Catching Up On Absolutely Nothing

So. I feel a little behind now, just because I didn't blog about the past week or so. Hell I don't even know where to start by now.

Well, last week HCB decided to make me his messenger on two occasions. First time was to text and ask if he had any mail in his mailbox. The second time he actually called my phone to tell whoever was at the front desk that one of the guys on duty would be running a little late. Of course, the one time he's ever called my phone and I don't even know it because my phone now sucks about vibrating when I'm getting a call....grawr. Oh well.

Then there was Wednesday night. Aaaaaaaaaaamg what a lovely Wednesday night. Here, I shall map it out for you. First, a couple friends and I went up to Sioux Falls to do some shopping. As an added bonus, I came home to surprise the parents with a quick visit. It probably could've been longer, but I was coming home for the weekend anyway, so it was mostly to please them by stopping by for once while I'm in town, plus my dad's birthday was Thursday...yay surprise! This was apparently the week of surprises though, because my cousin Sean came up from Miami to surprise everyone at their lunch gathering. And of course, I didn't get to see him. :(

But anyhow. We go shopping, and Sam picked out an awesome outfit for her sorority formal on Saturday. We come back from Sioux Falls, and had to have a floor meeting with the residents/hall director. Nothing bad, but with Thanksgiving coming up, it's better to give all of the directions to them there face-to-face.

Meeting is followed by....I don't remember what. I think there was some Grease at the front desk, and Kacee dancing on the counter, I don't even...but anyhow. I then worked the front desk at midnight, which was the same time that HCB came back from hockey practice. It was amusing hearing how lax he was on the guys, and how if he'd trained them the Canadian way most of them would've quit, lol.

Working the desk was rather eventful again, however. Rounds didn't actually start till about 12:20 or so because Laurel was running late. They go on rounds, and I'm finally left alone....up until about 10 minutes later Jared walks in. And he's the hall director on duty, which means something's up. He goes up, comes back out, takes some notes, then settles in at the front desk with me as he gets a call about having to take a girl's pulse. DPS shows up; more fun ensues! Dillon was supposed to do rounds at 12:30 over in Richie because of the missing master key; he comes sprinting back at about 12:35 into Beede. I get a call asking to find someone else to cover the rest of Beede and Mickelson for rounds. Ohhhh boy, this is going to take some time....Michelle gets in on the action. More DPS, more Jared, etc etc...


All of the running around caused me to tell HCB that his building is going crazy via Facebook. Which actually led to a rather amusing conversation. I think the best of it started when I asked him if the cable was out in Beede, because one of the backup duty girls had texted me that kids were going crazy in Mick without their cable. He then told me that yes, it was out, and that he doesn't watch tv. All he does is cook and watch movies. Which then brought up how he's used to cooking with a bottle of wine, but he can't do that on campus, so he's looking forward to stocking up his wine cellar when he moves off campus. Which made me think of the idea to make the storage room a pantry for us to hide food. His response? AMEN. Ahhh agreement, feels like a small success... :3 He also made the random comment that he might be pregnant because he was suddenly feeling nauseous...but he couldn't spell it right....but it made me giggle, in front of Phil no less. Which was when he decided to go to bed.


Trust me, when Phil is in the building, shit is going down! He's the assistant dean of students, which is pretty high up there. But he had come in to deal with one of the girls they were having troubles with upstairs. So he's here with DPS till about 2:30, and the girls were in the back documenting long past 3am when I had to close up. I still had 3:30 rounds to cover over in Richie, so I went back over there to do that. Come back at 4am, and what's going on? Dillon's at the desk with it partially opened back up with Michelle. So I keep Dillon company for a little while, and he's on the lookout for DPS. Amggggggg so I'm up till 5 or so watching for DPS with Dillon, partially because he needed to take a fuckin' nap. We were absolutely beat....and what was going on upstairs? We had Laurel, Jessie, Kacee and Sarah all watching an empty, locked door. And they were doing so till about 8 that morning. O.O


So, to recap. Laurel and Jessie on their marathon duty night involved an alcohol incident, a sick resident, pot, mean messages on a whiteboard, an apparent assault report, and a strange kid running out of a room and off the floor randomly. I know there was more, but it was basically every issue you'd ever have to document all in one incident. By the time they were done, the whole documentation was over 1,500 words. By the time HCB had the judicial reports done, there were at least 10. Three of them on the same kid.


