Work complaints.

Commence complaining.

I'm in charge of three buildings. Two are traditional style (long hallways, two or three people to a room, shared bathrooms on the floor) much like many of us lived in during college. The other, which I live in, is apartment style, so 4-6 students to an apartment with a full bathroom and kitchen and everything. It houses transfer students and upper division students (In UVA speak, that's third and fourth years and in VT "we're not as snooty" speak, that's juniors and seniors). Anyway, you can probably imagine that I see a lot more students who get in trouble from the traditional buildings - alcohol, noise, other stupid things that happen when students stay up until 4 AM with time on their hands and not wanting to study. All year, the apartment building (named Wada...for Yoritada Wada. I like to say his name a lot) has been quiet. But apparently, too quiet. In the past month I've had harassment over match.com, physical threats, apartment conflicts over noise and trash, huge parties, and a lovely physical "altercation" between two men in a fantastic love triangle. *sigh* Three weeks left. End complaining.

Last staff meeting...check.

Also, I haven't really had the occasion to document the haircut as of yet, but maybe this weekend. In return, I expect a picture of Meghan's haircut.

Fun story of the day: Berkeley's police chief, a couple of years ago, retired and was given a 2.1 million dollar retirement package. Shortly after, she was rehired. And given a raise. I shit you not.

We like long coats.

I feel like a whole new person.

Not really, but this weekend I did get a haircut AND a new cell phone. My hair is back to being really short, like most of you saw it over winter break when Dan and I were home. My cell phone actually has functions beyond that of a phone, and Dan is a little jealous of it. I realized I hadn't bought a new phone since Jan. 2006 so I decided it was high time to upgrade. Now I have a relatively expensive phone to never talk on. Not really an exciting weekend here although we're hoping next weekend will be more so. No, we don't know what we're doing yet. But I think hoping is the important part to focus on. Also, not that everyone needs to know this, but Laura, my deodorant smells like...freshness? No seriously, it doesn't list a scent, but I think it smells like spring, sort of fresh and crisp. And just to keep everyone updated - there were no bad incidents with the "natural" deodorants. No horrible BO or pit stains or anything. We're both actually pretty happy, seems like it's all gone ok. And, Dan has not overly smelled like a pine forest. Dan had a productive second week of work, which he apparently wants to talk about later (he's reading over my shoulder), and work for me was ridiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiculous this week, so I'm hoping this coming week will be slower and more calm. This week starts the "lasts" of the year - last class, last hall association meeting, last staff meeting, etc. so I know the end must be in sight. More later?

Late Night thoughts v.4

*Our apartment experienced not one but TWO floods this weekend for two completely different reasons. It was pretty awesome.

*I just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love which has been a bestseller for awhile. It's about this woman who takes a year out of her life and lives for four months each in Italy (to experience pleasure, eating and doing whatever she wants), India (to find her version of God while living in an Ashram), and Indonesia (trying to find a balance between pleasure and devotion). So, it was definitely a good read. Didn't change my life. People are RAVING about this book though...maybe I missed it?

*Target on Sundays = not a fun experience. Do not plan on repeating that anytime soon.

*Lots of cultural type things are happening on campus because it's almost the end of the semester, so it's time for all the clubs on campus to put on their large events. I'm kind of a big deal, so students invite me to everything and I can't go to all of them people! The guilt I'm feeling over this is kind of ridiculous. Although, this weekend we did go to the annual Cal community Native American pow-wow. It was awesome.

*Dan has recently been making a big thing about how most deodorants have aluminum in them (did you know? it's actually pretty bad for you...) so today while we were at Whole Foods (yes, we shop at Whole Foods) we each bought a "natural" deodorant that is aluminum free. I told him I would try it for a week and see how it goes. For serious, Dan's is a scent called "Woodspice" and it's uber strong smelling...so, his armpits are going to smell like pine trees. Not sure how I'm feeling about that. I mean, I'd rather pine trees than funk, but really? Pine trees?

*Next week is MAY and during the lovely, beautiful,glorious month of May, students move out. I can't believe the school year is almost over! 4 more weeks. Crazy talk.

*Is everyone around the country getting all this information about plastics of all kind being bad because they leach chemicals into everything that is being put in them? We hear all kinds of commercials and info bits about plastic bottles, plastic bgs, tupperware, Nalgenes, etc are the bane of all of our existence. Just wondering if everyone else is getting this too, or if it's just a West Coast thing.

I overheard this conversation at Target today:
Kid (about 10?): Mom, I'm thirsty
Mom: We don't need a bottle, lets go get some FREE water out of the water fountain! It's yummy!

Also, the mayor of San Francisco has decided that no city office or event can have bottled water (due to mentioned plastic issue but also because the Bay Area has the cleanest tap water in the nation) and so on and so forth. We're crazy liberals out here.

