. Surprise, she's only under 21 on 1 of them."

Oct 24 "Children will be trick or treating on sorority row tonight. I don't think they realize what kind of tricks or treats they're in for."

Oct 25 "You know the girls are starting to recognize you as an RA when you get on the elevator and all conversations stop :)"

Oct 28 "Walked through Tut barefoot.Should I try and clean my feet or just go ahead and chop them off to prevent any further contamination?" Update: my feet are fine. I had legitimate reason to worry though.

Oct 28 "Pretty sure the girl that just walked in wasn't wearing any pants..."

Oct 29 "Tutwiler Desk game for this weekend: Everyday outfit or Halloween costume?" This was actually a lot of fun and just as difficult as it sounds.

Nov 1 " "Is that girl even wearing clothes?" Yep. It's Halloween at Tut!"

Nov 4 "If the state of Tutwiler tonight is any indication of how this weekend is going to go, God bless us everyone." LSU weekend. Enough said.

Nov 5 "Just the laugh I needed after that game--A girl just asked me to help sneak in her boyfriend. Sorry, I work here. But Roll Tide & good luck."

Nov 10 "Ha! Tweets I hate to see when I'm on call >>"@SlutwilerProbz: Just puked up a whole lot of taco casa with a little bit of dignity" If only I realized what that night had in store...

Nov 10 "Didn't believe what they said about full moons until I was on call during one. It definitely does something" If I ever have a job again with an on call schedule I'm going to compare it to the lunar schedule and make changes accordingly. Definitely one of my least favorite nights thus far.

A string of updates from Nov 11th. Obviously an 2am shift on Friday. Which would be the end of a Thirsty Thursday...

"The lovely ladies of Tut are looking an extra hot mess tonight. And the guys are trying extra hard to get upstairs. Sorry man, cant help you"

"And one of the frat boys just started singing "There she goes"."

"So tempting to tell the drunk girls carrying Hungry Howies that there's a pizza tax to get upstairs."

"Girl with a gaping head wound was just escorted in by the police. Thirsty Thursday is getting ugly."

"Guys underwear over her leggings? Add a belt on her head and we've got Quail Man living in the building. #90sCartoons"

Nov 15  "Tonight was a waste of an outfit." No sweetie, that outfit was a waste of material. Also, its Monday night. What did you expect?"

 Nov 15 "Please don't use this elevator. One of your peers peed in it. Classic." 

Nov 15 "Making a girl pour out half a bottle of Grey Goose. That's what we call a valuable lesson."

Nov 17  "Girl just walked in wearing a shirt and panty hose. Not leggings. Panty hose. This is so far beyond okay." I know we're all familiar with the horrible trend of substituting leggings for pants but now they're taking it too far. I've actually seen multiple girls wearing panty hose as pants. I could comment further on this topic but I hope we can all just agree this is a disturbing development.

Nov 17 "The bathroom on my hall smells like the house of an animal hoarder. Only 1 more month. Only 1 more month."

Nov 17 "There is a girl with a speech bubble taped to her backside that says "BOOM!" Oh how I wish I made this stuff up. Oh how I wish."

Nov 18  "That awkward moment when a girl in the lobby is wearing nothing but an American flag."

 Nov 18 "Its only 6:14 pm and we just saw a girl come into Tut barefoot, wearing a cut off white tee & gold panties. That's it."


I believe that's a good ending note. Sorry I haven't had the time to share any of these events in more detail but I hope you've at least gotten a good laugh. You can follow my on Twitter @MollyKlovesUA for more fun Tut Tales for the remainder of the semester but that's only 3 more weeks! YES! ONLY 3 MORE WEEKS! And that my friends is what I'm thankful for this year. Roll Tide! 

Oh? Is this not the bathroom? My bad.

