If you were leaving in one week for a month-long research trip to New York City what would you put on the following lists:

(1) Things to make sure you do before you leave
(2) Things to make sure you pack
(3) Things to do in NYC while not researching ;)

I was diagnosed with exercise induced asthma back in middle school. I have problems with it maybe once every three or four years, which means I never have inhalers when I have problems because the medicine expires before that and I don't get refills because I don't need them. If I was at home, I'd use one of my mom's because she has horrible asthma and always has multiple inhalers around and if not, I could just wait a while and I'd be fine because the attacks were never that bad. This morning I think I had my first ever non-exercise induced asthma attack. I took a bath, got out of the tub, and was somewhere in the process of drying off and putting on my bathrobe when I suddenly felt like I'd just run a marathon. I was gulping air, felt like I couldn't get enough, and my heart was racing. I waited a bit and it just wasn't getting any better. I started to worry, then I remembered that when I had bronchitis earlier this year the doctor thought the bronchitis might be triggering some mild asthma problems and had given me an inhaler that I still have. I found the inhaler, took a couple of puffs, and within a minute or two I was breathing just fine. I called my folks and told them, because I knew they'd want to know. Mom's upset and concerned, which I knew she would be. I'm going to call the student health center on Monday and try to get in to see a doctor before I leave for New York, just to be on the safe side. There's a chance that this was just a fluke, perhaps brought on by too much exposure to dust in the process of moving or overwork due to the same or something like that, but there is also the chance that I'm becoming seriously asthmatic as opposed to the very mildly asthmatic I was before. I suppose only time will tell.

EDIT: Oh yeah. "Happy Independence Day!" to the Americans, "Happy Saturday!" to everyone else, and uh... "Sorry?" to the Brits ;-)

( My Moving Saga and other events of the last few days )
That's everything of interest I can think of from the past few days. I'll post pictures of the new place once I'm done unpacking. If I'm ever done unpacking.

Things I have done today:

• Confirmed my rental moving van for tomorrow


• Confirmed my internet and cable will be activated at the new place Wednesday


• Signed my lease and received keys for the new place


• Submitted a change of address card at the post office, after being annoyed that I couldn't do it online because I don't have a credit card with a billing address of my old or new addresses


• Notified the school, the history department, the public library, and the gastroenterologist's office of my change of address


• Bought a new CD by my favorite musical artist (Ray Stevens, who is best known for his comedy music but his serious stuff is awesome as well)

Things I need or wanted to do today before the big moving day tomorrow (and reasons I have not yet done them or may not be able to do them at all today):

• Notify my three subscription magazines of the change of address (all copies of the magazines are in boxes so I don't know the phone numbers to call; perhaps I could find that info online?) I found the info online so this is now done.


• Finish the last little bit of packing (but I'm not sure what I'll need for the rest of the day)


• Arranging boxes and furniture so that large items that need to go on the truck first are easily accessible to facilitate big move tomorrow (my roommate hasn't moved out all her stuff yet and has a huge pile of stuff in the middle of the living room and I'm not sure if she is going to get it before or after my big move so I don't know if I should move it close to the door or back into a corner)


• Move drawers, small bins, and other odds and ends that won't go in truck very well over to the new place by car (the old people weren't fully out yet this morning, painters are touching up the walls in the new place this afternoon, and a fridge is being moved in at some point today so I have to wait until all that is finished and will have to move the small stuff this evening or won't be able to do it at all today)

So basically I know things are going to get hectic later today or tomorrow but right now there isn't much I can do and I'm kind of bored and anxious.

I might have hit the straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing. The potential roommate from my last post sent me an email that I got this morning. She said they are unexpectedly having family come into town today so she might or might not come to see the house. Since it is last minute, she's going to try, but she just doesn't know. She was supposed to come last week and canceled because she had to help her sister study for a final exam. I'm thinking of sending her the following email:

I understand that things happen, but things seem to keep happening. If I hadn't put my foot down, we'd probably still be looking for a house and I have to move in a week. To try to get a commitment, I offered to buy a dishwasher. Now I've promised that and I still don't have a commitment so I had to come up with the money for the entire security deposit. I also have to pay the current tenants for the washer and dryer. Since I don't have committed roommates, I will probably have to pay all of July's rent up front. Even if I get reimbursed, I still have to come up with that money now. I honestly don't think I can buy a dishwasher on top of all that. I feel like I have to because I said I would, but I keep trying to make this work and you're never giving anything or trying to meet me half-way.

