Miriam, otherwise known as Magpie
20 May 2008 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
3rdragonI spent several hours yesterday pretending to be a TV technician again. I think that I've come to the conclusion that no, this is not in my job description, and no, they did not train me for it, but on the other hand, I am a perfectly capable youth of the 21st century, and that if I can't make this stuff work it's fairly certain that none of the alums will be able to. And hey, if they want to pay me for walking around campus for four hours in the lovely weather and poking around other people's houses, I won't object.
So.
Aside from the incident with Miss Eliza and the fact that I can't find the piece of paper on which I wrote what shifts I was supposed to be working (it's all online, anyway), moving went quite well. I can't say that I enjoy living out of boxes, but it's far too much work to unpack more than the basics when I'll be moving again at the end of this week. And I so far haven't managed to get either of my wall hangings to stay up (I think that if I put the one over the bed high enough that I don't lean on it and therefore pull on it, I'll have better luck with that), but I might try with more tape this afternoon.
Have I mentioned that my new room is huge? The floor tiles are a foot square, so I can tell you that it's close to 11'x15' (albeit with some bites taken out of two of the corners). But the closet is also huge, and I think that it's at least as big as the missing corners. So, to do the math, the room I'm staying in for a week is about 165 sq. ft. (including the closet). For comparison, my double my first year was something like 170 sq. ft, not counting the closets. So that makes this room almost twice the size of my little box. The house has more of the feel of an apartment building than a Smith house, which I guess makes sense if it's usually Ada housing.
The bathrooms are single bathrooms, and the showers have one knob for temperature and another for pressure (the luxury! Can you imagine!?!). They would be grander still if they didn't have a faint aroma of wet dog. Wet dog is not an odor I particularly object to when it is accompanied by a suitably damp canine, but it's not one that I appreciate on its own.
The house itself gives me an impression of flimsiness, and I can't pinpoint exactly why. It's not that I've had any evidence that it's poorly constructed, it's just the impression I get based on the way noise travels in the house and the sound the wall makes if you accidentally bump it with something (or intentionally whack at it, I suppose). I would have said that this is perhaps just the effect of a girl used to stone houses who's spent the past two years in Ziskind (which, for all its leaks, flaws, and interesting architectural features, does have a certain undeniable solidity) moving into a wooden house, but I was in Sessions yesterday, and while the old wood talks to you, it doesn't give me the same impression at all. It's probably the difference between a house built in the last 100 years out of pine or something and a house built in the 17-whatevers out of chestnut or some similarly solid wood.
My other complaints would be that my window shade is gross and doesn't understand the concept of going up when you pull down (and so needs to be wound by hand) and that my bed makes alarming noises when I sit on it or get out of it. But it seems stable enough, and it at least doesn't make alarming noises when I move around on it, which would be the real problem (in that it would keep me awake and I wouldn't sleep. At all.).
But as things go, it's pretty good digs for a week. Though I'm still puzzled as to why I needed new digs for a week and couldn't just stay in Ziskind.
In good news, Steve is very firmly convinced that I am working for reunion, via ETS, and so my housing should be free for these two weeks, and he's going try to get them to not charge me that $270, which I will certainly appreciate.
So.
Aside from the incident with Miss Eliza and the fact that I can't find the piece of paper on which I wrote what shifts I was supposed to be working (it's all online, anyway), moving went quite well. I can't say that I enjoy living out of boxes, but it's far too much work to unpack more than the basics when I'll be moving again at the end of this week. And I so far haven't managed to get either of my wall hangings to stay up (I think that if I put the one over the bed high enough that I don't lean on it and therefore pull on it, I'll have better luck with that), but I might try with more tape this afternoon.
Have I mentioned that my new room is huge? The floor tiles are a foot square, so I can tell you that it's close to 11'x15' (albeit with some bites taken out of two of the corners). But the closet is also huge, and I think that it's at least as big as the missing corners. So, to do the math, the room I'm staying in for a week is about 165 sq. ft. (including the closet). For comparison, my double my first year was something like 170 sq. ft, not counting the closets. So that makes this room almost twice the size of my little box. The house has more of the feel of an apartment building than a Smith house, which I guess makes sense if it's usually Ada housing.
The bathrooms are single bathrooms, and the showers have one knob for temperature and another for pressure (the luxury! Can you imagine!?!). They would be grander still if they didn't have a faint aroma of wet dog. Wet dog is not an odor I particularly object to when it is accompanied by a suitably damp canine, but it's not one that I appreciate on its own.
The house itself gives me an impression of flimsiness, and I can't pinpoint exactly why. It's not that I've had any evidence that it's poorly constructed, it's just the impression I get based on the way noise travels in the house and the sound the wall makes if you accidentally bump it with something (or intentionally whack at it, I suppose). I would have said that this is perhaps just the effect of a girl used to stone houses who's spent the past two years in Ziskind (which, for all its leaks, flaws, and interesting architectural features, does have a certain undeniable solidity) moving into a wooden house, but I was in Sessions yesterday, and while the old wood talks to you, it doesn't give me the same impression at all. It's probably the difference between a house built in the last 100 years out of pine or something and a house built in the 17-whatevers out of chestnut or some similarly solid wood.
My other complaints would be that my window shade is gross and doesn't understand the concept of going up when you pull down (and so needs to be wound by hand) and that my bed makes alarming noises when I sit on it or get out of it. But it seems stable enough, and it at least doesn't make alarming noises when I move around on it, which would be the real problem (in that it would keep me awake and I wouldn't sleep. At all.).
But as things go, it's pretty good digs for a week. Though I'm still puzzled as to why I needed new digs for a week and couldn't just stay in Ziskind.
In good news, Steve is very firmly convinced that I am working for reunion, via ETS, and so my housing should be free for these two weeks, and he's going try to get them to not charge me that $270, which I will certainly appreciate.
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no subject
Date: 20 May 2008 08:54 pm (UTC)Which house are you in for the week or so? I am curious as to which of the Ada houses is "flimsy". (I've done a little bit of research on the buildings on campus, so I am curious.)
no subject
Date: 21 May 2008 01:24 pm (UTC)