This is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from the Office Manager today. I would say its contents pretty well sum up my job here at the Tut. For those of you who may think "Oh sure, but that's just one time" you'd be wrong. This is actually the third time this has happened. This semester. Girl are gross. Intoxicated girls are really gross. Welcome to my job.

Ladies,

According to my records, you will be on call on Sunday, October 9, 2011 at some point throughout the day. We had an incident this evening involving a J____ F____ (###) where her bed was urinated on by a resident who mistakenly confused J____’s room for her own. J____ will not be in Tutwiler this evening (Saturday, 10/8) and will contact the RA on call (one of you) when she has arrived in Tutwiler. 

 Needless to say, I can't wait to go on call tomorrow. Oh well, I guess its the price I pay for having such an awesome weekend.  Roll Tide!

Track Star has Left the Building

Once again Thursday night rolled around and once again Tutwiler got a little crazy. This Thursday was probably the most interesting night I've had as a RA to date. This Thursday will forever be remembered as Operation Track Star.

I was not on call that night but I was around because I work the desk from 2am-5am on Friday mornings. Hmm I guess the best way to break this down is by time. All times are approximations, my memory may fail me on the specifics.

12:15 am--I headed downstairs to do some laundry before my shift. As I was walking toward the elevators I heard someone crying. I tried and tried to locate the source of the tears but the sound faded as I went down each hallway. That's when I realized the crying was coming from the vending machine room. Homegirl was in the floor crying and talking on the phone. It was apparent she had been drinking but she wasn't too bad off. I asked if she was okay and she informed through sobs that she was talking to her ex-boyfriend. We had a coherent conversation so I decided to let her have a nice little inebriated chat with her ex and come back and check on her later. So I went downstairs to put on my laundry. Fast forward 45 min.

1:00 am--I decided to walk back up to my room to grab a few items before my desk shift started. I was in the hallway and right as I was about to reach my floor I see a another RA dart into the stairs. She spotted me and said "Hey, help me catch this girl!" The girl was running up the stairs and let me tell you she was fast as lightning! 

Ok, back up 5 minutes. When I was leaving downstairs to go to my room another RA stopped me and asked me to heat up her pretzel in my room before I came back down.

Now back to the chase scene. I join my fellow RA in pursuit of whoever she is chasing while holding a pretzel. My out of shape self is huffing and puffing and hoping that this crazy chick will at least sprain an ankle and slow down. But no, she flew up 7 flights of stairs before she decided to stop. She was so far ahead of me that the whole way up I would stop at each floor, panting and wielding a pretzel, asking people if they had seen a crazed drunk run by. I finally spotted her on the 12th floor and lo and behold its the crying girl from the vending machine room. (Time of capture appx 1:15am)

At this point our conversation was anything but coherent and she didn't even remember talking to me earlier. Now she was refusing to talk to me. She couldn't walk straight, was slurring her words, obviously intoxicated, and was bleeding from her ear. Our conversation went a little something like this...

Me: Hey sweetie, are you ok?

Track Star: I'm fine. Leave me alone.

M: Are you sure? Why were you running from the other RA? Do you know you're bleeding?

TS: I'm fine. I don't want to talk to you.

*she then tried to get away from me but I put my body between her and the stairwell because I had barely caught my breath from our first sprint*

M: Quit trying to leave, we need to talk.

TS: I am not going to talk to you. My roommate can come get me.

M: Well you either have to talk to me or someone above me so how about you and I discuss this so no one else has to get involved. 

*Meanwhile the other RA is calling UAPD bc Track Star is becoming quite belligerent.*

TS: I will not talk to you or anyone above you. Only your equal.
M: Well you ran away from my equal so why don't you and I talk

1:30 am--This is when our Community Oriented Police (COP) officer showed up on the scene. He talked to her, noticed her ear and decided she was going to have to go downstairs to be looked at by the paramedics. After she was seen by the medical team, signed a refusal to be transported and appeared to sober up a little bit she was returned safely to her room. She tried to give our COP a hug when he left but he grabbed her arms and said "No, we don't do that."

