Schmader's Censure

Loungin' Around

2009-11-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

I like to believe that most people have a common sense of decency and social appropriateness, though it may not surface in my writing. This week something that been occurring frequently that really irks me and simply begs the question, “Really?”

I don’t like to talk on the phone in my room because it’s inconsiderate to my roommate do so, so I usually go down to the lounge to talk. It’s not that I’m saying anything I necessarily wouldn’t want her to hear, it’s just that she’s usually watching a movie or studying and I don’t want to disturb her. The lounges are public to all Cunningham residents or, I guess, all students at Longwood (though not many non-North Cunningham students hang out in our lounges). The one I usually talk on the phone in is mid-way down the hall and contains a table, two chairs, and a couch. When there’s someone in that lounge, I go down to the main lounge, which contains a mini-kitchen and a television. When this one is in use, which it often is considering the TV, I go up to the second floor, which has an open lounge area at the end of it complete with several couches and a drink machine.

Notice I said that when there is someone in said lounge area, I go somewhere else to talk on the phone. You’d think this would be the widely accepted, generally polite thing to do. You would also assume that everyone would do this. Well, you’d also be wrong.

I had a recently-ended battle with a boy we all affectionately call “Lounge Kid.” Lounge Kid looks like a serial killer. Lounge Kid also never left the lounge for two weeks straight. I mean, it’s not like he had a sleeping bag rolled out and his toothbrush on the windowsill, but he was in there whenever I wanted to talk on the phone, working on some sketch for an art class. Lounge Kid is a creeper. Every time I come down the hallway and he’s in there he stares at me with a stare that says, “I’m going to make a dress out of your skin.” I usually try to make a pretty sour face back, hoping that the staring will cease, but it doesn’t. I think he didn’t stop staring at me because he was anxious to see what kind of horrible expression I could contort my face into each time we made eye contact.

Nonetheless, he has concluded spending all of his time in the first floor North lounge. I don’t know why, but he just hasn’t been in there. I haven’t exactly cried over it yet. But, Lounge Kid is old news.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting in the open second floor lounge area on the phone. It around eleven o’ clock at night. I had been sitting there for well over a half hour when this girl approaches; she was both on the phone talking obnoxiously and holding her laptop. She had one of those naturally obnoxious voices that you can’t really insult because you know they cant help it most of the time.

She spotted me and said, “Uhhh… uhhh…” into the phone. She looked at me, then at the couch next to me, then at me again. I continued my conversation. She then proceeded to sit near me, hook up her laptop, and continue her very loud, obnoxious conversation.

I understand that these are open, public spaces for all residents. But, mind you, there are four floors in the Cunningham building and two lounge spaces on each hall. There are 12 halls total. That means there are 24 lounges total. That’s not including laundry rooms, and there are 2 of those on each floor, and they’re usually pretty empty during the week. That means there are a total of 32 open spaces that can be used as a place to talk other than your room.

I can understand that most people are too lazy to walk down to South Cunningham to use their lounge, which is understandable. But really, you shouldn’t have to. I already told you my order of locations, and I didn’t even mention the laundry room. There are endless possibilities that don’t include invading a talk space that was already in use.

Just yesterday, I was talking on the phone in the small mid-hallway lounge. I had been there for about 45 minutes talking with my significant other about Thanksgiving break plans and such. This girl approaches the lounge, laptop in hand. Let it be said that this lounge is much smaller than the second floor lounge area, thus less reasonable when someone attempts to “share” it. So anyways, this young lady walked right in with a sort of entitled attitude; didn’t look at me and went straight for the chair then hooked up her laptop. I continued to talk to Erik for a few minutes, hoping she might get uncomfortable. But, she didn’t. Instead, she shot me this glare, like her voo doo mind trick or something was going to make me go elsewhere to converse. Instead, I just got sick of her creepily staring at me, and went elsewhere on my own.

Anyway, this whole thing is annoying. We are offered ample space in our dormitories, not to mention the student union, Java City, and the plain old great outdoors. You wouldn’t crawl into a phone booth when someone else is using it, so why double-up on a lounge?