You were going to come see the house the other week. That fell through because you had to tutor your sister. You were going to come today and now you might or might not show up because you've got company coming. Honestly, I'm getting very frustrated. I need a place to live and I need roommates with whom I can have a pleasant home. I feel like I'm shelling out all kinds of money and doing everything I can to make this work and you're stringing me along and refusing to give on anything. That makes me seriously question what kind of a roommate you'll be. At this point, I think it is in my best interest to try to find a new roommate who will work with me and commit.

EDIT: email sent

I need some advice regarding my future living situation. As y'all know, I have a rental house but am in need of roommates. I originally had two roommates and no place to live. We were going to get this house, roommate A bailed, roommate B was supposed to talk her around, and I said "I'm taking the house with or without y'all." Shortly thereafter, roommate B bailed and roommate A maybe wanted back in. Roommate A and an entirely new person are meeting me tomorrow to look at the house. Since I have two potential roommates but no definite ones, I went ahead and posted an ad on the student housing network a few days ago. I've had seven replies to that in the couple of days it has been up so I am confident I will be able to find roommates.

At this point, I feel like I'm in a position of power. I am the only one to have contact with the landlord, the only one to have filed a credit report with him and to be approved, the only one to have paid the security deposit, and I'm not desperate to find anybody to live there because I have a decent quantity of potential roommates from which I can pick. I feel I have every right to exercise veto power over potential roommates if I just don't think we'd make good roommates and to insist they agree to certain conditions before moving in. I'm not wanting to be a dictator about all this, but I want to make sure I've got roommates with whom I think I will be compatible and I want to make sure I have a generally pleasant living environment. I've been looking at Roommate Agreements online and have cut and pasted from various ones to create one that I like. It has all the legal stuff in it regarding breaking the lease and dividing up the utilities and then it has the house rules stuff about cleaning schedules, overnight guest policies, and the like. In the section about house rules, the current draft basically lists multiple topics and says "We need a policy on this and I'm thinking this specific thing might be a good idea but I'm not set on exactly that and will negotiate anything within this general range," so I don't think I'm being tyrannical, but I am staking my ground so that I can have a home I like.

My big question is how far can I push this with roommate A. We previously had a spoken agreement to get a place together with the now non-existent third person. When I made the unilateral decision to take this place while they were both still on the fence and the third person eventually walked, did that void the previous arrangement completely and I can reject her now if I want or no? Can I treat her like all the other potential roommates or does she have more rights and power in this whole thing? Obviously the only thing legally binding is the check I gave the landlord, but from a moral or ethical PoV, what consideration do I owe her?

Plane ticket to New York City (round-trip) for month-long research trip from July 12 to August 8 ... $150 (good deal!)

Shuttle for ride to housing from airport and vice-versa ... $30

Housing in New York City for a month ... $1,100 (and that's cheap for NYC)

Picking up motorcycle with working speedometer / odometer ... $160

Security Deposit for rental house ... $1,250

Knowing the bike is working, the research trip is happening, and I will have a place to live when my current lease ends ... Priceless

Not knowing exactly where the money is coming from to pay for all this and not having roommates for said place to live, thus being responsible for the entire rent of the house until I find people ... Whatever is the opposite of Priceless


In related news, my current roommate moved out all her large furniture (bed, desk, dresser, coffee table, couch, dining room table and chairs, etc) tonight. She's packing a suitcase of clothes and officially living at her new place beginning tonight. All the rest of her clothes and her general stuff (DVDs, food, games, pictures, etc.) are still here and she'll move it over the next week or two, probably mostly later this week when she has a couple days off. Also, I got the call that my credit app for the new house had been approved as my friend was dropping me off at the bike shop. I said I'd call back for directions to drop off the security check once I got home, a 25-minute or so drive. So of course when I got the directions it turned out I needed to drop the check off someplace that was about a block and a half from the bike shop. Literally. It was a traffic light away on the same street. I had to drive all the way back and was slightly annoyed with myself, but I'd figured I'd need to take it someplace in Williamsburg, not the next town over, and had seen no need to call from the parking lot of the bike shop. Live and learn, eh?

