So finally summer vacation is here! I just finished the final project for my summer class this afternoon. Scary to think it's the last, but I think it's mainly because change of any kind tends to be at least a little scary. And it's gonna be short - 7 weeks left, I read in the Indiana Daily Student this week.
Lots of changes have been happening, including officially moving into my new room across town yesterday (I actually first slept here two days before that). Fountain Park, the big ginornous apartment complex, told me I couldn't live there for only six months. Twelve, maybe ten, but not six! Even though they happily let me move in with a signed six-months' lease in the first place. So started a long arduous journey to find another place to set up my stuff for the last semester of grad school. Lots of trawling through ads, craigslist, and campus site for housing. It'd be fun to count all the emails I sent and either didn't get a response or they replied with a "no." Not really.
There was a house with a room for only the fall semester. Perfect, even very close to campus. I even went to check it out. Problem was that right then I was waiting to hear if I had landed a dream summer internship at Yellowstone NP (I didn't get it). I was told I'd be called if the other person moved forward on the offer. The next week, when I finally got the Yellowstone response, I emailed back and found out that the other person had grabbed it up the day after I was there. I did have misgivings about the extremely small kitchen for five girls (most undergrads), but I was gonna take anything except frat/sorority crap at this point.
Another offer was a guy who was looking for roommates but he didn't currently live in Bloomington. I still don't know where he actually was living, but his job was going to relocate him here and he was always running around on business trips and it was hard to get ahold of him. I did meet up with him and liked him but the house was not a done deal; it turned out the people who lived there (and owned the house) didn't actually know if they were going to rent it out. In the end, they didn't and I wished the guy good luck.
At the same time, I was juggling an offer from a recent SLIS alumnus, Duane. Turned out we had been there together last winter before he graduated but apparently never really met. He was info sci not library sci, so really not a surprise. His house was outside of the city limits, about five miles from campus, but the price was right and he was willing to let me stay there for just six months (after I offered to pay two extra months' rent, which is a deal at this point). The previous roomie had moved out abruptly and he wanted to keep up with his mortgage payments. So here I am, living with two guys.
Oh, and neither are Duane. I have yet to meet him in person; he's got a job in England. The two others are Robbie and Chris, both journalism majors (Chris undergrad, Robbie is working on his master's). Robbie also has a teenaged son, Tim, who is hanging around for the summer. The two of them plus Duane's ten-year-old dog Hank spend most of the time on a boat. I still think it's weird, being so into sailing and living here. All the lakes bigger than a pond are man-made and are or were the city's reservoirs. Lake Monroe, the biggest, is fairly large but it's still smaller than Lake Charlevoix. There's another unofficial housemate, Ray, who acts like he owns the place ... I don't understand the whole situation, but Robbie allowed sailing people to stay in his master bedroom and Ray just hasn't exactly left since he was first here two months ago. He isn't here every night but I don't really care for him. Apparently he has a girlfriend that I know was here last night but I only saw her car and flip flops as evidence.
I bump into Chris the most. He likes to talk and although he has very different views and opinions, I certainly don't mind listening. He usually sits in the middle of the big couch with his laptop and tv on. Since he saw the new Star Trek movie, he's been watching a lot of episodes. Between Whitney, Colin, and Chris, I'm feeling my disinterest (not dislike) won't survive much longer...
I don't plan on staying away as long this time, but things never go according to plans. (Do you ever wonder if we just planned for the opposite of what we want to happen, things would end up going the way we want?)
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