Sunday, January 30, 2011

48 Hours of Fun

Well folks, this weekend was my entire on call weekend. I was in the building from 5pm Friday night to 5 pm Sunday night. I had a great time.

Friday:

Not much happened on Friday, I sat at the desk for a large portion of this time helping check out ping pong, pool, and the key to the TV room. After my late nigh rounds I hit the hay.

Saturday:

What a fun day. Nothing really happened. More sitting around waiting for nothing. Helped a bunch of students loft beds during room changes. Had a student inform me of her and her friends adventures on roofs of buildings... which is a level 5 infraction at my program and can make you go pack your bags asap.

Sunday was better than Saturday!

On Sunday I walked to 7-11 to get coffee and made orange rolls in the kitchen! Then lots of studying for school.


Quite a boring weekend overall. Hopefully this week will be more fun.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

I have no title for this field so I decided to type this instead.

Sorry about the lack of exciting new adventures in the life of Swifty Morgan lately.
I didn't work this last weekend so that means no cool stories from work.

Over the weekend I went home and saw my partner in crime superdog that is holding up the house in the hold neighborhood. Jack Russel Terriers are so excited to see you after being absent for two weeks that when you are just trying to relax the only thing they want you to do is hold them and let them lick you. That gets old after a bit, and a bit slobbery.

On Sunday I went to church with my girlfriend sidekick and did the usual broke college kid lunch for $1.50 at Kroger. Lately they have had boneless wings for 25 cents and they actually are not that bad. Taking this back to the super girlfriend's dorm and eating lunch while watching the office on hulu is a great way to rest on Sunday before another week. I am pretty glad hulu is still free because it has been a tradition now for about 3 years that my sidekick and I don't watch The Office without each other because we enjoy watching it together, and now that we are at separate colleges that is a bit hard to do on a Thursday night. Que the hulu and grab the cheap chicken wings and you have a great date afternoon for three dollars! Lunch and a show! What a bargain.

Sunday night I had to drive back to my university early due to a wing program. My wing got invited by the girl's wing to chili's. After much persuading my guys finally worked up the courage to go. Being an RA I got the privilege of driving one of the school vans full of students. Now if you have ever ridden with me you would know that I am super strict on seat belts. Not only are they required by law but they make you safer, it is just like wearing a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Sure you may look super cool to your buddies by not wearing that awful restraining device but when I roll a van one day who is it that is going to look super cool being ejected from those death trap vans? //end seat belt rant. Anyway, I haven't even met most of the students that I was driving but to introduce myself I said, and I quote, "Howdy, My name is Swifty, I need y'all to buckle up now, because if I get stopped that will be my third strike and that means life behind bars" All I got was wide eyes and some hesitation as students contemplated moving to the other van. I laughed and told them I don't have any felonies and we drove to dinner without incident.

Monday was exciting. The power went out.
Not only did the power go out, it went out when I was in philosophy class, talking about how man survived for thousands of years without science. When the power flickerd the first time the professor joked about how the science gods didn't like us talking about how people lived without science so well. Then the lights went out for good. The odd thing was that the computer must have been on backup because it stayed on just fine and the hall was powered by emergency lighting, so it honestly just looked like my classroom's overhead lights were out. My professor went out in the hall and came back to report that it must have been the science gods because our class room was the only one with no power. Well this didn't sit well with one female student and she panicked. She fled the class room 'acting' very frightened. I don't think she was honestly scared but more just hoping to be the class clown. What a weirdo.

To top it off, the school newspaper today reported that a squirrel had chewed through one of the main lines at the substation north of campus and that the whole northern half of campus was affected. Darn Squirrels! Maybe they were attempting to create a fire-sail like in live free or die hard... But my cell phone still worked, so the joke is on them.