**Just to clarify, we are converting from tupperware to glass, nalgene to stainless steel bottles, getting rid of bottled everything. I was just wondering if everyone else is getting the hard sell about plastics too.

***Also, thanks to David for differentiating all the types - it's unfortunate, Berkeley only recycles 1 and 2. But now I know to stay as far away from 7 as possible (hermaphroditic rat babies? That's not ok).

Also, I know I haven't blogged about my Georgia/Florida adventures, but here's a free photo of Ben in front of Paula Deen's restaurant (in Savannah). Clearly, he's a big fan.

Having trouble focusing

Well, I can't believe it's been a year since everything went down at VT. That was such a long day - I remember first hearing about it, and then calling everyone I knew still at Tech or affiliated with Tech at all obsessively all day long as the news continued to break. I remember being completely speechless when the number of people who died jumped from "less than 5" to "roughly 30" and then sitting at work, not doing any work, just refreshing CNN and MSNBC's webpages about every 30 seconds. Anyway, it's been a long year of lots of other hard-hitting events but what happened at Tech still hits me really hard. I don't know if anyone else still struggles with it, but I still find myself tearing up about it sometimes. I have a really hard time knowing that a place that I hold so dear is somewhere that everyone knows about, but for not the right reasons. I feel like I've just watched all of my great memories be dragged through the mud.

So here I am in California, proudly sporting my VT sweatshirt all day and no one has asked about it, mentioned it, there are no events happening on campus, nothing. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting anything big, I guess I just thought it would at least pop up in someone's consciousness. High expectations. I would love to be in Blacksburg.

12 on the 12th!

WOOT I remembered this month! Let's jump right in, shall we?

So, today was actually Cal Day, which is like the huge fair type deal for students who have been admitted to UCB to come visit, get a tour, etc. So, my staff and I get to organize and give tours of the residence halls all day. Yeah, it's not our favorite day. And yet, here is (some of) my staff at 9:55 AM looking relatively cheerful.



So we were swamped all morning during my shift, which was from 9 AM - 12:30 PM. Of course, here's how busy we were at 12:19 PM, right before my co-RD came to take over:



2:30 PM - Brunch




3:15 PM - Taking a lovely walk in the 85 degree weather. And here is what it costs to have a car in the Bay Area:




3:30 PM - Someone is clearly kind of a big deal:

4:30 PM - Leaving a super cheap used book store, found some plaques! This one was in a series of events that happened in Berkeley through the years...with Dan's feet.

4:45 PM - Gelato! Mine was panna cotta flavored heavenly goodness. Enjoying the downtown Berkeley scene, sitting across from the second picture, an enormous tuning fork. Whatev, it's Berkeley.

5:30 PM - Back from walk and afternoon adventure, stopped to take a picture of the pretty church right next to my Unit. The tall building in the background is one of my buildings. Attractive, no?







8:30 PM - James and the book I bought this afternoon that I already finished reading. Don't freak out, it was only about 130 pages.





About 10 PM - Durant Food Court, a lovely place for college students that is a bunch of ethnic restaurants that are cheap and open late. We went for Italian tonight, with bubble tea for drinks.





Time for bed:

I was getting to it!

My mini adventures have been in Austin and here in SF.

I was in Austin for SXSW which is a huge music/film/interactive festival, and it was amazing. I was helping to produce the Levi's Fader Fort, the biggest party in town. We had roughly 40 bands over 4 days, a well-equipped open bar all day, and plenty of Levi's, Puma, and Ray Ban gear. 2 hour wait in line around the block to get in, if you were on the invite list.

Fun facts
- Austin apparently has more music venues per capita than anywhere in the world
- Really great BBQ that I'm missing here in SF. I tried several, IronWorks was the best.
- Top moment: Lou Reed and Moby on stage together combined with an all access back stage pass

My big SF adventure will be contracting with mktgpartners over the next few months to work with their strategy and marketing direction for Nike, Apple, Jamba Juice, and a few others. Missy, if you read this, it's because of them that Bon Jovi will potentially be curling on reality TV.

I started a 3rd blog for us to manage. This one's more of a blog for me to put my thoughts "out there" for professional credibility; well that's the hope at least. We'll post a link to isharehere for anyone who wants to read me being geeky.

It's been 10 days without Kristin here... no fun. I’m sorry I didn’t write, how about some photos instead?

Dan left to his own devices...

...clearly does not write on the blog. And here I am in Florida in GORGEOUS weather, sitting inside to write to you people. But, let me just write a short bit and tell you some short things about each of my mini adventures. Savannah: -is beautiful -Ben and Jess are great hosts -there is a lot of booze in Savannah -but it's still beautiful Atlanta: -Why is the public transportation there so much cheaper than in SF? -COLD. Why so cold? What happened to HOTlanta? -Not as fun as my band trip there in 8th grade. Florida: -much better weather -seriously, the weather is gorgeous. 80 degrees and breezy. -family time!