Was That A Cockroach?!

So I go to wash my dishes. And in the sink, crawling around, is some brown insect. It scurried really fast up the side of the sink, around the corner, and towards the back near the wall. I think it was a cockroach. I lifted the cutting board and there it was, hiding. I tried to crush it with the cutting board but instead knocked it back into the sink. I gave a loud yelp (this was made more amusing because my roommate was just unlocking the door) because I was fairly sure this was a cockroach. You see, not many things get to me. I'm seldom grossed out by anything and I can suppress most things. But a cockroach?! In any case, I then proceeded to "flush" it down the sink.

Now I'm paranoid. I have my eyes on the lookout for any signs of an infestation. I need to break into the Chem building where they house that super-concentrated cockroach pheramone. With it, I could lure all the cockroaches in the apartment complex out to a distant place where they'll basically mate themselves to death. Really, I only need one tiny drop. Barring that plan, I'll call pest control.

I'm such a biology major, lol. Other signs? When I say "evacuate" instead of "empty" my backpack and refer to bus stops as being "downstream" or "upstream," and even identifying a "promoter" to the buses. Yeah . . . In other news, I think I may have found a work-study job in a lab somewhere. Yay!

Haha, Nice Try

This was going to be a glorious post about my epic success, that is how my desire for ice cream > rain. Alas, that wasn't meant to be.

At about 10:42pm I made my way to the bus stop. I noticed that the bus should be arriving at the bus stop at about 10:45pm and I was at least 5-6 minutes away. Then it started raining. Hard. Like, downpour hard. I walked a little faster, wanting to be under the bus stop shelter thing. I see the bus coming around the corner and I start running, sprinting as fast as I could with an umbrella in hand.

The bus must've been a little late, as it was around 10:47pm or so when the bus actually got to the stop. University buses are always chronically never quite on time, usually either 2 minutes early or late. My jeans were pretty much soaked from the knees down and my shoes were a bit squishy inside. No matter, ice cream awaited me at Stucchi's.

I get to Stucchi's only to discover that it's closed! Gah, no matter. Barring Stucchi's there was always Ben & Jerry's. Well that was closed too. Gah, no matter. Barring Ben & Jerry's there was also Starbuck's, whose pumpkin spiced latte I recently discovered and love. Well that was also closed. I wasn't holding much hope for Expresso Royale coffee either.

Well, SR-F was kind enough to take me to Kroger's grocery store where I'll just buy a tub of ice cream to take back to my apartment. But what is this? Kroger's was closed too!! Apparently this Kroger's closes at 10pm, wtf?! So after an hour out and about, looking for ice cream or coffee, I ended up back at my apartment empty-handed and un-satiated.

Epically failed attempt. You win rain. ::shakes fist at sky:: Seriously, why're all these places on campus closed by 10pm or 11pm? Don't they know this is a college town and that things should be open at the very least until midnight?!

The Crushing of Souls

I feel like we grad students have such a bleak look on things academic, especially my friend AG-F (and I, to a far lesser extent). She's getting her Master's in genetic counseling here and that program here is one of the most intense in the nation.

So you'll pardon us when we walk by the diag and see freshmen sitting there, playing on their guitars and singing. And when I'm on an overly-crowded bus to central campus and I hear a girl recount how she ate some nachos that didn't agree with her and threw up in her dorm room. Or when there are way too many girls who are way too dressed up for no reason in the middle of the day.

And our response to all this? Just you wait, you'll see. Once classes are in full swing they will crush your souls. No longer will you have time to play your guitar and sing on the diag. No longer will you have the time nor energy to put on make up, select your tightest fitting outfits, and sling your purses rather than your backpacks over your shoulders. And to you, girl-who-talks-about-throwing-up, I'm sure your friends don't want to hear about your exploits with the trashcan. And I'm positive the rest of the bus doesn't want to hear it either.

Oh, and while I was at the library printing and filling stuff out, there was this freshman girl at the table over. And she was on the phone with her boyfriend for almost 2 hours straight. And she kept sobbing and telling him how she loved him, and how he shouldn't be doing whatever he's doing to her. It was kind of pathetic really, I had to fight the urge to go up to her, close her phone, and tell her to just forget about him and study. I hope that never happens to me, in a very full library of all places.

Ugh, I can feel myself detaching from central campus and all the undergrads. And in 2 weeks, grad school will hit me full force. I can feel my social life slipping away already . . .

Week Before Grad School: the Aftermath

I'm so procrastinating right now. I just don't want to do my readings, haha. This is so not me. Anyway, the aftermath of last week/early this week.

