The Weather and Everyone's Health

Sunday, September 09, 2007

There are too many undergraduates and their parents around the campus, and the area around the campus is really busy. This appealed to me when I was younger. Not so much now. At least the parents will be gone this week.

Orientation and registration is tomorrow. I wish I could again-find the schedule for this week that I had previously printed and left on HB's desk ie not packed. Where is it, o internets and intranets? Why is it not where the email sent to me says it should be? eh?

Based on the information they have put online about themselves, including (solicited) haikus about their hopes and fears for the coming year, my classmates sound like a bunch of wankers. I hope they don't try to hug me.

I am looking forward to my core course and a healthy handful of other classes look interesting. Some classes in the psych dept look interesting too. There are some at MIT, too that I could cross-register for, but I am afraid they my try to eat my entrails while I'm still screaming. Still, if they haven't already settled registration over there perhaps I should go browse.

So many options for statistics/quantitative methods. Some in my dept., some over in psych, and some at MIT. Actually there is one at MIT specifically for research in my area and based on the topics they mention it sounds like it could be very helpful to me. As long as I can keep my entrails where they are.

I have met a bunch of groovy potential new roommates and there is one pair that I have become engaged to (based on mutual admiration) but nothing will be official until the landlady cashes the check and her mother-in-law dances. Still, it seems like now that people my age are 25+ and pursuing serious study, they are people I can stand. Or at least more likely to be so. (OTOH I met someone who was 27 today--not a potential roommate--who...how to put this...was still basking in self-conscious irresponsibility. yuck.)

It was very hot and humid yesterday (80degF+) . Today it was cooler but didn't rain, though there were a few drops. I don't have a lot of decent clothes that are good for hot weather.

Oh, this is the important point: my hair looks ok/pretty good even though I didn't get it cut before I left like I wanted to. Thus, my last haircut was in June. But it is doing a thing now that, although a bit irregular appears to be intentionally so. But I will have to find someone out here to cut it in a couple of weeks, I think. The person I had in SF was wonderful--she really understood what I wanted and how to work with my hair. Plus she had a great joie de vivre and was from New Orleans (relocated after Katrina).

I think I would like to get a bike. That will make the commute from my new (hopefully) apartment to campus very simple and quick and the roads aren't very big/intimidating in most places and many have bike lanes. However, I also will need to find a bed first. craigslist, here I come again! But how will I get the bed to my apartment? Hmm. A couple of places I have looked at came with the option of buying the furniture, but in terms of overall quality of life none were close to the one I'm engaged to.

There is a local chain called Anna's Taqueria that makes an entirely decent veggie burrito in a close-to-mission style and even has black beans. The only thing missing is free chips and a salsa bar. So one of my great questions about whether I'd be able to live here is answered.

But I do know that the new place is just off the square with the cool, hip, apparently lesbian coffeehouse. I wonder if lesbian coffeehouses are more financially viable than bars/nightclubs (e.g. San Fransisco--of all places--has only one lesbian bar, though there are floating dance nights). Anyway, I haven't been to that cafe yet because...I'm not sure why. Also on the day when I had time to sit down in a cafe, I didn't know where it was, and then today I was all over the countryside looking at apartments.

Found a copy of Bay Windows, the LGBT newspaper, on the T (subway) so I picked it up. It has a very professional layout and feel and I started to wonder why the SF LGBT papers don't, then I remembered that the SF ones are free and Bay Times you have to pay for, though if I recall correctly it was only 50 cents last time I was here (8 years ago). It must be $1.50 or something stupid like that now. I remember when the Chronicle was only 25 cents for that matter, but oh well.

Almost as important as my hair: Mansfield Park. Just finished Volume I (of 3). I predict that Fanny is going to totally blow her stack in Volume II because all through Volume I she has been an absolute *model* (ie paragon) of virtue, restraint, blah blah blah and it seems that the more she does so, the more crap is thrown in her face (e.g. the one person who is nice to her is the one stealing the attention and affection of the one other person who is nice to her, and then they both want to rehearse a romantic scene with her because they are too shy to do it with the other. gag me with a spoon!) I think if it were a Hollywood movie she would get a makeover and win him back with her new-found confidence (the kind that--in hollywood--is correlated with cleavage and a new haircut). But that would be counter to all the moral instruction Ms. Austen is giving us, so I'll be interested to see where she goes with this. DO NOT TELL ME HOW IT ENDS! OR I WILL CUT YOU!

Apparently we get our ID photos taken on Thursday and then our ID cards are mailed to us a week later. WTF? How am I supposed to get into the library? Let alone the gym? Maybe we get temporary IDs.

- posted by k @ 6:41 PM