By the Way:

This will be my last entry of the semester. My next entry will be January 14^th. Good luck on your exams, be looking for my stories in the Rotunda, and have a wonderful break!

Let’s Talk Registration

2009-11-12T06:14:00.000-08:00

I enjoy my new staff position on the Rotunda. I am now the editor responsible for layout out most of the pages and doing the final grammatical edit of the finished product before we export the pages. Though it is what I love, I am in the office with my fellow staff members until the wee hours of the morning. That’s just some background on how the morning prior to registration went.

I woke up at 5:45 a.m., an hour after I had gotten home from the office, and got all of my numbers typed into the designated registration page like my peer mentors advised me to do. That way, I could click submit right at 6. I did so.

Let me offer you some insight into my course plan for spring semester. I had five classes in mind, and two of them had fewer than ten seats available. Upperclassmen, athletes, and honors students get to register first; freshmen are last. In my mind, this meant that the other 1,000 freshmen were surely going to want to be in the same classes as me, and I was subsequently doomed.

The page was loading. In some cases, the courses that you submit can take up to ten minutes to confirm and load into the next page. Well, mine took thirteen, and then it stopped loading. The following sequence of events was a blur as I felt my future had suddenly turn into a black hole. (Obviously, I was being a little dramatic.) It happened like this: I refreshed, the screen went white, I refreshed again, a screen came up that said “server failed,” I exited, tried to log back in, and it told me my username was invalid.

I was livid, and the conclusion of the situation was a reality that I don’t handle very well: out of my control. And so, I shot my adviser an e-mail saying I needed to meet with him ASAP to register for classes, turned my computer off, and went back to bed.

The hum of the distant Bedford Hall construction awoke me the next morning around eleven thirty. I contemplating rolling over and falling back asleep, considering I didn’t have class until three that day, but instead I made the conscious decision to check my e-mail first.

Of course, there was an e-mail from my adviser waiting for me in my inbox. It read, “Hello Sarah, come by my office this morning at eleven o’ clock and we’ll get it all sorted out.” My eyes narrowed like movie characters’ do when they see a natural disaster heading straight for where they’re standing. I muttered some choice words about my bad karma, got dressed, and headed out into the grey nor’easter weather toward the communications building.

My adviser was on his lunch break, inevitably, when I got there around eleven forty-five, so I sat outside of his office until he came back to drop his things off before his one o’ clock class. I sat patiently, dripping wet, until he came around the corner at a little after twelve thirty.

I apologized for my tardiness, explained the situation, and followed him into his office. Luckily, he was able to help me register before his next class. I got into three of the classes I needed, and I am still waiting on an override on the other two. He reassured me that not getting into the exact classes you need right away is not the end of the world, and that everything would work itself out.

Knowing that he does sometimes read this blog, I would like to again thank Dr. Rao very much for being so patient and helpful during my spring registration process.

Other Updates

1. At dinner on Tuesday, I spilled an entire bowl of Coco Puffs all over the table my roommate Emily and I were sitting at. She often cares far too much about what others think of her, and so to push her buttons, I took ten minutes to wash my hands and left her sitting at the table while the workers mopped up the milk and cereal from the ground. Needless to say, it was very funny. I sometimes take small opportunities to put Emily in embarrassing situations so that she will learn to not care as much as she does about everyone else’s opinion; I don’t do it to be mean, I do it so that she will learn to laugh at herself, which is a skill I think everyone should develop.

2. The photo below is our suitemate’s latest attempt to “stick it” to us. In case you can’t see, it is a tissue hanging on the empty toilet paper holder. They have obviously abandoned our alternating toilet paper system. I am absolutely heart-broken.

2009-11-05T08:10:00.001-08:00

I have a cold. I have had a cold for four days now. On Monday I called the health clinic. The man who answered the phone asked for my symptoms and my temperature. I told him I had been sneezing all morning and had a runny nose. He asked my temperature and I told him that I didn’t have a thermometer. He told me to go to the front desk because they have them, then to call him back after I got my temperature. Okay.

