Well, a fire drill is one way to meet your neighbors.

So today was fun... Learned a very valuable lesson about dorm rooms.

We arrived at about 5:30, just as it was getting dark. I only had a duffel of clothes, a clothes basket with my bedsheets & toiletries, the fridge (got a slightly bigger one because it has a REAL freezer) my printer, and a box of miscellany: a lamp, power cords, etc. The school's only an hour and a half away: barely too far to commute daily, but close enough that I'll be able to come home every weekend. So just the basics came with me - just what I need to survive Monday through Friday.

Thinking ourselves smart, we decide to take the fridge up first - get the worst out of the way, you know.

My room's on the fourth floor. Nice, huh? I need exercise anyway, and being on the top floor means no neighbors upstairs to wake me up. I can be the annoying upstairs neighbor. Plus, I have my own room. I'd stay in a closet on the roof for a little privacy.

Just as I reached the top of the third flight of stairs, another student ran up. She was kind enough to open the door for me, so of course I took advantage of her kindness and asked her if she knew where my room was. She led me through a complicated series of narrow hallways, through locked doors, past stairs, and around corners. The building looks absolutely nothing like the drawing online. Lucky me, it turns out that the kind but unfortunate soul who showed me my room happens to be my next door neighbor. Convenient, no?

I nearly missed my door (ok, I did walk past my room - my neighbor had to call me back as I blithely humped past with my basket), turned the key in the lock in anticipation, and was struck simultaneously by three observations.

One: Wow, what a small room.

Two: Ew, it kind of smells bad. Ick.

Three: Whose stuff is this on the (probably smelly) bed?!?!?

My next immediate thought was of Ray pulling my fridge up the stairs. I dropped my basket in the room and ran back the way I came. Oops, not the way I came. The other way. This hallway doesn't look familiar - let's try this door. Ok, that's right, but this stair is not right. I burst open the door at the top of the correct flight of stairs to see Ray just about to embark on the second half of the last flight of stairs. Damn.

They've probably put me in someone else's room - I mean, who else gets their first room their first semester at UF? Thoughts of sharing a temporary triple with a couple of teenagers in a building on the other side of campus appear into my brain and start to settle in. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please do not make us (Ray) have to take that fridge back downstairs. Where am I going to sleep? What if they don't have a room for me?

I walk over to the area office and explain what I found in the room it looks like someone's stuff from last semester. There's a wisely compact fridge left open to defrost - I remember reading that's part of the winter break prep you're supposed to do in a dorm. They look at the roster and say that my name's on the list and that it's not my fault. I know it's not my fault, just please don't tell me we (Ray) have to bring the fridge back down. They assure me it's my room, but I'm thinking that if someone was there last semester, chances are it's going to be their room this semester too, right? The staff assures me that it's my room, but I'm unconvinced.

I'm told to go ahead and move in, so we put (hey! I helped lift it over the bed post!) the fridge in the 8 x 10 room. It takes up half the available floorspace. Not to be fooled, because I'm sure they're going to tell me that they have me in the wrong room any minute now, I wait downstairs until they can tell me what's going on. It's bad enough that we (Ray) is going to have to bring the fridge down all those stairs.

As I walk in, one of the two staffers gets up and avoids eye contact while backing slowly away from the counter. The other is looking down at the desk. Shit.

She looks up when the door opens and smiles as I walk in. I look behind me. No, she's definitely smiling at me. It's all straightened out. The previous resident was hired as an RA in another dorm for this semester, and was supposed to have her stuff out by noon. As of now, she's AWOL, but should have her things out shortly.

Finally assured that it is, in fact, my room, we unpack my bicycle, duffel, and box of miscellany from the van for the trek up the stairs again. We were smart, though, the last time and came down the stairs immediately around the corner from my room. No maze to travel this time.

There's nothing to be done about the size, but the windows open so we aired it out before we left. At 10:30 I received a call from my hall RA - the interloper has removed her belongings and I can "finish" moving in.

My sister assures me that all dorm rooms smell funny, but I'm sure it's nothing that a bucket of pine sol and an industrial bottle of febreze can't fix.

What's the proper response to this?

I just checked my housing assignment online. I got MY OWN ROOM! I wasn't even expecting that as a possibility, because they processed my application as a freshman and freshmen don't have the option of a single room. Maybe they figured that an old person like me needs her space. Or maybe they just guessed that I snore like a 300 lb man. Smart move on their part.

It's also on the top floor, in a better location than the halls that I requested, AND it has AC, so I don't have to bring in a portable unit and take up space.

Climbing three flights of stairs will be great exercise.

The only down side is that it's almost $500 more per semester than the halls I requested - but $500 is more than reasonable in exchange for my own room.

Should I go and sacrifice a goat or calf to the UF housing gods?