I bought a few moving boxes today that I may not need anymore. I could only find medium boxes, so I didn't get very many because I'll need a lot of small boxes for heavy things like my four bookshelves worth of books. When it finally opened, I went to the comic book store to get a couple of archival comic boxes. I'm not sure when I move if I'm going to put the comics on the shelf or leave that room for books and do something else with the comics so I figured these boxes were the best idea for them. I mentioned to my comic guy that I'm moving and he told me not to buy any boxes. Ever. He took me to the storeroom / restroom where he had small and medium boxes stacked to the ceiling. He said to take as many as I need / could fit in my car today and feel free to come back for more. So I now have about eight small boxes that are perfect for books and four medium boxes from him for lighter things in addition to the medium boxes I bought this morning. If only he had been open before 1:00 and I found out about his raidable box stash before I bought the others!

Miss me?

The family left this morning. We had to get up at 3:00 to get to the airport so as soon as I got home, I went back to bed. Good plan. I'll do a proper post on the vacation soon (summary: Grandma is crazy and I'm tired), but I have more important news to share. I am 98% certain that come the end of the day Monday I will have a place to live. I think I need new roommates, though.

The two women with whom I've been looking at places are Christina and Maria. Maria is now out of town so Christina and I have been doing the looking for a while. We looked at a place on Tuesday or Wednesday evening, with my cousin tagging along. I really liked the house. It is set in the trees, is a few minutes walk from the main shopping center in town and in biking distance from the school, and looks little outside but has a lot more room inside than one would imagine. There were two decent sized bedrooms with small but not tiny closets, one large master bedroom with a separate bathroom and two closets, a hall bathroom, a living room, dining room, large kitchen, and two extra rooms. One of the extra rooms is a bit bigger than the living room and would make a fantastic library / study area and the other used to be a carport or something that was sealed in so no carpeting in there but fantastic storage space. There are a few things that could be positives or negatives, such as it has well water which is free but is also sulfury and goes out if the house loses power, but all-in-all I thought it was a good place and so did Christina.

Christina and I basically decided we should try to get the house so I started things in motion regarding getting the credit check application and arranging lease-start dates with the landlord. Then I got an email from Christina. She said she had emailed Maria information on the house and all Maria said was "I won't live someplace without a dishwasher." Christina told me she was rather confused by this and was going to try to talk to Maria but she really had no idea what was going on and was afraid I might be better off looking for something on my own (keep in mind this is just over 2 weeks before my lease ends and I'm out on the street). The people living there now have a full-size portable dishwasher with a counter top as an island in the middle of the large kitchen. I thought that looked like a good setup so I looked into it and such a dishwasher can be bought brand new for $500, give or take $100. I told Christina to tell Maria that if that is the only problem, I'll buy a bloody dishwasher myself. I don't know what all they said to each other but I never really got a response to that and instead they started sending group emails about checking out yet another house. This new house was $150 more a month than the one I want to take now and isn't actually available until August 1 but it would probably be possible for me to live there for a month with the current tenants because one person was moving out early and I could have that bedroom or some such nonsense.

I emailed Christina and I didn't even get into the details on the overlapping month; I just said that this place was $150 more a month, which was $1800 for a year which would buy three brand new dishwashers. I told her the offer still stands for me to buy a dishwasher, but I don't have the time to keep looking and I'm taking the house I want. If she and Maria, or she alone, want to take it with me, fine. If not, I'll sign it in just my name and find two new roommates. I'm a bit leary about signing a $1250 a month lease in just my name since I obviously can't cover it all myself, but I've got to make a decision and I'm extremely confident that I can find people so I'm not overly worried. I've discussed it all with my parents and with the landlord and they've all agreed to have my parents listed if necessary for extra income to assure the landlord he will get paid even if I can't find other people. My dad is as confident as I am that I can find people but my mom is more worried. She is willing to trust my judgment but she kind of thinks I should try to find a one bedroom place. I've already looked though and the cheapest of those in the area is $600. Even if I can only find one other person for this house, it is $1250 so that would be $625 each, plus all the other bills would be split two-ways rather than me covering it all so that would still be cheaper. I still think I can get two people, though. Christina just emailed me back and said she appreciates where I'm coming from and she'll let me know her decision ASAP. In my original email, I told her that I'm paying the deposit Monday and if they're not taking the house with me I have to start looking for new roommates then, so I guess I'll see what she says in the next day-and-a-half or so.