2:00 am--I report for work at the desk and realize my laundry is still there. I inform the other desk assistant that I'm going to drop my laundry off upstairs and will be right back. When I reached my floor guess who was coming down the hall? Track star herself and her roommate. When I asked what was going on she said they were just going to talk in the common area. I skeptically nodded and went to drop off my laundry. I grabbed a diet coke to keep me awake for my long shift and headed by to the common area. Now Track Star is walking down the hallway leading to the stairs. When she saw me she gave me crazy eyes and once again took off down the stairs.

Okay, so normally I wouldn't be too worried but this girl was not alright and I could not in good conscious let her run off in that condition and not know what was happening. So I take off down the stairs, this time with a coke in my hand, and homegirl took off out the security door. She was barefoot, drunk, and had crazy eyes so I informed the RA on call that Track Star was once again on the run. She was out of the parking lot before I even was out the door. The proper authorities were alerted and soon there was a full blown search looking for this girl.

4:30 am--YES, 2 HOURS LATER. Track star is finally located and returned home. Safe and sound, still drunk and quite apologetic after being given a talking to by her very upset father. I had no clue where she went or how far she had to run to get there but at that point I was just glad she was okay. I dragged myself upstairs to finally fall asleep about 5:30 am.

Seriously y'all. Everyone needs to spend at least one 2am-5am shift with me just to witness what all goes down. Its quite ridiculous.

I have to add that the next day she very maturely came to find me and apologize for her actions the previous night. That helped her earn a little bit of my respect back. We ended up having a good talk about knowing our limits and not running from your RA. But she has definitely earned a nickname that will stick for the rest of the semester. And I'll always wear tennis shoes when I'm on call.

They're Baaaackkk

Well the Fall semester has started and I find myself back at Tutwiler working as a resident advisor. I debated whether or not I wanted to continue with the blog this year. As I've mentioned before its a nice way for me to vent about the crazy shenanigans that go on when you pack 1,000 18 yr old college freshmen into one building. So I've been going back and forth and at first decided to stop blogging. I have an extremely tough semester ahead of me and will not have much free time. Then Thursday happened. Oh Thursday. Always an exciting night here. This Thursday wasn't particularly bad or anything I was just a little fed up. Why? I'm not sure. I guess the disconnect with the Freshman is even more defined this semester. So Thursday I almost quit. Literally was one drunken idiot away from packing up and looking for a nice, accommodating bridge to spend the rest of the semester under. That's when I realized I had to keep blogging. I need this outlet and writing it down helps me laugh instead of cry. So for now I will continue to chronicle this adventure. Let's see what's happened so far...

Conversation I had with a resident while giving a campus tour
Me "So, which class are you most looking forward to?"
Resident "Well I'm not sure but I'm least looking forward to Spanish!"
Me "Porque? Spanish isn't so bad."
Resident "Because I had it in high school and they put me in 103 instead of 101"
Me "Surely it won't be too bad. You probably remember more than you realize. It'll be alright. Que sera sera"
Resident "Huh?"
Me "Maybe you should talk to your advisor"

While working at the desk during my 2am-5am shift 
I overheard two residents pondering the question "Why are we eating at 1 am?!" Welcome to college sweeties! Better hang those skinny jeans up next time you wash them. One cycle through the dryer and the Freshman fifteen will be rendering them un-wearable.

Then two more residents came to the desk and asked if the Student Health Center was open. We informed them that no, it is not open at 1:30 am and asked what was wrong. Apparently one of them burned her hand while warming up soup in the microwave. I asked to see the burn and honestly couldn't find it until she pointed it out. She was quite distraught however and insisted on going to the emergency room. I saw them come back 4 hours later when I was about to get off of work. They were irate that the ER had the audacity to be packed on Thirsty Thursday to the point where they couldn't be seen for the life threatening soup injury. I handed them a band aid and neosporin and clocked out.