I don't even know how they did it....I was finally so beat at 6am that I fell asleep on my floor. I was afraid to crawl into bed and sleep because I had a quiz at 9am that I couldn't miss. Holy crap..... D:


Now for tonight. We learned exactly what HCB has. And it issssss aquagenic urticaria. Aka a skin allergy to water. He even explained to us that he has to take drugs before he showers, but they make him pass out about an hour later, so the images that were coming to my mind were just hilarious....lol! XD


But in all seriousness. He said that he's one of some 10 people to have it. He's also allergic to gluten and is lactose intolerant, so how he eats...it's almost sad. But apparently he didn't know about the gluten allergy until he was 21. Interesting tidbit of the night.


And then we made jokes about him having the Freshman 45 even though he was technically a junior in college, and how Alex was going to go back to her floor, take a long shower and eat Oreos thinking that HCB can't do all of this! Annnnnd I giggled. A lot. :3

An Algorithm to Facebook Creeping

I have one thing that has been bothering me for the past couple of weeks now...Facebook has the Friends on Chat section on the left-hand sidebar. You know, where they put all the profile pictures of random people online. But the list isn't very random. And I'm trying to figure out how the hell they organize people in that box section, let alone decide who shows up there. Is it based on who you creep on the most? Seriously, people that I haven't talked to in foreverz still appears on the side with the pictures. So then is it based on who creeps on you the most? Do they have to've creeped on you recently? Or have you creeped on them recently? Did they do something worth creeping on?! Wtf...

There is an algorithm to this. And I'm determined to find it. >.>

In other news. I'm putting off a piece for the newspaper, a chance to edit our group paper for XDIS, and a paper/presentation that's due. All of it should probably get done before I go to sleep. Yay procrastination!

I'll have to fill in the past few days later then if I want to procrastinate effectively...hmm.

Raaaaaage Time

Earlier this year, we had a small conniption amongst the higher-ups because SOMEONE was stupid and lost the duty keys from Richie/Olson. That personnnn who shall not be named *coughAlliecough* was just damn lucky that the AA50 key wasn't on the duty set, because it's those keys that get us onto all of the floors in the halls. And we're talking ALL the halls. It's how I can get into McFadden so sneakily... >.>

Anyhow. Cut to last night. Guess who lost her master key! Her goddamn fucking MASTER KEY. Oh yes....and what does that master key open up to? Every fucking room in Richardson Hall. Every room, on every floor. Holy. Shit.

How she still has her job, we have no effin' clue....actually, we do. Or at least we have suspicions. But the thing is, if she lost a set of keys before, then how the hell did it come to this? Seriously.

Fucking hell. If it were anyone else, they'd lose their job already. >:/

CA Interviews: Part Deux

I don't usually like starting off my mornings before 10am, much less 8 when I have to get up for classes. So today I had to get up at 7:30 so that I could go to CARS at 8 freaking 30 in the morning. I think I started it off right though, I made sure my alarm was set to play 'Fuck You' when it went off. Success!

And no, I was not late, despite what HCB said when I came downstairs. I was perfectly on time, on the dot. But he, now he was earlier than the rest, so I made sure to give him crap for it afterward. It was fantastic, I even made sure he knew it when I said "You were actually pretty early this morning...almost say that you were a bit premature there." And his response was "I always come early." And to top it off, he had one of those grins where it seemed like he was smiling, but was really close to laughing. That sort of thing. Double success! :P 

CARS went pretty well, too. I didn't have to dress up too fancy, unless my Nascar jersey counted as fancy. I also wore my Candies boots, which got more attention than anything else...of course, lulz. Plus it was awesome getting to lead a group! Us leaders John, Brookney and I had to dress up as a particular sport (for the Gatorade theme) so I was Nascar, John was football, and Brookney was soccer. Which was slightly amusing since it was technically football and football.... :P Then Brookney borrowed Hot Canadian Bacon's Liverpool jersey with his name on the back, so we gave her crap if she said something strange or was acting weird. Which is quite common, but that's why we love her!

