Today I Watched Other People Do Things

Dramatic Reenactment

Today, Bonnie the cleaning superstar made an appearance in 4C. She came because we have guests coming this weekend, and even though they know we are slobs, we want them to at least know we are slobs willing to throw down to give off the image that we are not slobs.

So, yeah. I didn't exactly watch Bonnie clean because that would involve me getting out of bed. But I did eventually get out of bed because the blimey fire alarm went off! That thing is LOUD! And kinda sounds like the beat to most Rihanna songs. What's my name! WHAT'S MY NAME!

So I sprung out of bed to find that Bonnie had accidentally lit our placemats on fire. I would have assumed she was merely sanitizing those gross things, but she fessed up to going all pyromaniac. Oh well. (Aside: When faced with the possibility that my apartment is burning down, I only grab my study guide. My study guide! Study. Guide. Farewell laptop! Farewell beloved objects! I'll be studying with or without you!)

First thing I watched today: People start kitchen fires!

Unfortunately for Bonnie and me, the fire alarm in my apartment is really cheap, and refused to stop ringing even after I got out of bed to open the windows. So I called Jeff because I assumed - like an ass - that the fire alarm would somehow communicate to firemen that my building was on fire. What was I thinking! No way - not in 407!

Sadly, Jeff still came by to check on things and remind me that the fire alarm doesn't communicate emergencies to anyone else besides the people who can hear it. Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this, so I will instead bring up the time there was actually a fire in 407, and a group of girls dressed up as sexy firefighters for Halloween started posing with the truck parked outside. That was funny.

Second thing I watched today: People be landlords...

Observations from Second Semester, Senior Year

About three months before your first day of freshman year, your laziness culminates. You've come down with a case of senioritis so extreme that just thinking about how lazy you've become is incapacitating. But then you're thrown into the academic trenches, and all the carelessness you once knew evaporates into a musty fog hanging above some overcrowded fraternity party.

Unless you actually become a homeless person, will you ever get to live like a bum again?

Yes! Yes you will! It's called second semester, senior year. And though it sounds hard to believe, after three-and-one-half years of pre-test testiness and unemployment upset, senioritis will find a way to tackle your intellectual immune system once again.

Here are some telltale signs that senioritis has spread among the senior class with a vigor swine flu would be jealous of.

First, my peers and I have started to notice that the weekend has a very distinct second wind. In fact, the bipartite week we used to know is now totally irrelevant. In our minds, there's the work week, which runs Monday through Wednesday afternoon, the weekend, which kicks off Wednesday night, and then the Oh Shit! It's only Friday? period of flux, which starts Friday morning and lasts until Trivia Night on Sunday. As far as we're concerned, the week lasts five days, and those two extra days are merely fortuitous glitches in the time-space continuum.

Second, my peers and I have started to complain about the most absurd things. Like one time, I heard a friend say, "I feel like all I do is put on outfits. I'm so sick of putting on outfits." And then another time, a different friend complained, "I do want to go to the movies, but I don't feel like moving." Oh, and then there was the time yet another friend growled that her "damn spa treatment" was "running late," and would "totally get in the way of dinner plans." Keep in mind, during the zenith of my academic intensity, frivolities like dinner were usually optional.

I could think of more anecdotes - "I think I'm going to Aspen next week"; "I haven't been outside in two days" - but I'm too goddamn lazy.

I Mostly Just Need to Unpack My Suitcases

I can transport things, but also get in the way.

Rush Week is a pleasant week. Nothing about this week is really, really life or death. It's sort of like being on a reality tv show for a week. (Both because it's bad for my liver, and because it's like MTV's  The Gauntlet.)

The only real problem with Rush Week is my inability to perform normal life tasks. Like unpacking my luggage, for example. And this problem is compounded by my room's small size. It's not like living out of a suitcase - it's like living in a suitcase. Now I know how dead bodies feel! (Pay no attention to this graph's factual inconsistencies.) 

Sometimes, when I stumble in at night time, I trip and fall into my suitcases. But don't get nervous: my suitcases are basically just receptacles of black hooded sweatshirts, so falling into them is sort of enjoyable. As a matter of fact, I'm now thinking about trading in my mattress for a bed of black sweatshirts. It'd be so comfortable! And fashionable! And probably something American Apparel would stand behind.