rudeness

This is one of my greatest pet peeves, up there with being late (and if you know me, you know punctuality is necessary). Let me recount a few stories that happened to me just today that show how rude people can be. I'm just about tired of it, and there's no reason why I should have to put up with this anyway. The sad thing about it is, even though you may expose people's rudeness to them, they'll never change it. Anyway...

#1: This one has two parts. The RA on my hall is probably one of the most fake people I've ever met. If she's reading this right now, good. Aside from her usual weird/fake/extremely bubbly (in a bad way) behavior, she's done two things today to offend me. In the past her rudeness has been at bay, but took a head when she didn't wish me a happy birthday, even though she clearly knew it was my birthday AND she saw me in the hall, looked right at me, and said nothing. Alright, past that onto today, for real. The first time she was rude to me occurred this morning around 11:50 when I was exiting Greenlaw Hall. She almost ran into me, looked me in the eye, and didn't say a word of recognition. My smile went unrequited as well. Second time, I was walking to class this afternoon around 4:45 and she passed me on the road, also looking right at me, and said nothing. Why does she have a vendetta against me? I've done nothing to her. She's had something against our room (224) and all three of its occupants since the beginning of the year! She socializes with only a select few girls on the hall and ignores the rest of us. Thanks "Trecia"...that means a whole lot to me.

#2: Today I go down to the Cobb Community Office to inquire about a package for my roommate Emily. She went abroad to Paris this semester and someone sent her a package. Obviously if she's in Paris, she can't pick it up. I went down to see if there was any way that she could get someone to get it for her, seeing as she has two honest, capable roommates and her sister also goes to school here. The response I got was "Well, uh...you could have her send a forwarding address." To Paris? Really? Like Cobb is going to foot the bill to ship that package to Emily in Paris! Before I even asked the question while I was explaining the situation, the girl working the desk started shaking her head. I never asked if *I* could pick up the package. After that fiasco, I asked if misdirected mail was turned into the office. My W-2 was sent to my old address and I thought maybe the people would have turned it into the office. The girl told me there was nothing she could do for me. Couldn't she even look? Wow, thanks M. You see, M. lives a few rooms away from me and she's always got a sour look on her face. Her room is often so loud past quiet hours (and before) that neither me nor Lucy can get any work done. She's the least helpful office assistant I've ever encountered, and a really bad, inconsiderate hallmate.

So the point of this story? Try to be nicer to your fellow people...being rude doesn't get you anywhere and it gives you a bad rep. Interacting with rude people on a daily basis is really unpleasant for most of us. What do they see in being that way? I hope maybe the aforementioned people see this blog and think twice next time someone approaches them for whatever reason.

Until next time...

car wars

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, but I've been pretty busy so needless to say I'm just now getting to it :). At the beginning of Christmas break, my mom told me that I was going to have to start driving her car, especially when I go back to school. Hers is 10 years younger than mine and doesn't have all of the problems that come with an older car. Now, let me explain: there isn't really anything wrong with my car. It runs great, it's reliable, and the gas mileage is outstanding. I love it to death. Over the past four years, we've bonded a lot. There are only two minor problems. The first is a squealing/jingling sound when I back up. This is most likely due to a leak I have on my axle and I can get that repaired for about $60. The second problem is an issue I've had since I bought the car. It has a leak coming from an unidentifiable place. It most certainly is coming from behind the dash and in order to fix it, I'd have to cough up $1,500 for a mechanic to pull the dash off and repair the leak. The leak hasn't been much more than a minor pain the butt, but recently it's gotten pretty bad. The whole passenger side of my car is sopping wet and smells of mildew. Last weekend I took it over to my boyfriend's house and he used his shop-vac to vacuum around two cups of water out of my carpet. Not too bad. I then went to Wal-Mart and bought a clear rubber mat to go over the carpet and some Febreze for the smell. I didn't put the mat over the carpet because it needed to finish drying some more. I did Febreze it though. Anyway, the mat still isn't down because guess what? It rained before the carpet had a chance to dry out a little more. I haven't been inside my car since then, but I know that it is freaking wet in there since it has rained really hard for the past few days. Also, there is an enormous condensation build up on the inside glass and I can't see into my car. Blah. I really wish I could get this fixed because I love my car and I want to drive it. I don't want to get a respiratory disease from inhaling mildew/mold though, and I want to be able to see when I drive as well. My car has a tendency to fog up pretty badly because of how wet it is inside. So until that's fixed, I have to drive my mom's car to Chapel Hill and she gets stuck with mine :\. I feel really bad about that because she doesn't need to drive my piece of crap to work everyday. True, she only has a five-minute commute versus my hour and fifteen-minute drive, but something about the situation just doesn't gel with me. I wish there was something I could do, but until I get a steady source of income, I can't trade my car in for something else. Until that day comes, I'll have to battle with the leak and hope for the best.

waiting...

I've never been a really patient person and waiting is something I absolutely hate. Whether it be in line at the grocery store or sitting on my couch until a friend arrives to pick me up, I absolutely detest it. I was eating dinner this weekend and the coaster under my cup said "Hurry up and wait." This describes my life when it comes to certain people who are in it. I'm constantly in a rush to get ready and look my best, or just to be on time. I pride myself in being an extremely timely person, and if I'm late it's usually not more than five minutes. This is why I hate being at the hands of others when it comes to arriving on time. I don't trust some people to get me where I need to be at the correct time, so if I have to rely on myself I'm much better at coordinating my plans. This is what I prefer. I guess you could call me a "Type A" person.