The front desk was closed, of course. I called him back and told him this. He was very quiet for about thirty seconds. The idea that the Cunningham front desk was closed was not an unfathomable one. He finally said to call him back when I had my temperature, because “they can’t work you in unless you have a fever of over 100.” He told me to review the swine flu awareness checklist to see if I had any of the symptoms it mentioned before I call him back. Are you kidding me? I hung up.

I understand this is a pandemic. I know it’s plagued a lot of people and it’s a serious problem. But when did it become the only sickness there is? Not everyone who has a runny nose and is sneezy has the godforsaken H1N1 disease. I don’t have a headache. I don’t have the runs. And I don’t “feel like I’ve been hit by a bus”. I have a COLD, a common COLD. And I just want you to confirm that, health clinic. I don’t want any more literature on swine flu.

I got my nifty disposable thermometer from the front desk once it opened. I had no fever Still, needless to say, they should stop letting students work the phones in the clinic. Though, in their defense, I understand they were down a nurse practitioner this week.

I had two tests and one paper last week. I was in the library a lot. The problem that I am about to expand on only reached maximum annoyance this past week, since I was spending lots of time there studying.

The downstairs of the library is filled with workstations and computers. It’s for group projects and research. The talkativeness there is understandable. Upstairs, there are signs hung up that read “quiet area: please no phone calls, just texting.” I have always understood the upstairs portion of the library of somewhere that is quiet all together. Everyone seems to keep relatively quiet, and I thought that cell phone conversations were generally a no-go in the library all together.

Last week I observed something that happens often in Greenwood Library, as it does in probably all college libraries (doesn’t make it any less annoying). The scenario is as follows: Two girls sitting three tables down from me are studying together. They have been relatively quiet, reducing their conversation to murmuring with the occasional eruption of laughter as one shows the other a text she had received. They then go back to studying.

They weren’t bothering me in the least. When I’m studying, no room can be quiet enough, though I have to recognize that the library is a shared space. What happens next is something I can’t stand anywhere; whether it’s in the library or anywhere else.

A boy approaches their table and starts talking to one of them. The eruptions of laughter become more frequent and loud. They continue talking and then the ultimate sign of distraction commences: the girl conversing with the boy puts down the note cards she was quizzing her friend with.

This is a horrendous downward spiral. They will continue talking for a few minutes, distracting the living hell out of me with their giggling and gossip, then, eventually, the boy will leave. Alas, it’s not over yet. Once the boy is out of ear shot or, even better, out of the library, the two girls proceed to scrutinize what all he said. They go on discussing the discussion they both just had with this boy for the next twenty-ish minutes.

I’ve decided that no one really studies in pairs anymore. It’s just a weak attempt to combine your social life with your academic.

Zombies, Vampires, and Further-Suspending-the-Reality-of-Adulthood, Oh My!

2009-10-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of Halloween, let’s assess the recent fascination with fictional beings that has taken over the country.

I don’t understand the recent obsession, on campus and throughout the nation, with vampires and zombies. I was thrilled when the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings hype finally subsided, and now there has been a return of this ridiculous, infantile fixation with imaginary monsters.

Halloween is not my favorite holiday. Girls my age take advantage of it by dressing like hussies, taking away the childhood wonder of Halloween. I think it dates back to high school when my mom grounded me on Halloween night… Nonetheless, it’s not my favorite holiday and I most certainly don’t want to celebrate it all year round.

I hate everything Twilight. I had friends and high school that obsessed over it and sadly that has translated to college. I have never cracked one of the books open in fear of getting sucked in. I was even hesitant to watch the movie. Alas, I did, and made Erik watch it, as well. It was ridiculous. “It's like you're my own personal brand of heroin.” Oh, please.

Though I understand the desire for romantic movies, there’s nothing romantic about a vampire falling in love with a human. This movie is chock-full of cheesy lines; my eyes were tired from rolling so much. People say the book is better; I say fat chance.