My group was a pretty decent group, but we only had one guy amongst them. He was kinda strange, and by far the oldest of them all. Has a good sense of humor, but it's sort of misplaced. The rest were girls, and as a collective they were pretty good, too. I think I was enjoying the whole moving from one room to another to see how everyone does things more. First room we went into was led by Trapper and Dave, and after getting disoriented by the whole musical chairs that happened beforehand, it was certainly interesting. The group did really good in actually talking right away. Trapper was a lot more serious than I thought he'd be during the whole deal, and Dave always has to give me shit for my clothing choices...not like he has much else to pick on me for, ha!

Second room was even more fun, that one was led by Jared and HCB. Not gonna lie, but HCB topped Trapper in strangeness this time. I was amused that HCB made everyone say where they were from, mostly because it was his chance to say he was from just outside Toronto. Then when Jared & him got the kids to work on their little activity, he had his strangeness show. So he unstacked the extra chairs on the side and put one down for me, then he took a second one and put it directly behind me and facing the window. Just picture the chairs back-to-back, but with about two and a half feet between them. He really wanted to look out the window apparently? I dunno, it was just really amusing to me. Although I was also really impressed with the way HCB asked questions too about why they were choosing the order of their important messages in the activity. It was pretty sweet. Then when Jared took over, HCB sat down in the last extra chair against the wall, facing me. I thought there were psychological messages behind the whole sitting and facing people thing.....I dunno.

Last room was the egg drop one, with Kristi, Dan and Manda. I love Dan, he's so sweet, and him and Trapper together last year for my CA interviews was pretty great too! I think the most amusing part was who we all had in the room. It was like a strange game of musical chairs there, too. I sat down next to Andrew, Andrew moved to the other side of the chairs, Terrance moved over one, and Dillon Dell & Taylor swapped sides also. Dell is so freaking weird....he not only stole one of the other CA's hats and wore it awkwardly during the activity, he also sat there next to me and drew a picture. It was weird. He was slaying a dragon only a third larger than him and I was in the drawing. Gah..... D: Then Terrance stole my purple pen. I think part of that was retaliation for Brett and I writing on his whiteboard that we took something from his room and he had to guess what it was....but we hadn't actually taken anything. It was sure tempting, though! But ahh, the paranoia is so much more fun. :3

Then after the sessions was lunch. That was largely reminiscing about last semester's interviews with Missy, who was one of the girls in my group. Then the rest of it was yelling at Trapper across the cafeteria and him constantly telling Missy that she was fired. I was told I was fired by him too at one point. I felt pretty special. :D

Then I've had desk work since 2 today. That's always fun. Quite a few parents, some residents...best part was when Annie and Janessa came by. She'd told me Friday that her mom had made lemon bars, and one of the containers had HCB's name on it. Of course, Friday was a messed up day so I barely saw him during my shift, but Annie was willing to give me one! So now today I saw her, and I had to say "You know, HCB's in his room right now.... :D "

Now this is how you get Hot Canadian Bacon to come out of his room and fetch the lemon bars that Annie's mom made...

Me: I have something you want.
HCB: hookers?
Me: Maybeh.
HCB: my one true love?
Me: YES
HCB: doubt that
Me: You don't know that
Me: Well, it is lemon-y...
HCB: I'll be right out
Me:  :D

Bahaha, the three of us were giggling so hard when we were messaging back and forth. We even hid it momentarily under my sweater for good measure. I think the best part was that he was willing to share one with me, yessssssss......I also learned one of his favorite songs is Wonderwall. I knew American Woman was one of his other favorites (for obvious reasons), but now I can add to that list.

Now I'm hoping that he'll get sushi made like right meow. Because I'll eat anything that he'll give me.....damnit.... >.>

Which reminds me of another interesting night. Thursday night, HCB and Danny were hanging at the front desk with us recounting their crazy nights from the previous evening because we didn't have class Thursday. Now, earlier that night HCB had talked about one of the girls he met at the bars, a senior named Abby who was a Pi Phi. He claimed her as the woman of his dreams, which he's actually said about quite a few of them, which is kinda amusing. But anyways, he was pretty enthused about telling Danny, but all the more he got out was "I met the woman of my dreams the other night."

That was when Danny commented, "Is it (me)?"

Which was followed with a very slow few seconds of us not saying anything until I just nodded and gave Danny a semi-sarcastic "Yep." I didn't actually look to see if HCB was shaking his head or not, but he didn't give a yes or no answer. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, either. So take it as you will.

