I never thought I would be one of those girls
Posted Sunday, August 20, 2006 @ 10:13 PM
Technically, I am breaking University rules by posting to my blog, since "computers attached to ResNet may not be used to serve or publish content of any kind." Also, "publishing to chat servers" is prohibited. Right. So you're giving college students internet access, but you don't want them to use it? "No router or wireless access point is permitted on any ResNet connection," but all the supplies required to set one up are sold in the University store. This lends zero credibility to the other rules, so have no fear, my friends—I shall continue to blog.
As I'd suspected, I abandoned you for packing week, during which I laid in my bedroom, stared aimlessly at the walls, and spent time between naps reading or checking email before finally getting off my ass and stuffing all of my possessions into boxes. I saw many of my friends for the last time until Christmas, with one last reunion at Al's, our favorite 24-hour place.
Classic Al's entertainment on Vimeo
I'd forgotten how clumsily the hours pass without friends, without a sense of the nearest Target or Thai restaurant. As Carolyn said to me this afternoon, "I try to think of my first encounters with people in situations like that as opportunities to have interesting exchanges, not opportunities to make friends."
And in one of the most stereotypically helpless college girl moments since the beginning of time, my car overheated/broke down last night (my first night here)—fortunately it made it to my building—and I stood in the parking lot at 12AM while the stench of burnt rubber permeated even the fourth floor of the building. Not only did my car break down, but the gods conspired when I left my purse in the seat, and my friend Elizabeth, who was with me at the time, locked the door and shut it—something I'm usually compulsive about—thereby locking my keys in my smelly, overheated car.
Just before it happened, another girl drove by with a smoking BMW. We waited forty-five minutes for help, and of course the BMW gets help, despite the fact that we called first. When the cop turned from her car to leave, I told Elizabeth, "I'm going to laugh if he gets in his car without helping or acknowledging us at all." He did. We had to flag him down and instead of assisting us, he called someone else to come for us. I made it back to my room around 1AM, and to bed an hour later. Great way to spend your first evening at college, parked in front of the entrance to your dorm. I look forward to the "Oh, you're that girl whose car broke down"s at tomorrow night's dorm meeting. Oy.
More stories from the college frontier soon. I'm here, I'm unpacked, and I'm exhausted—that's about all I have to say for myself.
Welcome to the past, bucko. You're swimming through the archive of rocket-fish.org. If this isn't where you were headed, I suggest you get out of here while there's still time.
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Your school has "weirder" rules then mine. Then again. I'm not supposed to be able to use wireless and 99.9% of the time that works while the "line" verison doesn't.
But ASU is more mac friendly. I don't have to download anything while my roommate and her windows has to download a ton of crap.
21 Aug 2006, 12:08 AM.
Hah. I'll have to take a photo next time I'm in the University store, just to show you how mac-friendly my school is. Supposedly everyone's also supposed to download anti-virus stuff, but upon investigation I couldn't find any for the mac (gee, wonder why), so I just put up my firewall.
21 Aug 2006, 12:11 AM.
congrats on all of your adventures and good luck with the car.
if you email me your address you may get a long awaited exchange gift...
21 Aug 2006, 2:07 AM.
that sucks, but it could be worse. The airline lost all my stuff when I was headed to school, so I arrived with no clothes no music, no computer, no phone numbers of friends, no email addresses except the ones I could remember, etc. It was terrible. Because of the luggage thing I arrived late. My roommates had already taken the good beds and were drunk when I arrived. Hey there's a question. What are the roommates like? Nice? Nightmares? Maybe you need a secret private blog to let us know the sordid details.
21 Aug 2006, 7:26 AM.
Suggestion. Take a few pictures of yourself around campus. Then at the end of each year go back to all the locations and take the same pictures again. You'll be surprised by how much you change.
21 Aug 2006, 7:28 AM.
Not to chuckle at, you know, your pain, but it's a great entrance-to-college story, really. All those "_you_ are the one with the exploded car" conversations are opportunities to meet your new third-best-friend! ;) Enjoy yerself.
Oh, and my first semester at college, I found myself in (not kidding) _four_ cars stranded by the side of the road. Didn't happen again until a week before I graduated.
21 Aug 2006, 8:26 PM.
Wow, I thought my day sucked, what with my toilet backing up and water flowing up and over the sides. God, that sucks, but not as much as a burning car with keys inside. You should just get a scooter--convenient and always a good parking place.
21 Aug 2006, 9:27 PM.
I imagine the rule against publishing & serving content is mostly about not *running* your website from your dorm room, but that's definitely weird. What do they mean by "publishing" to chat servers, anyway? Running chat servers? Maybe.
26 Aug 2006, 12:05 AM.