So you ask, where is this all coming from?
I'm still waiting on that call from my doctor about the blood work. This isn't an extremely pressing issue, but I'd still like to know what they found. The results are only a tiny bit of the inspiration for this blog, though.

Take this weekend, possibly the crappiest one I've had in awhile. I go through the same routine every time I'm home. I tell my boyfriend to be over at my house at a specific time, so I wake up about an hour before hand to get ready. It only takes me about 35-40 minutes to get showered, made up, coiffed, and dressed so I have about twenty minutes of wait time. He's usually really good about being on time but this weekend was a disaster. On Saturday he showed up forty five minutes late. On Sunday, he didn't show up at all. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed. As I've hinted at earlier in this entry, lateness is one of my biggest pet peeves. I used to give someone ten minutes of being late before I actually considered them to be late (I guess you could call this a "buffer period"), but after constant abuse of this generous system I decided to call it off. Both my ex and my current boyfriend have repeatedly decided that since they weren't technically late until ten minutes after the planned time that they wouldn't show up on time. Anyways, it makes the situation better if I get a call beforehand saying how late they are going to be. Chris is really bad about this now when he used to be very diligent about letting me know when he was going to arrive.

Griping aside, I just think it's rude to be late and not notify the person you are meeting up with. True, you may have all day to carouse around town but if we agree on a meeting time then please be there. I hate waiting. I hate being late myself and when I rush to be on time for someone else it's just common courtesy for them to show me the same respect by being on time or at least letting me know their ETA.

And by the way, my impatience has improved with time. I'm much more patient now than I was when I was younger...there used to be a time when I couldn't even sit still for more than five minutes and got extremely irritable when I couldn't do something RIGHT NOW!!!! ;)

Happy Waiting.

d.t.p. (disturbing the peace)

Remember how in my first post I said that this blog was mainly a kvetching board? Today's entry will be a full fledged kvetch, so if you're interested in my complaints read on...

First of all, I know some people don't know what a kvetch is. I'll define it as the school newspaper, The Daily Tarheel, defines it:
kvetch (v): [Yiddish] to complain

On Fridays, the DTH publishes a section called the "Kvetching Board" where students send in their anonymous complaints. They're usually pretty funny, but some aren't that great. A few weeks ago my roommate and BFF Lucy ran across one that made me almost fall out of my chair laughing (literally!). Here it is, reprinted in full:

"Thank you, Cobb Community, for being stricter than a Catholic school. The RAs should just start wearing habits when they hand out noise violations at 10:30 on a Saturday night."

Here's the background story for why I found that so funny...

One weekend me, Lucy, and our other roommate Emily were watching one of Quentin Taratino's finest films, Pulp Fiction. Anyone who has seen the film knows that it is pretty long, so we were just finishing it around 2:00 AM on a Saturday morning. Literally as soon as we turned the TV off, someone came knocking on our door. We didn't know what to expect. Maybe it was a neighbor asking us to turn our TV down, which would be a completely acceptable request. I know the walls are thin and pretty much anything can be easily heard if you live next door. Let me preface something at this point: The TV WAS NOT loud enough to be heard out in the hallway, which would have been ridiculous. Even though the walls are thin, it still takes a lot of noise to be heard in the hallway. So anyway, Emily opens the door and it happens to be the RA on Duty, asking us to "please turn your music down." Like I said before, we had turn the TV off before she knocked. We complied and didn't think anything of it until the following Tuesday when the RA on our hall came and gave us an envelope. I opened it and inside was a long letter stating that we had received a noise violation!!! This letter was completely unexpected and definitely an unwelcome intruder. I thought that noise violations were only to be given out if we did not comply with the RA on Duty's wishes. For example, if she had to tell us more than once to turn it down, a noise violation would be acceptable in my opinion. Apparently this isn't the case this year. Noise violations in Cobb run more rampant than bunnies in the spring. Seriously.

Here is the next example of unfairness on behalf of Cobb:
Lucy had a few guests over one weekend when I went home. There were only two girls visiting and it was a little late on a Friday night when they returned to our room. Lucy told me that she and her two friends were talking at a normal level, not yelling or being excessively loud, when not one but TWO RAs on Duty come a knocking at our door (around 12:15 AM). Once again, we were given a noise violation, except this one didn't have an accompanying write-up. I find this completely gratuitous. Now I understand that "Quiet Hours" start at 9:00 PM, but seriously, if we're talking at normal volumes and not disturbing anyone it shouldn't be a problem. Cobb RAs have totally turned into Nazis this year, and for no apparent reason.

Once again, I would like to point out that the two times we were asked to quiet down were on the weekend. Completely ridiculous! Who is studying on a Friday or Saturday night/morning? Pretty much no one. If it was during exam time I would completely understand. What baffles me is that there is a lot of noise on our hall on weeknights and I don't hear RAs knocking on doors then. If you're going to be a stickler for the rules, at least be consistent with it and give out those letters on weekdays when they actually matter.

People on the hall continue to receive noise violations, but so far our room hasn't had any other than those two. I'm glad to be noise violation-free, but at the same time I still wonder why we even had any to begin with. I know about being a curteous neighbor and I wouldn't do anything that I felt would annoy any of my hallmates (which can't be said for some of the girls who live on this hall). I'll never know why the powers that be decided to put us residents in a chokehold this year, but at least it has become a running joke in our room. We always say "Oh, you better watch out! The volume is above 10!!!" when we watch a movie or something on the weekends. I guess it's better to make light out of a situation that you don't completely understand rather than stressing about it.

Sorry for the long entry, but sometimes there's just something a girl's got to get off of her chest (even if it is old news)!
Until next time!