10-05-2005, 06:06 AM
Hi everybody! ^_^
I cop an attitude and I get several "welcome back!" messages. Glad to know I was missed, and it feels even better to be back.
Going by college time (it ain't the next day till you've slept or seen the sun rise), I've spent 65 days in Florida. I'm in Bradenton, about an hour south of Tampa, and fifteen minutes away from the beach. Number of times I've been to the beach: 1.
I hate this place.
Bradenton, according to everyone I've met, was recently discovered by retirees and others flocking to the climate during the winter months. Those flockers, affectionately called snowbirds, get kinda pissy when somebody slows down their relaxing vacation time. Plus, they clog the roads.
I attend the University of South Florida for my MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science, not to be confused with the business-oriented Library and Information Technology) and I hate that too. I came from one of the tiniest schools in the nation and graduated from a close-knit department. The LIS program has just as much people as Hollins had English majors, but we're not well-connected at all. I take one course in Sarasota (a 20-minute drive every week), one course in Tampa (an hour drive each way every two weeks), and an online course, and they're not in any of my other classes. Plus, the workload is intense. Graduate-level work is more difficult than undergraduate-level work, I know, but a library chronology due a week after classes start? Come on!
I also got a job at a big box bookstore. The only thing I like about my job is my employee discount. Their scheduling isn't flexible around my classes and studying. They hired me to be the salesbook specialist--inventory the merchandise, display it properly, etc.--without informing the current salesbook specialist that I'd be taking her place. And the number of employees that aren't jerks don't quite balance the number that are. So I'm hating my job too.
I live with my boyfriend, my best friend, and four cats in a two-bedroom apartment in something closely resembling the ghetto but not quite. We have mentally deranged Russians as next-door neighbors. The cops come around the complex at least once a week. The teenagers have nothing better to do than hang around the parking lot. And it's turning into condos, so we have to find a new place in July. All for a little under $800 a month. Thanks to my employer's assistance that I work weekends, I don't get to relax with my friends that much, or even sleep in.
I got a cell phone. Kas and my parents are also on Verizon, so I can call the important people for free. Since I'm in class and in libraries so often, it's on perma-silent. (Doc would be happy.) Never when driving, never in stores. (The only time I've wished murder was legal was when I got yelled at by a customer one night on the register because I wanted to finish the transaction while she was on her cell phone and the register noises broke her I'm-at-the-bowling-alley alibi.)
And there've been problems like carpooling to save gas, emergency vet visits for new cat owners, tapeworms and booster shots, doing homework on time, getting the Internet to work, getting the network to work, networking Kas' super-duper printer to the rest of the house, stuff like that. I'm surviving.
Kas and I visited Anna Maria Island on a date a couple weeks ago, and sat on the sand and listened to the drummers and watched the sun go down. Wasn't too much of a lightshow, but it was peaceful. I came to Florida for the beach, and to be with Kas. Once everything settles down, things will be great. Until then, I'm comin' through as best I can.
Here's hoping the 'net connection lasts. Yours in Wonderland,
I cop an attitude and I get several "welcome back!" messages. Glad to know I was missed, and it feels even better to be back.
Going by college time (it ain't the next day till you've slept or seen the sun rise), I've spent 65 days in Florida. I'm in Bradenton, about an hour south of Tampa, and fifteen minutes away from the beach. Number of times I've been to the beach: 1.
I hate this place.
Bradenton, according to everyone I've met, was recently discovered by retirees and others flocking to the climate during the winter months. Those flockers, affectionately called snowbirds, get kinda pissy when somebody slows down their relaxing vacation time. Plus, they clog the roads.
I attend the University of South Florida for my MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science, not to be confused with the business-oriented Library and Information Technology) and I hate that too. I came from one of the tiniest schools in the nation and graduated from a close-knit department. The LIS program has just as much people as Hollins had English majors, but we're not well-connected at all. I take one course in Sarasota (a 20-minute drive every week), one course in Tampa (an hour drive each way every two weeks), and an online course, and they're not in any of my other classes. Plus, the workload is intense. Graduate-level work is more difficult than undergraduate-level work, I know, but a library chronology due a week after classes start? Come on!
I also got a job at a big box bookstore. The only thing I like about my job is my employee discount. Their scheduling isn't flexible around my classes and studying. They hired me to be the salesbook specialist--inventory the merchandise, display it properly, etc.--without informing the current salesbook specialist that I'd be taking her place. And the number of employees that aren't jerks don't quite balance the number that are. So I'm hating my job too.
I live with my boyfriend, my best friend, and four cats in a two-bedroom apartment in something closely resembling the ghetto but not quite. We have mentally deranged Russians as next-door neighbors. The cops come around the complex at least once a week. The teenagers have nothing better to do than hang around the parking lot. And it's turning into condos, so we have to find a new place in July. All for a little under $800 a month. Thanks to my employer's assistance that I work weekends, I don't get to relax with my friends that much, or even sleep in.
I got a cell phone. Kas and my parents are also on Verizon, so I can call the important people for free. Since I'm in class and in libraries so often, it's on perma-silent. (Doc would be happy.) Never when driving, never in stores. (The only time I've wished murder was legal was when I got yelled at by a customer one night on the register because I wanted to finish the transaction while she was on her cell phone and the register noises broke her I'm-at-the-bowling-alley alibi.)
And there've been problems like carpooling to save gas, emergency vet visits for new cat owners, tapeworms and booster shots, doing homework on time, getting the Internet to work, getting the network to work, networking Kas' super-duper printer to the rest of the house, stuff like that. I'm surviving.
Kas and I visited Anna Maria Island on a date a couple weeks ago, and sat on the sand and listened to the drummers and watched the sun go down. Wasn't too much of a lightshow, but it was peaceful. I came to Florida for the beach, and to be with Kas. Once everything settles down, things will be great. Until then, I'm comin' through as best I can.
Here's hoping the 'net connection lasts. Yours in Wonderland,
UPDATE: Spamblaster.