Aboard the U.S.S. Willow

Like I mentioned in my last post (which wasn't a few months ago, this time around :-P), the basement in our building flooded on Saturday which zapped the transformer. Well, since the transformer is totally shot and having it in the basement was a bad idea to begin with, maintenance will be installing a new one outside. This does mean that North Complex will be out of commission for the next two weeks (circa), so it looks like I'll be living in this other apartment building until I leave for Minnesota. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty nice place and the other RCs and I all appreciate that we are all close together in the building (even more so than in North even)... it's just not home though. You know?

I went back to North to pick up some more clothes and other things yesterday and going through the building was almost kind of creepy. Of course, all the lights are off which is certainly different (compared to always having all the hallway lights on). Yesterday morning, the office staff went and relocated the computers/printers/fax machine/etc to another building so they can work, so the office was empty. On top of that, maintenance staff put up a whole bunch of construction lights on a generator so the office staff could see what they were doing. Yeah, it's just kind of an odd feeling. Of course, it can't be stressed enough that it is so much better to deal with a transformer blowout now compared to having a full building of students. Depending on the weekend (like if it was a home football game or conference), we could have even been squeaking by with barely enough hotel rooms. Plus, who knows where we would put everyone's food...

Like I said, the apartments we are in now are pretty good, and I could definitely make the Middlebrook/Argyle comparison for any UMN'ers to read my blog (as in Middlebrook/North Complex has various communal spaces while the rooms are especially big, while Argyle/Willow has larger rooms, but there's not much else in the building, at least from what I've seen so far). We think that I ended up with the RA apartment because it's only built for 2 people/1 bedroom, while everyone else has apartments with four bedrooms. Unfortunately, I did have a problem with the A/C so I didn't sleep well the first night.

This is another ramble, huh... It's because I had to save this entry and leave to do Upward Bound stuff right after I talked about rambling. Anyways, I guess I was going to say that even though we've been dealing with an unexpected situation, there have been a number of good things sprinkled throughout the past few days. Here is a sampling:

-I have working A/C in my apartment now! (The maintenance people were leaving my apartment right as I was coming back after UB stuff on Monday -- what timing!)
-A student showed me a new kind of math puzzle... well, a new take would be more fitting: http://www.mathrec.org/sudoku/cubedoku.html
-For the gaming crowd out there, I saw the newest creation from the Team Fortress 2 team: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/trailers/3598-Team-Fortress-2-Meet-the-Medic
-I've been able to hang out with a number of co-workers, which has included movies and trivia nights.
-I got a care package today, which included Toy Story 3!

Well, it's getting to be that time of night, so I should wrap up. Here's to a good rest of the week.