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!

Deja Vu All Over Again

The past few days have consisted of a lot of cleaning and packing as I try and get ready to move.  As I go through my stuff there's been a lot of reminiscing involved as well and I got to thinking about the last time I packed up to move off to college.  It was August 2006; some things have changed drastically and some things have stayed the exact same.  We have a new president but we're still fighting multiple wars in the Middle East.  The Housing market was just starting to plummet and we're still trying to climb out of that hole.  I deleted my Myspace account and switched to Facebook which was two years old and earned $52 million in revenue at the time.  It is believed to have earned $1.1 billion by the end of 2010.  So I thought it would be fun to look back at what was going on in the world and my life then and see how it compares to now.

One of my favorite ways to call up past memories is through popular music.  When I hear Beyonce's 'Crazy in Love' I'm instantly 16 and enjoying a carefree summer.  So I decided to see which songs were on the Billboard Top 100 in 2006.  Some of them I still hear being played on the radio frequently such as 'Gold Digger', 'What Hurts the Most', and 'How to Save a Life'.  Others don't get played much anymore but are still fun...Grillz by Nelly (so glad he's making a come back!), Hips Don't Lie by Shakira, and one of my all time favorites Chain Hang Low by Jibbs.  One of my favorite viral videos from that year was these kids dancing to it.  

I started looking back at some of the big news stories from 2006.  Some of the stories seemed like they happened yesterday and others seem like ancient history.  Can you believe its been over 4 years since the Crocodile Hunter died?!  Or that we were all freaking out over Mad Cow Disease?  Some horrible things happened that year: Hezbollah activities in Lebanon, genocide in Darfour, and Pluto was stripped of its planetary title.  Ok, so the Pluto thing isn't that big of a deal but when you've been taught your entire life that My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas it's hard to accept that those pizzas never existed.  Or that they were not significant enough to be part of the equation anymore.  My Very Educated Mother didn't Serve Us Nine nothing.  That doesn't make sense and definitely isn't very educated.  Next thing you know we we'll be Excusing Dear Aunt Sally with no Please or manners at all.  Pluto, you'll always be a planet to me.  

As far as personal experiences go 2006 was a big year for me.  Between graduating high school and going to college I was blessed with the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Zimbabwe.  Those 3 weeks probably did more for my education than the previous 12 years of school.  It was my first time outside of the United States and the first time to be completely immersed in any culture other than my own.  I owe a big thanks to my parents, friends Cindy and Steve, and Bob for making that trip possible.  It completely changed the way I saw myself and the rest of the world.  

So what were you doing in 2006?  Were you reading 'Dear John', jamming out to 'Chain Hang Low', wishing you could speak Shona and sneak a pet Elephant on a plane?  While I'm 4 years older and slightly wiser I guess things haven't really changed all that much.  I still read Nicholas Sparks novels, listen to cheesy hip hop and if this whole social work thing doesn't work out my back up life plan is to return to Zimbabwe and learn to be an elephant trainer :-)

Pomp and Circumstance

Warning:  This post is a little long.  But for those of you brave enough to stick around Feel free to listen to this as you read :)

So Saturday was the big day.  I graduated with my bachelor's degree in social work.  Kind of weird.  I guess I never thought I'd actually get here.  But I am finally a college graduate.  I feel...so...employable?  Which is even more weird because I'm going back to school instead of looking for a job.  Oh well, Saturday wasn't weird, it was great!

The greatness actually got started on Friday when my awesome brother got to come home for the weekend.  He's so sweet.  That night I helped my mom prepare all of the food for my graduation party for the next night.  By help I mean dance around the kitchen and mostly annoy her and get in the way while she worked hard.  She loves me so much.  I did have a big hand in making the fudge though.  And it turned out quite delicious if I do say so myself  ;)  

Then Saturday morning we put some finishing touches on the food and got ready to head to campus for the big event!  We took a bunch of pictures and then the fam went to find seats while I went to line up for graduation.  This was the least fun part of the day and I have a few suggestions for my school and/or any other institution.  I am under no illusion that anyone important will read or adhere to these suggestions but lets list them anyway shall we?  I love a good list.

1)  Graduation gowns should have pockets.  I am a girl and cannot stand in line, walk outside on a windy day, then wait for a couple of hours before getting a very important picture taken without a quick lip gloss re-application and running a brush through my hair.  Where am I to store these essential items when I have no pockets to hold them?  I did find a place for the lip gloss and my keys but no need to go into detail.  

2)  Along these same lines there should be mirrors placed around the room where the graduates are standing around waiting.  Again, I'm about to take a picture that my mom is bound to frame and put in a prominent area around the house.  I want to look good in it!  Fixing my hair in the reflection of the phone of the guy standing next to me is not sufficient.  