The Roommate
We have the most amusing communication methods. You see, our primary form of communication is notes/memos to each other that we leave in the morning or night. One of us wakes up way before the other and leaves a note for the other to read. Our next line of communication is via email, followed by phone calls. Since we don't see each other for like 90% of our day, the only time we've actually talked face-to-face has been late at night really.

And so, I'm quite amused. He's pretty easy to get along with, which is good. We kind of keep out of each other's way and just remain polite and all.

School of Public Health
Oh man, some of my classes are intense! I'm glad I'm exempting out of the intro biostatistics course - as I see it, the fewer biostats courses I take the better. But I think I will enjoy all my courses, at least to some degree. I did, however, have to fight the urge to instantly drop one of my classes when I saw the name of one of its guest speakers. You see, I took environmental journalism last fall semester with 2 horrible instructors. Horrible. And one of them (the "dumber" one) is the guest speaker. Sigh.

I really like my public health genetics and my pathophysiology courses though. The PHG (public health genetics) professor is so funny to listen to. She breaks out chuckling every few sentences. What a riot! And my pathophysiology professor is African-British, so he has that amazing accent. Plus he says some really funny things sometimes in class.

I did also find out about what could happen to my MPH if I go to med school. Apparently, there have been several people in my place before, many of them in my HME sub-program. So my credits are good for at least 4 years, so I can come back to finish my MPH degree after med school if I so choose. The question now is, should I? Or even, would I? I don't know . . . after 4 years of med school, I don't know if I want another year of public health before going into my residency. Well, I suppose I do have options now and I have 5 years to make my decision.

The Apartment
So, after several emails, 2 of them with pics attached documenting the sheer grossness of my apartment, things have finally reached a conclusion here. At the same time, I emailed a friend's dad who is a real estate lawyer and has dealt with such issues. I was one day away from going to Student Legal Services to see what legal action I could take against my irresponsible landlord.

On Tuesday morning, my dad called the office himself and talked to the two managers. After several volley of words, a stubborn tug-of-war, they agreed to have my apartment cleaned by 6pm on Tuesday, September 2nd, as well as refund our August rent. When I returned to my apartment later Tuesday evening, they did indeed come have have it cleaned. Victory!!

I did, however, sweep the kitchen floor for the remaining dirt and debris (as they only did like an 80-85% job) and I disinfected the toilet again. I have high hygiene standards and, damn it, they will be met!

Other
So I emailed the director of MCW to see if my deposit form and money had been received. They indeed have, so that's taken care of. I should get something in the mail telling me what to do next sometime late this week or early next week.

The two undergrad professors I emailed have agreed to write me letter of recommendations for my GSI application (some places call them TAs). With a bit of luck, I will be a GSI teaching some undergrad course next semester. This means that my public health tuition becomes free AND I get a decent stipend. Woot!!

These past couple days things have been falling into place quite nicely. Now, I should shower and maybe read more . . . but who am I kidding, I won't do that until tomorrow. XD

Week Before Grad School: the Bad

Now, for "the Bad" of this week before grad school. And believe me, the crappy things that have happened far overshadow the good.

The Roommate
I met my roommate for the first time in the leasing office. He seemed nice enough, but he was very indecisive! It took him like half an hour to sign the lease that he had agreed to sign with me. He kept going, "Yes . . . umm . . . maybe . . . I think." No, none of that, this is America. Either yes or no, and if no, I will strangle you for bailing on me. He wanted to sign a lease that was shorter than a 12-month lease, but that doesn't really exist around here. So he had pretty much no choice.

Later, once we were in our apartment, we were deciding on who was to get the larger bedroom and who was to get the smaller bedroom. I could see he wanted the larger bedroom, but I was entitled to it seeing as I went through the trouble of finding the apartment, looking at the bus routes, putting the electricity in my name, and now have the internet in my name as well. So I wasn't just going to let him have it. He attempted to passive-aggressive me into giving it to him. But I don't yield to passive-aggressiveness, I just get pissed at it.

Eventually, we settled on an agreement. If I were to have the larger room, we'd split rent 50/50. If he were to get the larger room, we would split rent 60/40 with him paying the 60% part of the rent. 2-3 days after being in the large room, I realized that I don't really need it, haha. It was actually too large for me. It was large enough to fit ALL of my stuff (also every sound I made echoed in the room). So I made a new agreement, as I feel bad for him paying 60% of the rent. I would take the smaller bedroom and pay 44% of the rent and he would pay 56% of the rent. All utilities would be split 50/50. Oh yeah, my roommate pretty much left everything up to me. Sigh.

School of Public Health
So I talked to my advisor about my "unique" situation, being that I would only be here for 1 year for my MPH before going to MCW for medical school. I wanted to still get my MPH degree in this year, or somehow stretched out over the 4 years of medical school. The fact of the matter is, an MPH from my school is far stronger than an MPH from MCW, so I really would like to get my MPH here.