My parents arrive in Williamsburg tonight. My grandparents and one cousin arrive tomorrow night. They will all be here through next weekend for a week of them playing tourist and me playing tour guide. I'm looking forward to it but already know that by the time they leave I will be ready to say goodbye and get back to my routine. Isn't that the way it always goes? My plan for today was to get up around 8:00 or 8:30, go to the elementary school and say goodbye to the kiddies since this is their last Friday, run a few small errands, and spend the rest of the day watching TV and doing laundry. I don't think a single thing has gone right and I need to vent so y'all are stuck with long and ranty nonsense.

( Rachael rants, and rants, and rants, and, just when you think she is done, rants some more. You have been warned. )

So now it is 2:30. I still haven't eaten anything yet today because I've been so busy (except for the bit of playing online around 6:00, but since I'm not usually up that early I wasn't hungry then). I have a headache and my teeth hurt so I think I've been grinding them. I'm tired, I'm frustrated, I don't know what to do about a lot of this, and I still have to run a few more errands and do laundry before the family arrives.

I woke up in an inexplicably good mood this morning. I was happy and cheerful all morning with absolutely no clue why. It's a very good thing I was in such a chipper mood, though. If I'd started off in a bad mood, I'd hate to see where I'd have ended up. As it, I'm just sore and tired and ready for the day to end but I'm not actually in a bad mood.

I helped a couple of my friends move today. Their move was a disaster, due entirely to the idiots who were moving out and the landlord's absence from the area. The previous tenants made a mess of the place, did an atrocious job painting over some things they'd painted (as in, they had painted the doors and door frames in one bedroom a deep blue and were supposed to return them to the original brown and instead slapped on one thin coat of white through which the blue showed), and left a bunch of stuff. They claimed they left one couch and arranged for people to come pick it up on Saturday. They left a couch, a love seat, a TV, a stereo system, two box springs, a mattress, a desk, multiple shelving units, food, and a ton of small items. Getting rid of all that and cleaning the place were yesterday's tasks (I ended up with a new TV with attached DVD player and VCR that I'm not sure I need, but it was too nice to dump). Today was the actual moving.

The moving wasn't too bad at first. We got the rented truck loaded with no major problems. The only couple of minor problems were some scratches I got on the inside of my right knee and a scratch on another mover's hand. Then we couldn't get the truck started and jumping it took forever because the hood wouldn't open. We got the truck to the new place, unloaded, back to the old place, loaded, and almost completely unloaded for the second and final time when I decided to be an idiot. I was carrying a box and not paying enough attention and walked directly into a low, very solid, wooden shelving unit. I whacked the outside of my right knee (at least it was the same knee). My "OW!" was heard throughout the entire house. I heard a few calls of "Are you alright?" and my "NO!" probably wasn't the response everyone wanted. I managed to hobble down the stairs and spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the couch with an ice pack on my knee. I've got a couple of large scratches and a nice purple bruise that makes it rather difficult to bend my knee, but I'll live.

After the unloading was completely finished and the post-moving pizza was consumed, we were getting ready to leave when I realized my motorcycle keys weren't in my pocket. We found them in my bike with the bike on so the battery was completely dead. As I went to lean the bike back over on the kickstand to take off the cover to try to get to the battery, my foot slipped on mud and I dropped the bike on its side. We got it back up and finally got it jumped after a few difficulties. Then I had to drive the bike around aimlessly for a while to let the battery charge. Ordinarily, I'd love to ride my motorcycle aimlessly, but I was on the reserve tank so I was worried about running out of gas. Ordinarily that wouldn't have been a problem because I'd have checked the odometer when I went to the reserve tank and I'd know how many miles I could safely go, but since the speedometer / odometer are still not working, I've no clue. Not to mention my knee was still kind of throbbing and riding the bike wasn't quite as much fun as normal. I still had a pleasant enough ride, made it home, turned off the bike, and got it restarted so hopefully I'll be able to start it and get it to the gas station without incident tomorrow. I might have got gas tonight, but a shower just sounded too good. Now all I want is my bed.

I got this as an email forward, but memes seem more fun to me. You can only answer each question with one word.