Following the release of the Twilight saga, several television series were released about vampires (i.e. Valmont or Vampire Diaries). It just seems so childish to me. It’s not as much of a surprise that young girls are buying this stuff, but even some grown women like it. I just don’t understand it.

Not to mention the whole recent zombie obsession. Zombieland was released and crowds of viewers dressed like zombies filled the theaters. In my hometown, MacArthur mall was crawling with zombie look-a-likes complete with fake blood, a limp, and torn clothing. This includes adults. I don’t mean to condescending or more “scholarly” than everyone else, but where’s the fun in this? Why can’t you just go to a movie and enjoy it?

I think it’s the chance to escape your everyday identity that attracts people to this phenomenon. People have normal jobs, families, classes, etc. and they will jump at the first opportunity to leave that in the dust… even for a two-hour long movie.

Also, there’s a new game being played on college campuses all across Virginia. It’s called Zombies vs. Humans. A friend of mine explained the rules to me, but forgive me if they are slightly inaccurate, for I lost interest after I found out there was actual structure to it. Zombies wear headbands. Zombies and humans carry Nerf guns. The human shoots the zombie and the zombie is dead. The zombie can also become paralyzed, in which they put their bandana around their neck to symbolize this. My friend assured me that they are only paralyzed for a short period.

This game bids many questions. How do you win? How do you know when each side has won? And, of course, why on earth are you doing this? I assume it’s to relieve the boredom of dorm life, but wouldn’t you think, with a full course load and several clubs/teams offered, they would have other activities to occupy their time?

This whole thing baffles me. Hopefully it dies out soon.

Have a great Halloween!

2009-10-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

Dear Suite Mates,

Emily and I have reached the end of our rope. We could handle your constant blaring of Miley Cyrus or your incessant door slamming, but this week, when the plumber told me there was a tennis-ball sized wad of hair clogging the sink, I decided it was the last straw.

At the beginning of the school year, I made a toilet paper sign-up list. For the first two weeks or so, each set of roommates was taking in their own roll of toilet paper. Aware of this, I took it upon myself to initiate taking turns to replace the toilet paper. You agreed to it to my face, but probably cackled about my OCD tendencies behind closed doors. That’s okay; unbeknownst to you, your opinion is completely negligible. Two days following the posting of the neatly typed-up toilet paper sheet, someone defaced it by writing “WTF it’s just toilet paper!” then scratched it out (not well enough, obviously). A few days later I wrote “you suck” then tried to scratch it out in order to make it look like one of our friends wrote it, but my pen ran out of ink, because God unfortunately doesn’t like to grant me gratification for spiteful revenge most of the time.

On one of the several occasions that you locked us out of the bathroom, I knocked on your door and asked you to please unlock the bathroom door. You did. The next morning, I found a message on our board that read, “You are a C word!” I stared at it for a few minutes, dumbstruck by all of the hilarious potential responses that flooded my brain all at once. Not only were you too big of wimps to actually write out “the C word,” but also you couldn’t even say it to my face. Though I wanted severely to respond, I respected Emily’s wishes to avoid drama and simply erased it.

Two weeks ago, you locked us out of the bathroom for the fourth time. This time, it was eleven o’ clock at night, which just happened to be the time that I had to use the restroom. So, we knocked and we knocked and we knocked, not only on your bathroom door but also on your front door. No response. We assumed you were out; after all it was “thirsty Thursday.” So, we walked up to the front desk and told them you locked us out of the bathroom. Two RA’s followed us down to our hall. (I have nicknames for them now, since we talk so often. These two were Kiki and Bon-Bon.) They knocked once, twice, three times, four times, said “RA keying in” then unlocked your door and opened it. You were both asleep. Taken aback, also probably expecting you to not be in the room, one of the RA’s said, “Oh, uh, you locked them out of the bathroom.” So, one of you got up and unlocked our bathroom door.

We could have the potential of being friends, but what once was a possibility is now out of the question. Some suitemates go to dinner or parties together, but giving you a “hi” in the hallway out of my gracious social charity will do for me. You yell, you sing, and most of all, your flirting with the boys down the hall involves loud squealing. Squealing is one of the most awful sounds in the world, next to the hiss of a cat.