Tuesday was pretty uneventful, I walked to the store to get some notebooks. Oh! But I did work out today! TWICE! That's right, I went on a good run in the morning before class and had such a great time that I went later that night also! Most enjoyable and by 8:30 when I finally ate dinner I had worked up quite a hunger. I still kept to my 'no soda' policy. I have had one soda since moving back 2.5 weeks ago. I sorta just don't like the taste anymore, makes it easy to forget about soda, I would rather eat my calories than drink them.

Have a great week, thanks for reading!
-Swifty

Friday, January 21, 2011

Once in a Full Moon

My first day on call was an interesting experience to say the least.

You know the kinda person who is crazy enough to come in and tell you their life story and admit that they really are pretty crazy? Yeah I got one of those at the desk.

It started like any other night RAOC (RA on call) shift. 5 pm check in, do the rounds, and wait for exciting stuff to happen. During my rounds I found several security flaws that no one noticed, open exterior doors, missing window tabs, and a fire extinguisher that was gone. All stuff that is a red flag when doing rounds. So I noted it and moved on. Easy enough.

Fun time.

About 5:45 pm, I got a visitor.
A girl walked in and asked for information on a student. I told her that I can't give out information and she asked if I knew a guy that was in Chi Alpha Omega. What a crazy idea, look in MY dorm for someone in a fraternity. Not happening!

Anyway, things just got worse from here. This visitor 'Jane' went on to explain that she was pregnant, just out of jail, multiple restraining orders from the other college in town, and restraining orders from one of her many ex-fiances. Oh, and did I mention she was arrested earlier that day for public intoxication, and displaying a firearm in a bar? Yeah that is a bit of a problem. I asked her if she still had said firearm and she said no and went on to ask if she could use our computer to get on facebook. Do I look like the kind of person to let a fresh out of jail weirdo on a work computer to check her facebook? NO WAY JOSE! I explained that she can't use our work computer, and that she could use the public phone in the lobby. But for a girl who didn't have her life together or even know the name of the guy she wanted to see because she had his kid, I don't know why she would have his phone number, so that was a silly attempt.

At this point we decided we better document who this crazy lady was so I asked to see Jane's drivers license and she said she didn't have one. Hmm, for someone who can't get their act together, why bother getting an ID card.

Ok Jane, Do you have a (My super-cool university) student ID card? You did just tell me you were a student here.

Oh you don't? Whats that you said your ex-fiance took it from you?
Pretty bad taste in guys if you ask me.

At this point I was seriously wondering why she came to my building and not any of the other buildings on campus.

Hold the phone! Jane does offer one piece of ID! Now we're talkin! What is this form of ID she offers? None other that a promise to appear issued when she was released from jail earlier today! I guess that counts as an ID form. So Jack, my Hall Director on call goes into the back room to photocopy this form.

Jane is explaining to me that she is flying with 10 guys to Brazil... tomorrow. To live forever. I guess the promise to appear means very little to her. I asked how she intended to fly to Brazil when her only form of ID appears to be a promise to appear issued by the county. I guess you could get out of the country but certainly it will be hard getting back in. Then she said, and I quote, "Oh, we are not really flying, we are driving!"

WOW, get out of jail one day, drive to Brazil the next. I didn't think a public intoxication charge was a big enough deal to flee the country over.

Good luck driving, it is the rainy season at the Darien Gap right now and not to mention the terrorists and bandits waiting for you.

Anyway, at this point I decided it would be best to escort Jane outside and talk with her there while Jack copied the paper. So while outside we talked about whatever she wanted just to keep her calm. Jane went on to tell me about her successful businesses in nearby large towns. And how she walked almost 40 miles the other day. My favorite part was when she told me that until she got arrested she had gone 60 days without sleeping. I asked her to repeat that and she really did mean to say DAYS not hours. She also said she had not taken her meds in some time. At this point I did not feel comfortable just kicking her out and felt that she might need to talk to campus police. So Jack and I made it happen, he called the police while I was outside talking to her. Campus PD showed up and had a little chat with Jane, put her in the back of the car and continued to talk to her for almost an hour before driving off with her.