On the flipside, Brett and I were passing the front desk during rounds and HCB was at the front desk. He stared at me all angry-like. I stopped and stared at him back, but failing pretty bad at doing it all angrily. So he slowly flipped me off. I then attempted to flip him off with both hands while holding the clipboard. Ha!

Annnd I'm still waiting on that food. D:

Funniest. Desk Shift. EVAR!

We're known for having amusing desk shift hours when we have multiple CAs hanging around the desk, but this has got to be the best desk shift yet without needing any of the CAs around.

To start, it started at the very beginning with some residents complaining that some kids were blocking off extremely nice parking spaces with cones. After some talking, Sarah finally got the enthusiasm to go out and mess with the kids behind it. Didn't see her for another hour.

I had one freshman who was so very obviously wasted, still asked me for my number, and I was *this* close to giving him DPS's number. He then rambled on about how he had a sister/brother (finally settled on brother toward the end) that lived in Minnesota, so he was going to go to the Twin Cities right then. And it was about 1:30am. XD I felt bad for his totally sober friend with him for putting up with Mr. Drunky tonight...

Sarah came back about an hour after she left to mess with the kids, and holy crap was it hilarious to listen to....she managed to figure out who the kids were because they kept walking in and out of the front doors. Asked them if they owned any cones, and they said no. She stands out there later next to the parking space kinda thing and they come by, so they ask what she's doing out there. "Oh nothing, you?" "Nothing." So then she talked about taking the cones. They said "Well that was really rude, whoever it was must've put a lot of effort into getting them and putting them there." "Yeah, well they're probably going to think it's rude when they have to go find where I hid the cones." She hid them in another CA's car trunk, BAHAHA! Good luck finding them now, losers....

At some point, Sarah also got a drunk call from HCB. It wasn't a normal drunk call though, it was him calling because Chris wanted to eat with her. Or as he put it, "Do you want to do food?" She not only got the awkward phonecall from HCB trying to set up some late-night breakfast out thing with Sarah and Chris, but Chris also got her phone number and started texting her. She finally had to tell him she wasn't interested. He had a sad and stopped texting her. Although I think part of it was him finally passing out after so long....not sure. :P

Then later Sarah and freshman Kolin were out front smoking, and they discovered what I was told is called the Funbox. They called me on the Funbox, but scared the crap out of me because of all the crazy beeping that it was making out there. I didn't like my ears bleeding, so I had to hang up on them....then when I found out what they called me on, I had to go "HEY! I have the phone number to the Funbox! Go outside and I'll call you from in here!!" So they did. And I called them. And it was awesome. But the beeping made me sad, we're afraid it's broken somehow... :(

Annnnnnnnnd then Hot Canadian Bacon came back from the bars at a bit after 2am. Had that iffy sway/limp walk going on and tired as hell. Not gonna lie, he was looking fantastic still, but it didn't help that his shirt was left open a bit at the neck....dayum. So anyways, when he wasn't going "Wha?" to everything I said, he was not quite all there. I did ask him what happened to Chris, and he said that he lost him. Then for about a minute or two HCB was rambling in French...I knew what he was saying was real French words, even though he mumbled a good portion of it, but it didn't seem to string together complete sentences in my own head....so as much as I could've given him responses, it just didn't make any sense, lol! Even worse was one of his residents was there holding the door open to Beede, and she seemed just a little freaked that he was going off in French and she didn't understand any of it but he was kinda talking to her as he did so? Yeah, that was fun...and my official vote is that he passed out with Facebook open. He's still idle, and it's been over an hour. In fact, it's now after 4am. :P

Around 2:45 was when many of the CAs actually came back from their own bar-hopping. Amg, now that was also hilarious...lots of McDonald's food, lots of giggling and hugs (mostly from Robert, who's gay as it is but is all too flamboyant when he's drunk), some N'SYNC going, and I FINALLY got to hear the whole story of Dillon's night at the front desk when HCB kissed him. Amg. Freaking hilarious night. And then people were surprised that the desk was still open past 3am....what else do you expect when people are still coming and going? XD

And what did I get to miss out on? My floor getting busted. So all I had to do was sit back and watch as Kristi and the DPS cop and the CAs on duty come and go. Oh hell yes, just slid by lucky on having to deal with shit! :D

But holy eff, with all that I wanna get completed, this may be a close-to-6am run... D:

Allergic to Girls :P

Well then......