Around 3:00 am a resident stopped by to ask me how to change her class schedule. She apparently realized that she would be going out regularly on Thursday nights and decided she could not face any early morning Friday classes. I explained the process and then she thanked me saying "I'm not trying to get up early on Fridays. There's no way I can handle a 10:00 am class". Okay, I understand. There are many days in my life when I think that 10:00 am is entirely too early. But c'mon girl. You're a Freshman. You are going to have mid morning classes. Bueno suerte!

And last but certainly not least I was propositioned by one of the residents. As I was walking to the store connected to the back of the building one of our girls started walking toward me. Well more like stumbled in my direction. I tried to give her a wide berth but she ended up coming to a stop right in front of my face and while looking straight through me with her glossed over eyes declared "I wanna cuddle." I'm not sure if she meant with me or someone she thought she saw but I laughed, informed her that is not part of my job and kept walking.

Oh yeah. Its going to be a great semester. Please pray for my sanity. Or prepare your guest room.

The Blogging Bone's Connected to the Productive Bone but the Summer Bone's Connected to the Lazy Bone.

Hello blogosphere! It has been quite a while since I posted anything new. A couple of contributing factors: A) My current living arrangement is much more isolated and separate from the residents and campers in my community. So I'm not getting as many funny stories out of them. Although, the other night we did have a resident accidentally lock himself INSIDE his room. Genius. B) My computer has been on the fritz and I haven't had the time to get it fixed. And C) I've been in lazy summer mode outside of work.

So why am I writing now you ask? At 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning? Well as it turns out there were a few desk shifts open at the dorm on campus where I was an RA in the Spring. When my friend asked if I'd like to take them I said "absolutely I would!" and then realized they're all late night/early morning. Oh well, staying up and finding reasons to blog are totally worth the extra Benjamins. Well more like Lincolns but its all good.

Speaking of Lincolns, I read the Lincoln Lawyer recently upon the recommendation of my fellow crime fiction/legal thriller loving mom. I loved the book and Michael Connelly has now become my current author obsession. Mom also introduced me to John Grisham at the tender age of 11. I didn't understand all the legal jargon at that point but I knew two things for sure. Darby Shaw was one bad chick and the I was ready to enroll in law school at Tulane. I always imagined I'd be a highly touted, young prosecutor bringing justice to the people and puttin' away the bad guys. Those dreams held strong until high school when I decided I'd much rather become a spy and eventually run the CIA. And who's to say I'm not already a spy and well on my way to that goal? Are you thinking "hmm, that does explain some of her odd behavior..." I hope so because I truly have no reason for the odd behavior. Other than just being odd sometimes.

Let's see, what else have I been up to lately... Well last week I got a little break from the everyday grind and got to spend 5 days working at a summer camp for adopted children. It was a blast! The kids were adorable and kept me laughing all week. Big thanks to the APAC team at Children's Aid Society for letting me be a part of that awesome week! Check them out, they're doing great things for adopted families in Alabama.

Alright, last but not least there is the possibility for some good news on the horizon. I've got the chance to interview for an Assistant Community Director position for the Fall semester! There's still a good chance I won't get the position but it would be a great opportunity and an exciting new challenge. If I got it, I'd be working and living in an all male dorm. Quite the opposite of my Spring experience. It would present its own challenges but would be interesting to say the least. Trying not to get my hopes up but send those prayers, positive vibes, and crossed fingers my way because I should be interviewing sometime this week.

I'm sure this post is fraught with misspellings and egregious grammatical errors but its 5:30 a.m. I've been up for 20 hours and I don't care to go back and check it at this point. Maybe I'll come back and fix them later. Maybe I won't. If you're an English teacher feel free to print it out and use it as a "find the errors" teaching tool. That's all for now folks. Have a fun Fourth of July and stay safe over the holiday weekend!

