The University of Miami has gone through some major renovations since the last time I visited.
The cell-block dorm towers are still there, as is the law school and library, however there is a brand new student center, a hospital, and the dumpy student dive bar is now a gorgeous multistory restaurant.
Palm trees, mutant ducks and Lake Osceola.
It was kind of a cool place to go to college.
I’ve officially been in Minnesota for a year. There are already extensive summaries of fall semester and spring semester, so I’ve decided to pick a picture/memory to represent each month.
Here it goes:
August: Exploring Twin Cities
September: school starts, law students riverdance.
October: Let’s talk about the weave
November: Outlining…oh, and Fedde Le Grand/Moon Goons!
I ran into Henry, the campus alligator last night.
I’m pretty sure there are multiple gators, but I refer to them all as Henry, since I only see one at a time.
I wonder what type of wildlife Minneapolis has…
I graduated today. Well, sort of.
My last final-exam was today. I’m not going to commencement, so, for undergrad. That’s it.
I’m sure Angela Lansbury will forgive me for skipping out on her speech.
I’m facing some hardcore resistance writing my last history paper. It needs to be all of three pages. I’ve done all the research. I’ve read over 300 pages for this thing. I’m so just so incredibly bored with the subject that I can’t stop whining about not writing and just write it because I don’t want to write it.
And well, I need to. The FTS (F-this-S) hormones have arrived. They need to go away for the 45-or-so-minutes this thing will take to write.
I even entertained the idea of not writing the paper for a while, but when I mentioned this to Miss Pao she threw a fit. Seriously. Stomping and all.
She might stab me if I don’t turn it in.
Today Matt and I went to the mangrove swamp.
The swamp. I ran face-first into a web with a huge-huge spider up in there yonder.
We were stalked by the pelican with the greedy eyes.
I don’t trap hermit crabs in random Heineken bottles…but someone does.
What a day!
So, things obviously didn’t go as scheduled, but today was eventful, random, and hilarious regardless.
I forgot to set my alarm clock. My cell-phone backup alarm woke me up 15 minutes before the start of class.
I slapped everything together and managed to get to class with 1 minute to spare. I didn’t forget my deodorant or my cologne either. Hah.
After class, I went to the dining hall with Matt, then showered and made an appearance at work. I’m a graphic designer/printer, and I had to start a large order from bosslady, even though I had other things to do. (The printer takes about 3-4 minutes per poster, and there were 20 to be done).
While bosslady’s posters were printing, I skipped to the health clinic where I was violated by a doctor, had blood withdrawn by a nice lab technician, and I received a shot. (“Received” is being nice…the nurse guy stabbed me in the arm!)
Good thing I’m not scared of needles.
I went back to work and my computer informed me that yet another file was corrupted. My computer’s files and folders have slowly corrupted/shut down for the past few weeks. I took the laptop to the on-campus tech place. They told me that I had to drop my laptop off and they wouldn’t even look at it for two weeks.
No thank you mam.
So, I ended up at Bestbuy. My MP3 player was also dead, so I figure I could exercise two warranties at once.
Bestbuy was a three hour long saga that could have been a disaster had it not been for good manners and preparation.
The short of it: Initially I was told that my computer’s warranty had expired, and that my MP3 player’s warranty wasn’t applicable for the damage.
So, basically, I was told “You’re SOL. Womp!”
But, since I was friendly with the Geeksquad guy,(and because the guy in front of me was throwing the king-of-all-bitchfits,) the Geeksquad guy offered to speak with a manager.
They offered me a deal: They would replace my MP3 player if I bought another warranty.
So, I got a $200 MP3 player for purchasing a $30 2-year warranty. Holler.
Then, I went to my car and tossed my glove compartment. This is where I keep my Bestbuy receipts –
including the receipt for the $350 3-year computer warranty I had bought last August.
I gave it to the stank customer service girl and smiled. She said “oh crap, we have no record of it! Oops. Good thing you have a receipt,” and sent me back to Geeksquad guy to update my service order with the laptop.
The laptop is in Gatewayland for at least a week. Maybe two. But at least it’s there on Bestbuy’s dime.
I got back to campus, engaged in that warzone we call a communal laundry room, back to work for a hot minute, and then to the dining hall with Carmen. Afterwards we went to the Senior Convocation to hear Anderson Cooper speak.
Anderson Cooper seems a little older, and skinnier in person, but he’s very charismatic. Here are the four best quotes:
“I’m not one to give advice. That’s Bill O’Reilly’s job and he does it very well.”
“And once you start sweating you notice how relatively sweat-free everyone else is.”
“To CNN’s credit they did send me to the Congo for two and a half weeks when they knew it would turn some viewers off. Especially since my major competitor is running a story about the missing blond of the week and getting better ratings.”
Girl: “I’m going on a journalism internship in Rwanda and Uganda, but I’m scared. Is it dangerous there? I don’t want to die.”
Anderson: “I don’t even know you and I don’t want you to die either. You’re not going to die in Rwanda and probably not in Uganda either.”
Donna Shalala didn’t give any closing remarks. I think she was scared of the two older men who weren’t allowed to ask questions. One of the Convocation helpers kept allowing undergrads to pass them. The question and answer session was then cut off, but the men still lingered by the stage.
I saw Shalala shoot a weary look at the men from the side of the stage. I think she saw the potential for a scene and decided against it. Go Shalala.
Her instinct was right: The older of the pair looked like he was about to jump for the mike. (I heard he was a security threat when he followed Anderson Cooper and Shalala backstage.)