Here's the plan... part 2

So it turns out that I must (according to the UF advisors) graduate after four fall and spring semesters. No slacking off and graduating after spring 2011. Know what could be fun? Thru-hiking the AT in the spring and Summer of 2011. I've decided I'm going to find someone to come with me. Maybe at the school backpacking club.

Go Gators!

I was right. Last Monday, I went to an orientation session at UF. I wasn't entirely sure what the purpose of the mandatory day-long event would entail, but I was sure that at some point there would be a brainwashing session, then we new students would dye our hair blue and orange. Other signs of assimilation would manifest later.

Basically, they showed us how to access our online support pages, talked about activities and their prelaw programs. At one point the adviser informed us that UF is apparently the number one "feeder school" to US law schools. Great. So I'll be ever-so-efficiently run through the UF mill in order to graduate with a BA and become one of the overwhelmingly many UF majors applying to law school. Add that to the allusion (intentional or not) to their students as either cattle or feeder fish, and I feel just spectacular about the individual nature of education at UF!

At one point we went to speak with our departmental advisers about registering for classes. I'm now enrolled in "Blake, Newton and Disney: Re-thinking the Myth of Cultural Paradigms" and "Feminist Theories." Exciting. Two separate people who I asked about the instructor on the first class described him as "brilliant." I'm really looking forward to both of my English classes.

During the security section, we were treated to a presentation by the UFL police chief. No one was tazered.

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I'm not sure if there's anything more endearing than a 20 lb cat softly launching herself at your legs.

Current Events

It's easy to become cynical about politics and policy in the United States. Occasionally, I'm encouraged by something that I read or hear about. Until his support of the proposed bailout plan, Barack Obama's campaign represented to me a return to rational representation in Washington.
The amendments to the proposal have been the equivalent of sweetening sewage - the original product was not a good basis for a solution. The best thing to do is just start over with a plan that will work for the overall good.

Something positive has come out of the Senate's vote last night. My senator, Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, was one of the 25 who voted against the proposal. Here's what he had to say:

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's speech on the bailout vote

October 2, 2008

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, the things that have been added to this bill such as the FDIC provisions as well as the energy tax extenders and other tax extenders that I have already voted in favor of, certainly I support them, but the underlying bill rewards the banks and leaves the little person with the short end of the stick, and that is not right. This plan rewards the investment banks that ran us into the ground and it hardly does anything to help the homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

If, under this bill, the financial institutions participate in the Treasury's program, they should accept reasonable limits on executive compensation, but under the bill they don't. The limits on executive compensation are left to the Treasury Secretary's discretion. Some CEOs who caused this crisis in the first place will benefit from this bailout and will also walk away with golden parachutes. That is not right. This creates a moral hazard the U.S. Government will undertake.

This bill sends a message to Wall Street that if they play fast and loose in the name of short-term profits, the Government will actually make up for their losses. And the bill does very little to help individual homeowners. Until we stabilize the housing market, which is the underlying ability to restructure the economy from this crisis--until we stabilize the housing market, and until we stem the record number of foreclosures, our market simply is not going to improve. While this bill authorizes the Treasury to develop and carry out a plan, it does not require financial institutions participating in the program to modify or refinance any loan. It only requires the Treasury to encourage loan modifications. Voluntary refinancing efforts will not solve our foreclosure crisis. We should mandate these efforts. We should start by requiring Fannie and Freddie to refinance the mortgages they hold on their books.

Furthermore, I think this bill should do more to investigate the business practices of major credit rating agencies. They fostered the enormous growth of the mortgage-backed securities. They gave securities, mainly consisting of subprime mortgages, the gold standard or the triple A rating. That rating gave investors the confidence that they were making safe investments. Without that triple A rating, insurance companies and pension funds and other investors would not have bought those products.

So I am calling for an investigation to probe the business practices of those agencies. Investors relied on and trusted those credit ratings, and the public deserves to know how these rating agencies concluded that such risky investments could receive such high credit ratings.

I could say a lot about this, but let me just say that the bottom line is, ultimately, this bill forces taxpayers to bail out investment banks that caused the crisis in the first place, and it does nothing to address the real problem, which is home foreclosures and a resuscitation of the housing market. Until we stop the record level of foreclosures, this crisis is going to continue to worsen, whether we pass this bill or not.

For these reasons, I oppose this bill. I think Congress can do better, and I think Congress can come up with a better, more targeted solution to this complex crisis.

It saddens me that I would oppose so many of my colleagues who have offered very cogent reasons. It is true we have to do something, but this particular legislation is not the right solution.

I yield the floor.

Good job, Bill. It's good to know that you really are reasonable and trying to find real solutions to this mess we're in. I'm really pleased to know that we have real representation.