Losing and Regaining Cool Points.

So we've still got a little catching up left to do. I am officially finished with my first semester of working as a resident advisor and am ready to enjoy the sweet summertime. I'm not taking any courses this summer, just working. While I'm not a resident advisor this summer I'm still working for the university's Housing and Residential Communities. My summer position is Assistant Community Director (ACD). Basically I'm assisting the community director in whatever way she needs and supervising RAs in a certain community. I'll go back to being a RA in the Fall but I'm grateful for the opportunity to work in a supervisory position if only for a little while. It'll be a great learning experience for future endeavors.

This past spring I worked in a community that was all Freshman females, 90% of which are members of the Greek community (as in sororities, not the really cool county I'd like to visit) . This summer I'm working in a community that houses co-ed upperclassmen and athletes. Quite a different demographic huh? It'll be interesting to compare the two and see if they share any similarities. 

The really great part about my summer job? My summer housing! Since I'm living in the community I'm working in, I'm in upperclassmen housing. I'm living in an on campus apartment with a kitchen, washer & dryer, and MY OWN BATHROOM! Seriously y'all, I'm really pumped about this.

Okay, I would like to point out that I am not a spoiled brat and do not consider myself to be above any type of living arrangement. However, that being said, sharing a bathroom with 20 or so 18 year old girls who do not clean up after themselves can take its toll on a person's mental sanity. Here's the other thing, I take a while to wake up. I'm mentally fuzzy for quite some time after the alarm goes off. I can usually only see out of one eye for the first five minutes and stumble a lot. Ask my former roommates, they used to love watching me emerge from my room after a long nap :)  Anyway, getting to the point, its not fun stumbling around trying to find shorts and shoes in the morning just to walk down the hall to the restroom. Also, its nice to know that if there is hair in the shower its mine. If there's puke on the floor, its mine. Not that I frequently puke on the floor but you get my point.

Ok, moving on. This is my first time to be in a position where I'm supervising people I consider to be my peers. Sure I've held leadership positions in athletics and other school organizations but its never been my job. Trying to figure out the balance of friend and boss is a going to be a challenge but I think it'll be fun. I didn't know many people in this community before this summer and wanted to make a good impression but I already had one embarrassing moment.

To set up this embarrassing moment I'll tell you that I started a new workout routine with my friend for the summer. We are attempting to do Shaun T's Insanity workout videos. After the first 3 days I thought I was going to die or at the very least my legs would fall off. But, I've made it to day 12 and while the workouts are still killing me I'm beginning to enjoy the routine. The workouts are intense. There are many times that you have to jump down to the floor, do different kinds of push ups, and jump back up again. This tends to make your t-shirt fly up and down and in general be annoying. To avoid said annoyance I usually end up tucking my t-shirt into my gym shorts. A crime against fashion I know, but its only during the workout and I promptly un-tuck as soon as its over. Except Friday I forgot to un-tuck and on my way home realized I needed to stop by the office to pick something up. 

I walked in feeling great after my endorphin releasing hour of pain and stopped at the front desk to speak to a few of the staff members. Chatted them up about their weekend plans, confident, smiling, like I wasn't rocking the nerdiest form of gym attire ever known to man. Then I said goodbye and walked outside. As soon as I got out of the door I looked down and realized my shirt was tucked into my shorts. Oh great, they are probably getting a great laugh out of this and thinking they have the lamest boss in the world. Two choices, get in my car and leave and hope they didn't notice or turn around, go back in, and explain the faux pas. I decided I would turn around and set the record straight. I walked back in and explained that no, I do not usually walk around sweaty, gross, and with my t-shirt tucked into my shorts. They laughed and said they noticed but weren't going to say anything. One of them assured me I regained the cool points I had lost after setting the record straight. Good to know. Guess it wouldn't have been the end of the world (which coincidentally did not take place Mr. Camping) but I'm glad to not be starting out in the negative column :)