Well this list is only 2 items long and I'm already sick of my whining.  So on to good points of the ceremony.  When we finally walked into the arena it was overwhelming but in a good way.  We walked in on floor level, Pomp and Circumstance blaring, and a crowd full of proud family and friends cheering and hooting for their loved ones.  I looked around with a stupid gape mouthed grin on my face trying to find my family.  When I finally wiped the goofy look off my face and realized it might as well be impossible to find them I started looking around and paying attention to what was going on around me.  A quick glance to my left and what did I see waiting in one of the tunnels?  Men in kilts with bagpipes!!  Okay, so if you know me at all you've probably already come to the conclusion that I'm a little odd and a complete nerd.  Included in my nerdiness is a love of bagpipes.  So needless to say I was super pumped about spotting the kilt clad men.  I tapped the shoulder of the girl in front of me and said "Look! Bagpipes!" She gave me a nice smile that said "Oh, that's nice. Why is she telling me that?"  Okay, so we're not all bagpipe fans but if you can listen to Scotland the Brave and it not touch your soul even a little then I guess you really don't like bagpipes.  Or maybe you're Irish.  Alright, moving on.

The ceremony itself was done well.  As soon as I sat down I was finally able to spot my family waving from the stands.  Then I was able to focus on the task ahead.  Getting across the stage.  The college of Arts and Sciences was the first to be recognized so I didn't have long to be nervous.  Made it across the stage, stopped to shake two hands and never fell down.  Pretty impressive considering there were two sets of stairs involved.  Stairs are my second largest arch nemesis.  The first being gravity.   Bad thing about going first though is you have a long time to wait while everyone else goes to shake the hands of people they've never met.  At least the guy reading the names was entertaining.  He looked like a professor from Harry Potter and was very theatrical with all the foreign names.  I think he was given the job because he was the only one who could pronounce the Italian, Russian, Arabic, and Afrikaans names.  

When it was all over I went outside and began the hunt for my family.  This would have been much easier if I had kept my phone with me but seeing as how I didn't have any pockets to put it in...  We probably should have set up a rendezvous point.  I now see why the firemen always stressed that when they came to school and taught us about safety plans.  Anyway, we finally found each other and headed home to grab all of the food we...mostly mom prepared and set up for the party.  The party was a lot of fun and I had a great time celebrating with some wonderful family and friends.  Special thanks to everyone who helped make the day one to remember.  

Got to give a big shout out to my amazing family.  I would never have made it this far without their unwavering love and support.  My family rocks!  Alright, that's enough for one post.  If you actually read this far then I'm impressed.  Your prize for tolerating my babbling is this hilarious video clip that has absolutely nothing to do with my graduation... Turkey?

One Week

♫ It’s been one week since you heard from me

Read about my dog and said she’s crazy!

Five days since you laughed at me saying

This girl needs some serious help please! ♫

If you're not familiar with the Barenaked Ladies that probably seems extremely random.  If you're not familiar with the crazy way in which my mind works the rest of this post will probably seem extremely random as well.  So its been a week has it?  My dog is fine by the way.  Lets see what else has been going on lately...

Ok so we'll start with my new favorite guilty pleasure t.v. show--The Sing Off on NBC.  I love it!  It is a happy, upbeat show.  Its fun and you can dance and sing along.  Also, there is an amazingly talented and uber cute group from Alabama called Committed.  Here are the reasons why I love them and want them to win:

1)  They are all super smiley and happy

2)  They seem genuinely humble and appreciative of their opportunity to sing on a national stage

3)  The big one looks a lot like Terrence Cody

and 4)  They are crazy talented 

check them out on youtube!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTDwsouD7Zg&feature=related  How can you not love them?!

On a sad note my brother had to move down to New Orleans this week.  He's working on a job down there and will be gone for a few months.  Sure we're both in our 20's and its normal to live far apart from your siblings at this point, but my family isn't normal by any stretch of the imagination.  Luckily we got to spend a good bit of quality time as a family before he left.  And for our family quality time usually involves game time.  Our latest board game obsession has been Clue.  And let me just say if you haven't played Clue with my family you are missing out.  My sister provided most of the laughs while playing this past week.  From her 'detective intuition' to her deductive reasoning skills--"Well I'm in the kitchen so it must have been Colonel Mustard"--she kept us in stitches the entire time.  I'm thinking about going to NOLA for New Years with my bff so if that works out I'll get to see my brother then!  And he'll be home for Christmas of course, which leads me to harmonicas.

Harmonicas?  Yes harmonicas.  The day my brother left my dad gathered the family around for a quick surprise...he got everyone their very own harmonica!  My brother was on his way out the door but we all got to try them out for a few minutes.  His birthday is the day after Christmas and my sister and I have decided that we are going to learn to play 'Happy Birthday' by the time he comes home.  She has already mastered 'When the Saints Go Marching In'.  All I've mastered is dancing around and doing a pretty sweet Stevie Wonder impression minus actually sounding like Stevie Wonder.  

So lets see, we've covered The Sing Off, brother moving, family game night, and harmonicas.  That pretty much sums up what's been going on other than getting ready for graduation.  2 days until graduation! Then only 21 days until I move.  After that this blog may actually even cover what I started it for...chronicling my adventure as a resident advisor.  Until then you'll just have to endure my ramblings :)