Emily told me that even today she went into the bathroom to perform a number one and one of you promptly used the restroom after her. She told me that after one of you used the bathroom, one of your friends used it and exclaimed, “Oh my god, it stinks in here!” in our room’s general direction, probably trying to make Emily insecure about her bathroom habits. But, alas, she did not produce the stench. You pooped, and you know it.

Hugs and kisses,

Your suitemate

A Letter of Complaint

2009-10-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

Dear frat boys that live above me,

You are loud. You are beyond loud. It has gotten to the point where you have woken me from my sweet slumber, reminding me in the middle of the night that I’m being pierced by the springs of my victim-of-budget-cuts mattress.

The bass from your “music” thumps my room and sometimes shakes my window. I would enjoy it a lot more if I could hear all elements of whatever you’re always listening to, but instead I only receive the vibrations that simply sound like one of you farting out of your window on to mine.

Also, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from rearranging your furniture at two in the morning. Maybe you haven’t gotten the feng shui of your room quite right, but it would be really cool if you could work on that during the daylight. I apologize if one of you is just terribly obese and falls out of bed in the middle of the night three times a week… my mistake.

I have reported you twice to the front desk. Yes, I’m that girl. They say things like “we’ll take care of that” or “I’ll look into that.” I know for a fact they haven’t because 1) they’re college students and, regardless of being RAs, are probably of the same grade as you, friends with you, or you’re by some wild chance “cool” and they want you’re approval and 2) you haven’t stopped.

One night when I was chatting it up with the lady at the front desk about your barbarian behavior, she informed me that you were fraternity members practicing for the sorority vs. fraternity lip-syncing competition that was coming up. So, you were dancing. Okay, I can deal with that. I was just relieved to have a reason.

So then I spied on you one afternoon. I watched Harriet the Spy far too often throughout my childhood to let my keenly developed spy skills go to waste. Not only was your door open (a concept popular to dorm dwellers that I don’t understand), but you were also blaring your music and talking about “that bitch” and “getting crunk.” Needless to say, you adequately met my expectations.

I crossed off on my calendar as the days drew closer to the lip-syncing competition. I almost wanted to attend just to see if I could tell which frat was yours, considering I could almost do the dance routine for you I’d heard it stomping from my ceiling so many nights. But, alas, I didn’t go. I was enjoying quiet time in my room knowing you wouldn’t be there.

Sincerely,

that girl that lives below us, no not “the hot one” the other one

Sidenote: This may be the first of many notes to my neighbors. They all suck.

Ashton Kutcher, Come On Out!

2009-10-08T05:50:00.000-07:00

Every time I go to the Farmville Dairy Queen, I feel like I’m getting punked.

Mind you, I’ve only been twice, but the service has been so bad both times that I feel like someone is playing a joke on me; like they’re going to hop out with a hundred dollar bill and yell, “GOTCHA!”

I have no issue with any other Farmville businesses. I have never experienced anything but fully satisfactory customer service at businesses such as Goodwill, Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid, etc. But this Dairy Queen has got something against me.

The first time I went to this Dairy Queen was when my boyfriend and I drove up to Farmville over the summer so he could tour the campus, as he’s considering Longwood as a university he’d one day like to transfer to. So, we had a nice jaunt around the campus and I pointed out the buildings he needed to know. On our way out of town we decided to stop for some ice cream at Dairy Queen.

The ordering process was not unlike the usual. The cashier wasn’t the sweetest lady in the world, but she did her job; punched our order in, took our money, and handed back our change. We both ordered chocolate malts; not at all a difficult thing to make. I know this because I worked as a soda jerk for a year in a diner. (Yes, a soda jerk is a real term. It’s someone that makes root beer floats, sundaes, shakes, etc.)

They finished our order and we picked up our cups. I glanced down at mine and saw that it wasn’t chocolate; it was vanilla. Now I’m not the kind of person so complain about little things like a dirty fork at a restaurant or cheese on my potatoes when I specifically asked for none. Little things like that don’t bother me, and I let them slide, but something as easy as making a chocolate malt when you only have three flavors of malts is a mistake that should be avoided.

