I have a serious sleep problem, in that since I work from at the earliest 2:00 pm to 10:pm every day, I don't wake up until 1 or 2 pm depending on the day, and I stay awake until 4 something or 5 something am every day. I'm getting a normal amount of sleep, for a college student anyway, it's just shifted off by 6 hours or so. I can't help but feel slightly useless everyday I don't get anything done, but then again, I guess that's why I have days like today and Tuesday to keep me on my toes. Tuesday's example, from an email I sent to my boss:
We may get a call from a <name removed> who will probably be breathing fire down your neck about how we didn't loan her the things she thought we did.
As I understand it, she called at some point this morning and spoke to Lundy about her class in ArtSoc 3217. Apparently, somoene in the art building told her our number and said "talk to them for stuff." She called here and asked for a VCR and projector and Lundy told her that wouldn't be a problem because we deliever to 3215 or some such logic (I only tell you because she tried to use it back on me, so I guess it'll come back again) and that if there were any problems we would call her back (also apparently; I wasn't here for that). Anyway, she told us to set up at 4:00 in the message or 4:15 when she talked to Josh, and Toby actually did take stuff up there at 4:15.
Now comes the fun part. Toby calls back to say "hey, there's already a class in here and there is no '<name removed>' teaching it. What should I do?" I told him to come back because it was for an EDUC class in ASY and that's about as unsupported by us as you can be. Well, 5:35 rolls around and Ms. <name removed> calls us to ask where here equipment is, asking for Toby. Toby didn't know what to tell her, so I talked to her and explained that her class is unsupported by our office and her only real recourse is to call OIT or possibly nonprint media. She regails me with tales of lesson plans and requests, and fills me in on the details of her conversation with Lundy. I am puzzled because I have told her we don't support her, and so on and so forth. I forgot temporarily about the fact that we had actually tried to deliever her stuff, and told her, I'm sorry, but there's really nothing I can do for you here. We don't have the resources for loaning outside our college. At this point she told me EDUC has their own equipment that isn't supposed to go beyond building walls and how she's scheduled for some other building, so on and so forth, then asks for your name and says she'll be calling back.
I was definitely having a Dante day, given that I bothered to show up first thing in the morning and half an hour before my shift started, thus getting me into that mess in the first place. Fortunately, my boss doesn't care tremendously much, and that makes me a lot happier.
Then today happens.
The world's largest thunderstorm decided to ravage and otherwise have its way with several of the buildings on campus, most notably my building and Skinner hall. The AV rack in skinner decided to start shorting out, as evidenced by Rice Crispies in the sound system, meaning it's never a good day when you wake up to Snap, Crackle, and Pop. Those smarmy bastards always looked like they were up to no good. Anyway, we also had one projector in the celing of Key 0106 and one of the old ones in the closet get water on them, and we're no longer sure that we should be using them. Always a positive feeling when dealing with over $15,000 worth of equipment. We had to rustle up OIT tech support, too, and that was fun, talking to all kinds of people who didn't seem too thrilled about dealing with flood damage.
I came home though to find a letter from Katy. She's doing well, survived the gas chamber. This was her first letter that didn't have a feeling of her not thinking she'd make it through BCT. Hearing that makes me happy; I know it's a lot easier to do hard-work-and-deprivation stuff like that when you believe you can actually do it. I wrote back my first substantial letter, which I need to drop off in a couple hours. (I don't think I'm going to sleep tonight, instead choosing to subside off naps.) The post office should pick up from me. And I don't mean my mailbox; I mean I want them to waltz up in here and take my letters from me when I have them ready. Lazy bastards.
Anyway, the real reason I wanted to write today is I can't think of any good birthday gifts to ask for from my parents. My birthday is in... 19 days or something. I had a bunch of stuff I wanted to buy for my computer, all of which was related to music. But given my computer's dismal performance at track mixing and its simultaneous playback/record operation or lack thereof, I'm not sure I want any of that anymore. I'm having trouble deciding if I should ask for it anyway and just hook it up to a new computer when I get my loan money, or if I should ask for help buying a new computer and just get the music stuff later. I think I've decided on a powerbook G4 12", since it's a reasonable amount of power for 1400 bucks, and it has everything I need in a computer plus portability. I really want the portable aspect because I'd like to start working in earnest on teaching myself valid programming skill. Maybe then I can successfully get Gaim to compile. Filthy Gaim. Regardless, if you have any suggestions, I am open to them.
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