In any case, my academic advisor told me to speak to the epidemiology academic coordinator and the cirriculum committee. Well, that's a daunting task - speaking to the esoteric cirriculum committee. How do I even contact them?! Well, hopefully I'll be able to get an appointment to talk to my academic coordinator on Tuesday or something. Honestly, sometimes I'm going back and forth about doing my year of MPH and abandoning this degree, and fighting on to get what I want for myself here. Whatever, I just can't seem to get a break in anything!

The Apartment
Okay, now for the real rant. All the problems above are overshadowed by this. So I signed my lease on Friday, August 22nd. Note that all leases end July 31st and begin August 14th, giving the cleaners 2 weeks to clean all the apartments. Now the kitchen floor and the bathroom of the apartment I signed the lease for was incredibly unclean. By that I mean dirt, mud, rusty nails, and some kind of algae or something growing in the toilet bowl as well as dried urine on the toilet seat. Now that's all disgusting and the leasing office told me they'd try to get it done by Tuesday before we moved in that evening.

On Tuesday a few hours prior to move-in, I called the leasing office asking about the state of the apartment. The leasing manager tried to get us to hold off moving in until Thursday morning because it wasn't cleaned yet. We could not accept that as we both had orientations all day on Wednesday and Thursday, and we live too far to commute. So we moved in on Tuesday, expecting them to clean our apartment on Wednesday.

Well, Wednesday came and went and the apartment was untouched by any cleaning people. I sent a rather polite email to the leasing manager and called her twice on Thursday. She assured me that someone was scheduled to come and clean the apartment on Friday. Now know that I'm unable to unpack my kitchen stuff as I don't want to walk on the kitchen floor and my roommate and I can't use the toilet due to the filth.

So Friday came. And I kept going to leasing office to use their toilet, making sure they know I've been inconvenienced. I spoke to the leasing manager 2-3 times and each time she assured me that someone was going to show up by 6pm. 6pm came and went. I stormed to the leasing office (and the leasing manager had left) and I yelled at the employee there. Nothing she could do, but I did bully the property manager's email out of her. I returned half an hour later and yelled even louder. I left and came back 15 minutes later and my dad called them to yell, then called me to yell at me to yell at them. It escalated to the point where I was practically screaming, banging on the table, and kicked over a chair. The employee almost had to call security on me. I hope that was sufficient to get their attention at the urgency of my situation. You see, I'm unable to cook or use the toilet due to the filth left in my apartment - the filth that was their responsibility to clean. Also, I don't know if some things are damaged or simply unclean, so I can't assess all this on the form and get my mail key.

The time for politeness and passive-aggressive has passed. This is now nearing open war. I have sent 2 very angry emails to both the leasing and property managers demanding our August rent back - as we haven't been able to really live in the apartment - and that our apartment be cleaned by the time we returned from classes on Tuesday. No exceptions. I took pictures of the bathroom and kitchen floor and attached them to the second email. Tomorrow I'll send another email, and Tuesday morning my dad himself will call the leasing office to yell.

This kind of treatment is unacceptable. The apartment should've been cleaned before I even signed the lease. And I've been assured that the apartment will be cleaned the next day every day for a while now, but nothing has happened for a week now. And due to Labor Day, I need to suffer this longer. In effect, I've had to go across campus to use a toilet at a friend's place or a public bathroom. I have to tiptop around the bathroom floor to get to the bathtub, which is "clean enough" for me to use. My roommate and I have been MORE than patient.

If they don't clean my apartment by the time I return from classes on Tuesday, I will hold a grudge and I will get more than even. I will withhold September rent, I will ruin their reputation, I will tell everyone I know not to lease from them, I might call the city health department and show them what we had to move into, and I may find ways to get both the managers fired. One way or another, I will have my vengeance. You don't cross me when I'm this frustrated and angry, as I tend to become someone even I don't recognize.

Week Before Grad School: the Good

I finally have internet in my apartment (albeit, I'm at a friend's apartment blogging this)! I have been plugged into the wider world again, yay!! How I have missed everyone. This week has been FULL of ups and downs, but I'll share the ups first.

The roommate
So my roommate did, in fact, pull through. I haven't interacted with him much, as he wakes up and leaves early and returns late at night. So he's been an almost non-existent presence in the apartment. Which isn't so bad because I've also been a rather non-existent presence in the apartment as well.

School of Public Health
I had my orientation on Wednesday and Thursday. I met a lot of new people from all over the place and several people I haven't seen in a long time. Commuting to class isn't so bad, as I'm about 10 minutes away from a bus and the bus ride is about 20-25 minutes. Could be worse . . . there's apparently one person who's currently commuting from the other side of the state (ouch).