I politely said to the woman that had taken our order, “Excuse me, I asked for a chocolate malt.” She looked at me and said, “You didn’t specify what flavor you wanted.” I was taken aback and responded, “Yes I did, I said I wanted chocolate. It’s no big deal though, if you could just put —” She then proceeded to snatch my malt back and said, “Yeah, sure.”

Making a malted shake chocolate is not something that is difficult. Three squirts of the standardized chocolate syrup, mix it, and it’s a done deal. She made it sound like it was heart surgery. Let it be said that this DQ was not busy; we were two of maybe five customers. I was polite, and even if I didn’t specify what flavor I wanted (which I did), it wasn’t my fault that she didn’t ask what flavor I wanted. Plus, who gets a vanilla malt? Only old men, as far as I’m concerned.

The second instance at this Dairy Queen was this past Oktoberfest Saturday. Erik and I went to Dairy Queen because I was craving the hell out of a cookie dough blizzard. So, as the usual sequence of ordering a blizzard goes, I specified to the young man who was taking my order what size I wanted and what flavor. Suddenly, before he told me my total, he yells out, “F***!”

I turn around and look at Erik. We share a “surely-this-can’t-be-happening-again” look, both in disbelief of this kid’s outcry on the job. His manager looks over her shoulder and asked, “What?” I know that if I had yelled the “F” word at any of my past jobs (maybe excluding Tres Amigos Mexican Restaurante) that I would have been fired on the spot. This manager did nothing.

The cashier exhaled heavily and said, “It didn’t register her cash. I put in ten dollars cash and her total was four sixty-six. And the thing just… it just… JAMMED ON ME!” The manager, though she didn’t scold him for cursing on the clock, responded adequately for the situation. “Well,” she said, “Do the math.” That being said, he stared into space. No apology to me, the customer, whatsoever. I sighed, took out my phone, and calculated my change. The cashier said “oh” and handed me a few crinkled bills and some coins.

Wow, this blog turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated for the whole thing being a complaint about an ice cream joint. Anyway, it was ridiculous. Farmville needs a charming little ice cream shop; they have charming little everything else.

Much-Needed Noisy Mint

2009-10-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

There is always that person that absolutely, positively needs a Lifesavers mint in the middle of your psychology lecture, but why?

Why must you have that mint right this second? And why must you leave us all in suspense while you wrestle with it in your lap for ten minutes? There is no quiet way to open a snack in class, so just get it over with, quick and dirty. There are a few different variations of packaging and techniques for this situation:

1) The cheap plastic holding the small circular mint; needless to say the most annoying for being so small. In this instance, just open the damn thing. Rip off the corner and pop it in your mouth. Don’t try and split the seam open like a bag of Lays, just rip off the corner and be done with it. It makes the most awful crinkling noise.

2) The twisty-ended hard candy. For some reason people try and wriggle the candy out from where the two long sides of the wrapper meet. If this was the way you were supposed to open this candy, they wouldn’t have those convenient twisties at the ends. Just untwist them, maybe just one side (if that’s what you’re into), and eat it; very simple.

3) The god-forsaken chip bag. There is no easy way to open a chip bag. Somehow by pulling at both sides of the bag, the only real way to open it, causes this horrible squeaking noise. Why? No one knows. This is a snack that is just going to be annoying to those around you, but hey, you were willing to make that sacrifice for the delicious Cheetos inside.

Hopefully these pointers helped. Generally, it’s a good idea to just get something over with, whether it’s taking off a band-aid or eating a mint.

Sidenote: I was walking to the same building as a kid in front of me earlier today. I could tell he was repeatedly looking at me out of the very corner of his eye, and he even turned fully around a few times to grimace at me. Once we got to the building he almost literally ran to his classroom. Why would this kid think I was following him? Regardless, it was my morning hilarity. Probably my topic for next week; sidewalk traveling patterns and habits.

