Cold Drama

This weather has caught me unawares. It is cold cold cold cold. I was walking with Tiffany today, outside, and mentioned that I was anxious for it to warm up, and indicated that I believed the recent sub-freezing weather must be part of a temporary cold snap. I expressed my desire for the cold snap to end within the next few days.

"Ha," she laughed. "Ha ha."

Apparently this is normal. This bitter cold and blustery wind is just part of a regular February in New York. I thought with March approaching, milder temperatures must be on the way. How wrong I was. According to Tiffany I cannot expect springtime until at least April. At least.

I mentioned my conversation with Tiffany to my coworker Emily as we waited for cars to pass on our way back from a dinner run to Qdoba. She tapped an iced over puddle next to the sidewalk with her toe, and said, "yeah, you kind of have to expect snow through the end of March."

March? March?! I am getting restless. I've been spending my free time reading hiking guides for nearby mountains and daydreaming about biking to campus and eating lunch in the park. When? When??

Taproot Foundation

One of my classmates told me about an organization she volunteers for called the Taproot Foundation. It's a pretty big organization that basically provides free marketing for non-profits. You send them your resume and they match you to a project. I thought applying my professional skills in the service of others sounded like a wonderful way to spend my free time (since I have so much of that nowadays), so I applied. To volunteer. For free.

Well, I heard back from them today. Apparently I don't have enough years of marketing experience to work for them. For free.

I guess I'm just not cut out for selfless volunteerism, seeing as how I'm a 20-something graduate student with only a part time job, boundless energy, and practically no other responsibilities. No, not the kind of person you'd want volunteering for you at all.

Om Nom

Do you ever get home from the grocery store and realize you have so many new and interesting kinds of foods that you just want to nibble on all of them? And then for dinner you have, for example, vegetarian chicken nuggets with ketchup, Spaghettios, a Baby Ruth, Kashi Go Lean Crunch with soy milk, and a bottle of Trader Joe's simpler times pilsner?

Bam. Tuesday.

Finidng a Comfortable Seat in Bobst: A Rant

Bobst Library is the suckingest library of all libraries.

It is crowded, ugly, and uses space inefficiently.

Only certain areas (which are few and far between) are wired for internet access (computers running on Linux aren't allowed access to NYU wireless).

The bathrooms are in desperate need of renovations (in addition to obvious cosmetic issues, many stalls are missing door latches and purse hooks).

The furniture is mismatched, ugly, and old, and many pieces are damaged as well.

But the worst thing is the chairs. See, there are several species of chairs in Bobst. There are plain wooden ones in various designs and stages of disrepair. There are wooden seats with cushioned back rests. There are cushiony rolly chairs. And then there are the BEST chairs. They are the kind that are made of mesh fabric stretched over the frame in a space-age design that is not uncomfortable nor broken. These chairs have evil twins that have a back of this magic not uncomfortable material with a terrible plastic seat, and those ones are to be avoided.

However, back to the magic mesh ergonomic space aged chairs. If I can find one of those when I go study at Bobst, I am not filled with rage at how much the place sucks. The basement computer labs, which are admittedly pretty nice, are filled with them. But those areas fill up pretty fast. So I usually have to spend at least 15 minutes searching through the building, looking for one of the magic chairs. And people know. Everyone snags those chairs, leaving the crappy other ones unoccupied. It's a battle.

I never thought I'd say this, but I guess Earl Gregg Swem Library just spoiled me. I mean, once the renovations were finished, of course.

I guess what's most upsetting about the Bobst situation is that I am paying basically $9 million dollars to go to NYU. I paid only a fraction of that for W&M. A fraction of a fraction of $9 million, really. And W&M found the cash in its tiny budget to provide an up-to-date comfortable library where people actually went to study, and even to socialize.

NYU wouldn't want to make the library that inviting. Only people who are REALLY SERIOUS about their studies are willing to endure Bobst.

Hey Bobst: Get us more of these!