Laurel is now officially the second staff person to know that I like Hot Canadian Bacon. Whether she's going to say anything or not though....she probably won't. But I didn't tell her not to either. It always just comes down to stating a fact, and that I'm still not getting my hopes up. Especially since he won't be back next semester. Which isn't entirely concrete either, but with the way things are going....chances are, he's not staying here.

But I'm not even sure quite what Laurel thinks of the situation. I know she's been uncomfortable with the whole HCB/Brandie thing, and we're still not sure whether Brandie really actually likes him.

And apparently there's a letter behind the whole HCB can't date any undergraduates thing. He said he got an email or letter of some sort saying the other staff can, but he can't. I've no freaking clue....however, I have to love the custodians we have here. When he was talking about all of the allergies he has due to the whole celiac problem, the custodian on my floor Maria made the comment "You must be allergic to girls, too, huh?"

Aaaaaaaamg, Maria and Christy (1st & 2nd floor custodian lady) and I burst out laughing....I had to high-five Maria, it was just that good. Of course, he hadn't heard it the first time, but amg we were laughing so hard it was difficult to repeat it! Hells yeah.....

Gahhh now I have to go to Astronomy. Gag me, gag me now....eff it.

Something's Gotta Give

It's Wednesday, but it feels like it's still Monday, it's been that long of a week.

Honestly, the stress is piling up, and it's piling up quickly. Not just with all of the CA shit I have to put up with, but with classes, too.

Classes I'm doing well in:
Basic Newswriting
XDIS (grades-wise, at least. Of what few grades I've gotten back so far, they've all been above 90% save for one, so I'm doing better than it sounds considering my bitching and moaning about it)
Astronomy Lab
French (mehhh, barring he doesn't butcher me for lack of participating)

Classes I need to kick myself in the ass for:
Psych of Sex (because I'm too lazy to study for the few tests we have and there's zero homework points)
Astronomy (because I'm too lazy to even pay attention in the class. It's a crapshoot by now.)

Meh.

I'm lost at this point. I feel like I've lost all sense of caring about college by now, and it all stems from the CA job. And there was a time when they told us that we are students first and foremost--oh bullshit, we aren't students. We're considered staff to Student Services, people we can put to work for stupid shit they don't want to do. It all comes down to one word: RETENTION. Sometime they're going to have to realize that freshmen don't stay because Student Services is catering to their every whim, it's because of the school they go to that determines the majority of this. It can be from lack of respect for fellow students, it could be that the program they're in is crap.

How about this: If you can't retain the CAs you have now, how are you going to be able to retain the students?

There's so much emphasis that 'amg, your CA is your bestest friend in the whole campus! BOND WITH THEM!' that Student Services forget we're just here to facilitate living on your own. Suddenly when were we paid to make friends for you? What I am starting to forget is that these aren't just freshmen, but they're over 18. They're close to my age (and in fact, I know of at least one resident on another floor that's 3 days older than me), and they're what we would consider adults. They aren't children, despite our initial reaction to calling them our 'kids'. But the way we go about things, creating all this programming to get them involved and doing things around campus, I feel morel like SS doesn't trust the students to be responsible adults--more like these are the same high school students who need so much structure and assistance that they need to hold hands with someone through everything. That someone is us CAs. And so because of that, I have to hang around the dorms, waiting to cater to their every whim.

And yet, I'm somehow still a student. A student with my own set of friends, my own set of extracurriculars, and my own set of priorities. With the way things are going, I have none of those. All thanks to this fucking job.

Now today when I was at the U.Brew, I had one of the workers there tell me that I was her favorite North Complex CA....and I had the feeling that she was sincere about it. It hasn't dawned on me until today that no, I haven't done a shitty job as a CA, but there are certain people who've made it clear that I'm doing a good job, and said it to my face. Those people have been residents (both my own and others), CAs (mostly from Beede, go figure), and Hot Canadian Bacon.

Not my own hall director, Kristi.

Oh, she tells us all that we're doing a good job through emails and letters and stuff, but that's the problem. She's never told me, directly, to my face that I'm doing a good job. And I'm not the only Mick CA that has noticed how impersonal Kristi is with certain things. Yeah, this is one of them. :/

Mehhh Astronomy Lab, here I come now...