I couldn’t go to the senior’s reception after the Convocation because I had to help with a Jeopardy program back at the dorm. The head of the Service-Leadership center on campus hosted, and he was hilarious. He’s our big, white equivalent to Chris Rock (with a little of Sarah Silverman’s meanness).
Jeopardy in the lobby was fun. One of my guy’s won.
Afterwards, on the way to the library, I decided to withdraw some cash from the student union’s ATM, but there was a hole where the card-sucking-thing is supposed to be.
I notice this, of course, after I put my card in.
My card plunked down into the machine and landed somewhere in the void. Probably on some bills or wires.
I spent the next 40 minutes on hold/talking to computers at Bank of America’s phoneline. I then explained my embarrassing situation to the (rather amused!) tele-help guy.
He said they would shred the card in the morning. I’ll get my new card a week.
And now, at midnight, I can finally start on my homework…on a library computer of course.
Long, fun day… I just hope tomorrow is a little less eventful.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
– Anne Dillard
This weekend reminded me of the importance of scheduling. Desk shift and duty switches left awkward clumps of time that were quickly wasted.
Duty on Saturday night was a bit, busy. Robin and I went to bed at 5:30am after leaving several rooms of frustrated students.
This of course, meant that I spent the majority of Sunday sleeping before going back on duty.
Tomorrow is thoroughly outlined in Window’s calendar. My plans include a four our block in the library, a Jeopardy show in the lobby, and Anderson Cooper’s speech.
Redesigned things today. Jawohl!
I just saw Prom Night in the Province. Matt said it best, “They set up the scares well, but the kills are ridiculous.” There was a lot of laughing, it was a decent horror-comedy, but not memorable.
The next movie I’m excited about is The Strangers. That comes out this summer.
Cleaned the dorm today. There’s something empowering about a fresh dormhouse. I’ll post some less-blurry pictures tomorrow. I’m off to a midnight show of “Prom Night” in the province.
When I was 11 years old, I lived in Wichita, Kansas.
In Wichita, time was slow.
And plodding.
And tedious.
The older I get, the trickier this time character becomes – I look at my computer clock and another hour has passed.
It’s already next week.
It’s already next month, I’m already graduating college…what the hey?
I think the real cause of the time warp is that an 11-year-old in Wichita has considerably less to do than a 21-year-old college senior in Miami. Understatement of the year? Is there an award for that?
I’m not going to slip into a whole time management tangent, but, given the new pace of things, organization is the business. In fact. Indeed.
One major difference between freshman and senior year is that I don’t do gray-time anymore. An example of gray-time is those crap hours in the library spent not doing work (be it facebook, chatting with a “study buddy”, etc.)
Niet.
Nein.
No.
Bad.
Say no to crap time.
This is why, actually, why I’m at the beach more than ever – I have the time now.
Paradoxically, I am also at library more than ever.
I am simply spending more time working. I am more motivated and productive because I see the progress of the library hours now. How much stuff went unread in the past three years? How much stuff was bootleg and last minute? Hm. Sorry Prof.
This semester, long after the transcripts have been shipped out to the law schools, I’m more productive and on-top-of-things than ever.
How perfectly annoying.
Why did this take me four years to learn?
I don’t know who started the rumor that I had food, but yesterday I was surrounded by a flock of pigeons and seagulls at the beach.
They got a little too close. One time I looked up from my book and a seagull was a little more than a foot away from my face.
After my last test Friday, I quickly went to work, then loaded the car and skipped to the beach. I was there for a solid hour before a storm came.
I went back to the car and found a “where the fuck are you?” voicemail on my cell. Oops. Turns out I was on borrowed time. While ill advised, it was a nice preview of a spring break (which turned out to be spent mostly on campus.)
South Beach is a violent enterprise. Last week (two Saturdays ago), Robin, Nisha, and I took on Twist in South Beach. On the way to the clubhouse we saw a dead homeless man.
Two men prodded and shook the wino. Clubbers watched and whispered.
The two men eventually prompted the wino up against the wall. In that position, he appeared to have fallen asleep begging.
At the clubhouse we ran into Pusilla. Pusilla is one of the club flagship drag queens. She had a blown horn.
Robin and Nisha also found a sponsor — an overly friendly UM-dropout who bought them drinks.
After 3 the clubhouse became unbearably crowded. So we went home and avoided the bands of thugs who can’t really get into clubs so they sit along Washington and shout vulgar things at girls.
I warned Robin and Nisha that I see a nasty car wreck every time I come back from the Beach on a weekend. To illustrate my point, we saw two (probably fatal) car accidents on the way home.
I took stock today and reminded myself of all things good.
“Any artist must expect to work amid the total, rational indifference of everybody else to their work, for years, perhaps for life: but no artist can work well against daily, personal, vengeful resistance.”
– Ursula K. Le Guin
Even the meanest coach sprinkles a little praise in. It prevents revolt.
This is Titan. He lives in the abandoned building on campus.
Today? I’m thoroughly annoyed that I have to leave campus to get coffee. Subway is closed. Starbucks is closed. The world is closed.
Well, actually, the libraries are open. I’m in the (law) library right now. But the point is the coffee-places are closed.
I’m going to skip outside to keep working.
But, it’s 65 and I need warm beverage. So this is going to involve a mandatory car ride, plus a trip to the gas station because I’m on low on the black potion…
Today was marked by a exhaustion.
I took a trip to Doral-land to watch 10,000 BC.
Killer Ostriches and Mammoths that build pyramids… who knew? I didn’t expect it to be “historically accurate” but wow.