Favorite quote from the chat? I got them right here:

officer "Are you a (UNIVERSITY) student?"
Jane "Yes... well... sorta, no. But I will be tomorrow! I am an engineering student!"


Good luck on your trip to Brazil Jane. It also might be time to quit being stupid before you end up dead or worse.


But the fun doesn't stop here. I still am on call for the rest of the night.

While doing my rounds I see a girl moving at a pretty quick pace away from some object she placed on the floor and back into her room where her and her roommate were giggling. She looked out of the door and saw me coming down the hall so she quickly said 'shut the door!' and they both jumped in their room. Of course I don't just let them have all the fun, I went and looked at what was on the ground and it was a cup with a cupcake on top of it. Hmm, that is sure something to get all worked up about. I went and knocked on the door...

Girl " Hi, can I help you?"
Me "Yeah, is anything exciting going to happen to that cup on the ground?"
Girl "No, we were just putting it there because this other girl didn't want it and we want to give it to [so-and-so] but wanted it to be a surprise."
Me "Ok, just don't get so excited about it, it is 11:20 pm"

I don't think the girl ever found the cupcake, oh well.

I also talked to some other residents because they were really concerned as to which student from that hall got arrested. The rumor was that one of the hall students was arrested and the hall director was really really mad.

Rumors are funny.

First shift as RAOC complete. I have a full weekend of this fun coming up in a few weeks!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Failure is an option, repair is the consequence.

Day 2 of being an RA.

Sometimes things happen that are beyond your control. Mechanical failure.

I had two mechanical failures fixed on my wing today.

First off I had my overhead light's ballast changed. When it was cold the light would constantly flicker.
This is a really cool feature if you want to run a disco in the dorms on the cheap, but not so cool for reading or other normal behavior.
The maintenance man was really nice to me. Apparently when they change the ballast they leave presents for the occupants of the room.
I got a clear plastic wrapper, install instructions for the new GE ballast, and an open package of 150 wire nuts. And the maintenance man must be into some sort of Feng shui because he moved my desk and chair.

The other awesome mechanical failure today was when two residents were locked inside their room. The door handle failed and was unable to turn to let them out. Luckily they had a connecting bath and were able to go into the neighbors room to leave.
The old door handle was off faster than a greyhound at the race track because another maintenance man was already in the hall and got it fixed asap.


On a side note in the gym today there were lots of sorority members 'getting ready for spring break'.
Most of them have a LONG way to go. Good luck.

-Swifty

Monday, January 17, 2011

Welcome to the world of Swifty Morgan.

I AM Swifty Morgan, Twenty years experience at the game of life, currently enrolled in college.

This is my world.

I recently got a new job. I am an RA for a dorm that shall remain nameless at a university that shall remain nameless.

This past week has been training from 8:00a to 8:00p or later each day. Lots of policies and emergency procedures to remember.

I am really good at tornado and fire alarms.

One of the highlights of my training was the suicide awareness simulation.

In this simulation an RA was asked to be an actor and another RA was asked to be the RAOC (Resident Assistant On Call).
The RAOC is doing rounds and hears someone crying, naturally she opens the door and finds (we will call her) Jane, sitting alone, obviously upset.
Eventually RAOC finds out that Jane's boyfriend had broken up with her. After just completing suicide awareness training RAOC decides to assess Jane for signs of suicde.
When it comes to ending your life the RAOC doesn't beat around the bush, RAOC asks "[JANE], have you thought about ending it all?" The question is only part of why it was funny.
The question was asked like a salesman. "Why sir, have you considered the new Ford Focus?" Almost a suggestive, why don't you try this, type of question.

Anyway, suicide is no joke, lots of paperwork.

Welcome again to the life of Swifty Morgan.

As I go further in my job I will have PLENTY of other stories of unnamed students (and RA's) doing crazy things.

-Swifty Morgan