"BE INTERESTED IN MY LIFE!"

2009-09-24T10:52:00.001-07:00

Have you even been standing next to someone who is looking down at their phone then they suddenly burst into laughter because of a text they just got? Yeah, I can’t stand that.

It’s just a silly premise all together. Rarely are texts really “laugh out loud” funny, and if they are, you quietly smile to yourself or maybe just let out a little grunt. People, mainly young women, laugh out loud at text messages so what whoever is around them with ask them, “What’s so funny?” Girls live for this, because then they get to do the one thing they like to do the most: talk about themselves.

One of my favorite hobbies is to not respond to them when they giggle aloud at a personal message (which is what I suggest everyone should do). They go through this strange sequence of events: laugh, look up at you, laugh louder, look at you again, get very sad then put their phone away. It’s hilarious. It’s like yelling “TREAT!” at a dog to make them come inside, only to find they they’ve been tricked.

This is very similar to a girl trying on a dress with her friends then saying she looks fat in it (i.e. Mean Girls). They just want feedback on how beautiful they think they are, or how skinny. That, or they’re self-conscious, and really need that feedback.

That’s all for this week; that whole texting situation happens to me every few weeks and I never get to analyze the hilarity of it in words.

Sidenote: In reference to last week’s blog, directly after I wrote that I went to the dining hall. I was in the long line of hungry students waiting to serve themselves food when the girl in front of me answers her cell phone and proceeds to have a ten minute conversation, holding up the whole line… except me.

Dorrill Dining Hall Delirium

2009-09-17T10:34:00.000-07:00

It feels like I should be writing about Kanye West like the rest of the free world, but I refuse.

Instead, let’s talk about Dorrill Dining Hall. This is a staple in almost every student’s life here at Longwood and we visit it everyday. The way you handle yourself in the dining hall says a lot about who you are, surprisingly enough. I’m here to analyze a few of the strange things I have witnessed.

First and foremost, why can’t anyone eat alone anymore? I hear “pleeeeease eat with meeee” at least three times a week either from one of my friends or I overhear it from someone else’s conversation. What is so horrible about eating by yourself? No one is going to judge you if you’re eating alone; maybe the first couple weeks of classes, but certainly not now. And if they do, why do they care about your dining preferences? If you are “forced” to eat by yourself, bring a book to read or notes to study while you eat. If you don’t want to study while you eat, just put an open book in front of you and shoot it concentrated glances every once in a while. Bring you iPod, too, of course.

The other thing that irks me is how people, mainly couples, sit next to each while eating instead of across from each other. That’s so weird to me. Are you that insecure with your relationship that you have to be that close to them at all times? Not to mention, at the cost of sitting closer to one another, you have to try to face them instead of looking directly at them with ease if you were across from them. Let it be known that there are some disclaimers for two people sitting next to each other: 1) there may be another person joining them, where in that case it would make sense to sit next to each other, or 2) you’re helping them something on a sheet of paper or in a book. Any other reason to sit directly next to your significant other in a booth or at a small table is clingy and strange.

My final point is when people walk and look for where they’re going to sit at the same time, but are unsuccessful. This is most common during breakfast because everyone is still tired from recently waking up. I’ve been run into numerous times by people looking beyond who’s in front of them to figure out where they’re going to sit; very annoying. When you roll out of bed in the morning, make sure all of your senses are working before you step out of your dorm room.

That’s it for this week.

Side note: Recently, whenever I’ve thrown something away in the outdoor campus trashcans, a swarm of at least seven hornets flies from it. Maybe that’s Longwood’s secret sustainability tactic to make kids recycle.

