...and once again headed over to Buena Vista to move in for school. This time I'm living in an apartment near SVU rather than a dorm or some other living space that's controlled by the school, which means I've finally escaped from the clutches of SVU's evil on-campus housing system. The SVU website took a while to actually acknowledge that I am not coming back to Carriage "how is this 'on campus' if it's further away than most people's off-campus houses?" Mod 335... but as of yesterday it seems to be (correctly) not showing any school housing assignment for me. Let's hope it actually sticks this time (three times during the summer the MySVU page randomly reverted to last semester's housing assignment, rather than showing the "--" that indicates "this guy got the hell out of on-campus housing before it drove him crazy.")
Apartment seems like it's going to be pretty nice so far. It came with a fridge, stove, sink, microwave, and bathroom stuff, and I was able to get a couch, table, and chairs that previous tenants had left behind... so the only major piece of furniture I needed to bring with me was the bed. And a dresser, but since it had mold on it when I picked it up from Dad's house (we were able to get it off with this cleaning spray stuff he had, but still) I probably won't be using it for much of anything until I can be sure it's not going to mold up really bad again. I have plenty of room for my clothes without it, though, so it should be okay either way. Air conditioner works well, and since the room stays pretty cool during the day even without it I probably will be able to save some money on my electric bill by not running it during the day, only at night when I'm trying to sleep (if it's too warm to just open windows and cool off the place that way, anyway.) Oh, and speaking of bills, the electric bill is the only one I'll actually have to pay--all other utilities (water, sewer, wireless Internet that's around 4 or 5 times faster than what I have at home, etc.) are included in the rent. Carpet's a little grungy (my feet get darker colored on the bottom just from walking around barefoot in there...) but I should be able to borrow a vacuum and clean it up a little bit sometime. Here's what the living room/kitchen area looks like now that I've unpacked:
I've also managed to order one of the two textbooks I need online, though it will probably be late coming in (the website I ordered it from said it probably would take 18 to 24 days to get here... why, I have no idea.) Regardless of the "guy riding on a giant turtle" shipping speeds, I did only have to pay $68 for it (instead of the $170 they charge in the school bookstore!), and that's including the shipping cost, so... yeah, saved a BUTTLOAD of money on that one. The other book I need was about the same price online as it is in the bookstore, though, so I rented it from the bookstore for half of that. That means I've got some extra money now, since Dad gave me $300 to pay for books and I only needed about half of that, plus 10 bucks for a trash can, salt, and dish-washing materials from the dollar store. That's always nice to have, especially with me having to pay rent and all.
On a less-positive note... don't ever buy headphones from the dollar store. They'll suck. Okay, the actual headphone part of these is fine (they seem to work pretty well, and unlike most headphones I don't have to turn the volume on my computer way down to avoid hurting my ears)... the problem is, the plastic part that goes over your head was so crappy and fragile that the thing broke literally minutes after I got them out of the packaging last night. When I tried to get the things to stretch to a size big enough to go over my head, some part of the left side broke and now the left headphone is permanently detached from the main plastic-thing part (which is now in two pieces, due to the left side mostly breaking off.) Yeah... I probably should've just brought my cheapo years-old-already-but-still-working pair from back home (which are duct-taped in two places to hold them together!) instead of buying these new ones.
Next on the list is trying to find a job. The two possibilities I'm really thinking of are the school bookstore (though it seems unlikely that I'd get a chance to work there, since they probably already have everyone they need, I figure I might as well check while I'm up there) and the dollar store just a couple blocks away from my house... but unfortunately, it seems the dollar store isn't hiring anymore, so that one isn't going to work. Apparently Burger King is also hiring, but... I know that one guy from SVU that I don't like being around worked there last year and may still be working there now, so I don't think I would want to bother with that. If neither of the possibilities I'm really considering works out, I might end up working in the SVU dining hall instead... though I don't know, since I never heard back from them after filling out that form a while back. There's also Domino's (who may be hiring sit-in-store employees in addition to delivery people; I can't do delivery without a car, so I'll need to check on this one) and Aaron's, a furniture place (who are hiring people to move stuff into trucks and into people's houses, stuff like that.) I'd really rather not work in the dining hall if I have any choice, but I'll probably need a part-time job this semester to build up enough money to pay for all my rent next semester (and a job next semester is just out of the question--I have Senior Art Show next semester and there is no way I'd be able to do both at the same time.)
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