Saturday, August 29, 2009

If That's Movin' Up, then I'm Movin' Out

Or, Moving in to Dehon 3A-N
The Close, particularly the 21st St. side is not the easiest place to move in to. you have to go through two gates which require a pass-card, and there are stairs and so on. The movers parked the truck and had only half an hour left of official work because of our mishaps getting to the seminary. We decided it's be best and easiest to move all the stuff to Michael and Katie's apartment first. So we unload the stuff and start taking it up the stairs. They're on the third floor of White, which is on the other side of the Seminary from my room in Dehon. We work, but we're tired. We'd been driving for twelve or so hours at that point. And as Michael and I started to go through the Tunnel, it started to rain lightly again. So we were tired and were trying unpack.
There came a point where we tried to do some staging areas, but that didn't work so well. I didn't realize how full the truck was because it was packed really well. Then 8:30 came. The movers were allowed to leave because we'd been late. But they were nice movers and gave us a free 30 minutes and helped us with the heavy stuff...but then we were on our own. :( And we moved stuff. And a student helped. And I started to feel desperation. I'd gotten my room stuff but hadn't been to my room yet. I didn't know anyone, and we weren't getting much help. And it was hot and humid (worse than Alabama). And I had a depressed Facebook status update from my phone concerning ZIP codes.
And then we got was we needed: permission to bend the rules some...and then a lot of help all at once. The Fabulous Anna Noon said, "We're going to operate in staging areas just to get the truck empty. We're going to break the rules and prop things, but we'll still be watching." And that's what we did. We got stuff in to the inner gate, and then the outer gate, and then to the bottom of White.
And then a crew arrived! A bunch of guys from my class and the middler class came and helped us get the rest of the stuff up the stairs, and then they helped get my stuff down stairs, across the Close, and up to my room. James Joiner gave me some frozen yogurt and I took a short break to eat it. Best frozen yogurt I've ever eaten because I was so hot. The last time a t-shirt I was wearing was as soaked as it was that night was when I'd worn it as an undershirt for a soccer game in the middle of July. It was awful. We finally got all the stuff up to my room and I used the lamp that my awesome suitemate gave me to get stuff together and to start sorting things.
After I pealed the shirt from my body and showered I joined Chad and the people who'd helped us move in his room. It was very nice to just sit and cool down. Oh, yeah. While my room came with an A/C unit, it doesn't work, and its individuals' responsibility to get their A/Cs. I put in a work order Saturday morning for that (fast forward to Monday: they came, and they think it's shot, so I can either buy a new unit, or just let it sit. I've been keeping my window open round the clock). So we all sit in Chad's room and just calm down. Chad offers to let me sleep on his floor since his A/C works and I take him up on it. I started setting up my room as best I could, but didn't do a lot: I got some clothes out, and that was about it.
And Saturday I woke up and was basically too damn hot. I found a wireless network (the password I was using wasn't working on the network I thought I was going to be using; we've fixed that now) and I wrote thank you notes. Because the air wasn't working and it was so muggy, I moved as little as I could. I sat at my desk, nominally chatting, and wrote thank you notes to people who'd helped me move and helped me get to General. That kept me relatively cool, and in the interim, I've mostly unpacked (but still am a long way from having a pristine room).
So here I am, moved in. I've done some things in the City that I'll blog about as this week continues, hopefully getting caught up. I'm working on another entry (or two, but I just lost it's title) that aren't necessarily narrative, but more about some things I'm thinking about or conversations I've had or am having. I'm trying to ween myself from staring at my computer screen, so back to back entries isn't likely. Leave me some comments or quote me or something.

No comments:

Post a Comment