Where is your cell phone? Pocket
Your hair? Long
Your mother? Cool
Your father? Ditto
Your favorite thing? Relaxing
Your dream last night? Nonexistent
Your favorite drink? Unsure
Your dream/goal? PhD
What room are you in? Library
Your hobby? Computers
Your fear? Job
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Happy
Where were you last night? Asleep
Something that you aren't? Content
Muffins? Yummy
Wish list item? Money
Last thing you did? Organized
What are you wearing? Usual
TV? Rarely
Your pets? Away
Friends? Away
Your life? Stagnant
Your mood? Hungry
Missing someone? Yeah
Drinking? Nothing
Smoking? Never
Your car? Focus
Something you're not wearing? Jewelry
Your favorite store? B&N
Your favorite color? Blue
When is the last time you cried? Unknown
Who will resend this? Clueless
Where do you go to over and over? Home
Five people who email me regularly? Friends
My favorite place to eat? Out
Favorite place I'd like to be at right now? Home
Four people I think will respond? Closest

My best friend from high school, Kathy, came to visit me for the long Memorial Day weekend. She flew in late Friday after work and flew out Monday afternoon so she could be back at work today. We had a blast! We played tourist for a while on Saturday but then mostly just hung out and played games. We played two-player Spades a lot, a speed-based card game called Nuts (or Nerts or a lot of other options) that we played all the time in high school, and Star Wars Life. While we played cards, we almost always had a DVD running in the background, either on the big screen in a classroom up at the college or on my TV, and made it through all but two episodes of the first season of Hogan's Heroes (I got her hooked!). We ate too much and stayed up too late and it sucks that she had to leave. I want to relax and goof off with her some more not get back to work on my stupid dissertation.

As I mentioned in my voicepost, my speedometer of my motorcycle appears to be possessed by a ghost. Or perhaps gremlins have gotten into the mechanisms. Gremlins are a big problem on bikes and you're supposed to have a gremlin bell to distract them. I don't have one because you can't buy it for yourself. Someone, preferably a more experienced rider, has to give it to you. My dad has mentioned that he should get me one, but then he always forgets. So now I have gremlins in my speedometer. Or, you know, we could skip the superstitious silliness and assume that it is a loose cable. ;)

Whatever the cause, I have no speedometer. I also have no odometer, which is royally going to screw up my mileage calculations when I next fill up with gas and when I finally get this all fixed, but the speedometer is the important part on a daily basis. A couple of days ago, I was going about 65, glanced down at my speedometer and it said I was going 0. It bounced back up to 40, then 0, then 20, then it just kind of twitched and jumped all over the place and finally settled back on 0. I don't think I really changed my speed at all in there and certainly not that much that suddenly. Now the stupid thing mostly sits on 0 with the occasional twitch up towards 10. I honestly think the cable connecting the speedometer/odometer to the tire which tells the speedometer/odometer how many times my tire has rotated so it knows how fast and how far I'm going has come loose so there is no data going into the speedometer/odometer. I could take it all apart and try to fix it myself. Problem with that is, while I am very good at taking things apart and finding the problems, I am not so good at fixing the problems and getting everything back together again. I could take it to a shop and have them fix it, but that would cost more money than it really should. So I am just going to wait the approximately two weeks until my dad comes to visit and he can fix it. Good timing!

In the meantime, I have to drive the motorcycle without a speedometer which is very frustrating. I could just not ride the bike at all, but that would be even more frustrating. As long as there is a decent amount of traffic, I'm OK without the speedometer. It isn't perfect, but as long as I make sure I'm not the fastest vehicle, I should be doing OK. The problem comes when there isn't much traffic. I am basically estimating my speed based on what I know about the sounds of the engine and the feel of the wind. I got to tell ya, trying to decide if the wind resistance is that of going 60 or that of going 70 is a very imprecise science. Here's hoping I don't get a ticket before Dad gets the thing fixed.

Voice Post Meme Part II. You really should listen to Part I first or this won't make any sense. Trust me. Actually, this may not make much sense even if you listen to the first part, but humor me.

I am talking much faster in this part. This is more how I normally talk. I was trying to go slowly in the first one so y'all could understand me, but all that did was make me run out of time repeatedly so here you get more of the normal me.

VoicePost 316K 1:35

(no transcription available)