Farmville Area Bus, Not Longwood Area Bus

2009-09-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

I dropped my phone in the toilet and it died on me; no response whatsoever to turning it on, turning it off, or plugging it into the charger. I bought it three weeks ago. So I got on the FAB at the stop closest to my dorm, flashed the driver my ID, and took my seat for my journey to the Walmart shopping center. There was only one other boy on the bus, and it was clear he had never ridden the FAB, or any other bus, before. He stuttered, "Uhh... uh... can you just drop me off here? I just went out for a couple things and I didn't intend to be on the bus this long..." The bus driver said "uh huh" and pulled up to the corner. The boy thanked him and rushed off the bus. I watched him as we drove away; he was just standing on the curb where we left him looking around confusedly. I was the only one on the bus now, considering it was only 3 in the afternoon. I cherish these times because generally the bus drivers are nice, conversational guys.

The driver, let's call him "Lou", laughed under his breath. "He looked like he had no damn idea where he was going," I said. Lou chuckled and said, "Most of these kids don't know which way they're going around here." We then launched into a conversation about how most of these freshman have never even experienced urban transportation. I had this realization a few days ago when I was waiting with a group of kids for the bus. The driver, and the FAB website (that apparently no one utilizes), clearly states that the bus comes in intervals of thirty minutes. Add thirty to the time you were picked up/dropped off, or just ask yourself when the next half hour is. Regardless, you won't be sitting on a bench for days. If the bus is three minutes late these kids have a hernia. "Oh my gawd, where is the bus? It was supposed to be here three minutes ago..."

Here's a "step-out-of-yourself" experience opportunity; college is chock full of these. These men/women (though I have yet to see a female FAB driver) are making their living by driving around snot-nosed spoiled rotten college kids from suburbia. Don't you think they deserve a little slack? "Lou" told me that he and a colleague took over 300 freshman back and forth from campus on the first Saturday we were here. Can you imagine the hell and headaches he dealt with? Lou also told me that last weekend a couple kids fell asleep in the back of the bus, then were angry that Lou didn't wake them up when they got to Walmart. You've got to be kidding me, right? He said, "I'm not their babysitters, and I'm not responsible for their sleeping habits." And he couldn't be more right.

All I'm saying is please be considerate of the community around you. Farmville is not Longwood, and Longwood is not Farmville. This bus service is not for you and you alone, it is the Farmville Area Bus. Be courteous of the drivers and their schedules, they don't work for you. We're lucky enough to have free bus faire.

They couldn't fix my phone, instead they tried to sell me one retail price; $400. Tricky bastards.

New Lancer Days: An Opportunity to Draw As Much Attention To Yourself As Possible?

2009-09-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

On the evening of Saturday the 22nd, Jim Merkel opened up the discussion for questions about his book after a relatively long, yet humble, lecture about his book Radical Simplicity. Over two hundred minds in Jarman auditorium thought, "This is it! This is my time to shine!" Suddenly kids start coming out of the woodwork and approaching the mic. "Umm," one girl said, "I noticed that the first two chapters were really interesting, but then the book just became really repetitive..."

Okay, let's stop here. Is that a question? No. Is that necessary? No. Is that polite to say to an adult, much less one who has been kind enough to take time out of his volunteer work to come to a bunch of college students who didn't even read his book? No. This girl was just looking for an opportunity to get up in front of the newly freshman class and make a name of herself. She will now be that girl that said that dumb comment at New Lancer Days. I was embarrassed for her. Then some other kid asked, "Well, uh, if you're only living off six grand a year, why did you raise 40,000 dollars for the bike lanes in your city?" Hmmm, well, he wasn't living off the bike lanes, was he? That money was raised for the city, not for Mr. Merkel. I praise Jim Merkel for not losing his cool, as I understand a situation very similar occurred last year. That shows great patience.

These kids are just gushing and grasping and screaming to make a spot for themselves in this community, but they're going about it the entirely wrong way. Girls were wearing heavy makeup and short skirts and I even saw boots. Okay, new Lancer Days is composed of sitting in Jarman for multiple hours of the day; what's the occasion, ladies? Boys were talking about "gittin' trashed" and being loud and obnoxious. What's the thought process there? "Dude, let's go to a party tonight and drink, even though freshmen are the only students on campus right now, which means we're all underage." It just doesn't make sense to me. These kids were just exploding with identity crises. I understand this is an opportunity to start over and all, a clean slate, but must we be so annoying?