Welcome back?

It seem that whenever I return to school after being away for an extended period of time, I have a strange series of misfortunes (see http://furtherin2009.blogspot.com/2010/01/return-day-1.html ). Today has been no exception.

I am back in GR…and I have both good and bad news. The good news is that I made it here safely. The bad news….well, there's quite a bit.

Once here, I stopped to check my mail before heading to my apartment. I greeted Stephanie, my suitemate from this past year, who was working in the mail room. She informed me that the power was out in my building for an undetermined amount of time and had been since Saturday. Normally, I wouldn't mind this too much, except tonight I'm supposed have friends over, bake brownies, watch movies, and make a tent out of sheets in my living room. Along with that, I don't regret my summer without car air conditioning, but it made for a terribly toasty drive here. I was looking forward to entering a building that would be at least slightly cooler, but it was actually worse.

I checked into my apartment and took about half an hour filling out the stupid RCI form that is annoying enough to ruin anyone's good mood. Upon turning it in to one of the RAs, I was secretly hoping he'd offer to help me bring everything in from my car. Unfortunately, with the wish of "Have fun unpacking everything from your car!", he resumed watching TV in the lounge. This left me to unload on my own through a lengthy process that went like this:

Step 1: walk from my apartment, at one end of the very dark hallway, to the stairs at the opposite end of the hall.

Step 2: Rummage through my car in an attempt to find the best items to evenly add up to the Maximum Carryable Load size (MCL). This was difficult, as I needed a free hand to open the door. It limited the use of my right arm only to things I could hang from my wrist or tuck under my upper arm.

Step 3: Haul MCL up the stairs, to the opposite end of the hall, and deposit in kitchen (the only place it would be out of the way of the furniture moving that is to come). (Side note: my apartment with its door open was quite literally the light at the end of a very dark tunnel. This made me laugh.)

Step 4: Take a bite of my granola bar, the only food I had to last the next seven hours.

Step 5: Repeat.

Approximate Average Load Time (AALT): 4 minutes.

In the midst of this process, I realized two things. One, I had no toilet paper, thus couldn't use the bathroom. Two, I left my coffee pot at home. The toilet paper issue can easily be solved, but the coffee pot…I'm pretty sure the world is going to end.

Today has been quite the adventure thus far. While frustrating, it's really quite humorous. And, if Tori ever returns my phone calls, I look forward to spending tonight with two wonderful people.