I'm looking forward to some of my classes. I've decided to apply for a sub-program of sorts for public health genetics, as I'm interested in genetics and have a fair amount of background and experience. There are wonderful internships and volunteer programs to help people. For example, there is a group going to China over Spring Break to work with their CDC on things such as SARS, influenza, and measles. How sweet is that?! Too bad my program is very lab-oriented, so I can't get some of the more "interesting" internships doing other things. Oh well.

At least at orientation we got TONS of free food. Lunch and dinner the first day was from Qdoba. There was so much leftover food after dinner, that they told us to take entire trays of stuff home, haha. Oh! And all the SPH students got a free 1Gb USB drive. Neat!! Apparently, about 69% of public health students are women. Usually it's about 75% women, this year just has more men than in the last decade or so. Who says women aren't dominating in some fields? Pfft.

My Cohort
I really like the people I've met so far. On Thursday night, several of us went to a local bar for a drink. It was great interacting with them, talking with them, and drinking some beer. Funnily, all the "real Chinese" people (people from China) are in the Biostatistics department. I feel so unloved in my tiny 11-12 person Hospital & Molecular Epidemiology program. Oh well, those people are great too. XD

Anyway, while we were at the bar, we talked about all sorts of things. Being the nerds that we are, we started talking about public health and the classes we were taking, to see who we shared classes with. Then we talked about sports for a while. Then we talked about Obama and how Michelle Obama will be the trend-setter for women all over the US. Because the past few first ladies dressed in suits and were old, but Michelle isn't and doesn't dress in suits. We then talked about sports, as my university is a football Big Ten school. And I thought, "Hey, I could see myself hanging out with these people on the weekend, drinking in a bar and such."

Now, I also have the strange situation of only being in public health for 1 year before going to medical school at MCW. When I told some of them this, they were all really supportive and genuinely happy. I didn't get any of the "Oh, you're one of those epidemiology students," that some people say with distaste about epidemiology students that are only doing it to get into medical school later. But it's great to get to know them, and it's also amazing to know that some of them will be public health officials one day and able to enact change in our system. And it's good to know I may one day have such contacts all over the US, and indeed, likely all over the world.

The Apartment/Roommate Saga

Okay, things haven't been happy happy in my life this week. I'm amused how this complemented my really happy happy week last week. So let me elaborate on what I now call, the "Apartment/Roommate Saga."

On Monday I called several people who were leasing apartments to schedule a tour of the apartments I'm interested in on Tuesday. I go in on Tuesday and came home with my eyes almost dead set on this one apartment. I eagerly email my Japanese roommate-to-be.

On Wednesday I hadn't heard from my roommate. No matter, he's busy, I understand, I'll just email again. On Thursday I still hadn't heard from him and the person at the leasing office called me to tell me that the one apartment I wanted had just been leased, leaving me with units further away from the all-important bus stop. I email my roommate with this information at once, demanding that he reply to my emails.

On Thursday night he still hadn't replied. I was getting worried and in an instant, my brain went into overdrive and 3 tiers of backup plans flash before my eyes. I contacted someone who I thought might need a roommate, but in the end that option fell through. I email my Japanese roommate with an ultimatum to let me know if he's in or out with signing a lease, as I refuse to sign a 2-bedroom apartment without a sure roommate.

On Friday (today) I waited for hours. The "deadline" of my ultimatum passed and he hadn't emailed me. At this point I was pretty much panicking and going into searching frenzy mode. I found several rooms for rent, a co-op or two with room still, and 3 people who were looking for roommates. I emailed about half of the people/places I found with faint glimmers of hope. At this point my eyes were exhausted and my head hurt a little, and still no resolution to my problem.

Then, about 2 hours after the "deadline," my Japanese roommate emails me favorably. So I go ahead, drive to campus about an hour away with my parents, and signed a lease. It is done. Finally. I emailed him the details and now I wait until I move in Tuesday night (as opposed to Monday, apparently maintenance wasn't finished on that unit). Thus concludes the Apartment/Roommate Saga.

Now, I just need to get my financial aid worked out as well as email my old PI again about the work-study offer she was willing to help me with. Ugh, it never ends! And next week I'll probably have to help my roommate furnish our apartment. This will be amusing, as I intend on living as a minimalist. Why? Because everything I buy I will have to take with me to MCW next August, and I don't want to travel with a ton of crap. I'll be sure to take pics of my minimalist apartment-to-be.

I'm just a little bit bitter and a whole lot frustrated/tired. Thank God for the weekend.