Thursday, September 07, 2006

The Importance of Being Ernesto

Now that I'm all settled into my apartment and (FINALLY) have internet, I get to update! Our move-in day was awful. We didn't end up getting in until 5pm. Christine got in an accident, I was so stressed and grumpy from the Complex just not calling us ever to tell us we had our CO...but once we got in it was ok. Verizon lost our account so our DSL didn't work and they were like well it'll take two weeks to get the account in so we can turn it on...and we're like UNACCEPTABLE. So we got cable. Finally. Yesterday. Most of the weekend was spent moving, unpacking, cleaning, and organizing. Did I mention the HURRICANE? We moved all our possessions in a hurricane. And our apartment is fabulous. I should not have even worried about it. Everything is working out great. Someday, once it's all really nice, I'll post up some pictures. I love my room. I love it, I love it, I love it. Roommate things have been perfect and she has some crazy friends whom I've met.

Living here is crazy sometimes. When we go downtown, it's like driving in to another country. The area we live in is predominantly Hasidic Jew and Mexicans. It's a very strange combination. You drive downtown and there are people everywhere walking and running and riding bikes. Except....they have on black suits and huge hats and prayer fringes hanging out. Everyone that doesn't fit that description and isn't a woman with an insane number of children in tow, is standing on the street corner, waiting for someone to drive by and yell out a job so they can get a job for the day. It's very differant and sort of endearing in a bizzare way. I've never gotten so many dirty looks from people while driving. I think it's the blonde hair. Or the fact that people just happen to run into the middle of the street frequently and then look at you as if Hello! How could you have the nerve to DRIVE ON THE ROAD? *Glare* I've only almost died twice. The weirdest is when the men push back their little curls so that they can LIGHT UP THEIR CIGARETTES. So strange. Today, we went into town to pick up plans from a building company for a friend of my roommates. The company is owned by Hasidic Jews. We walked in and everyone immediately turned and stared at us. We stood there. Someone finally looked us both over and asked if they could help us. Christine told them what we were there for. The girl looked at me and said "And you are?" I was just like...uh I..uh..with her! So we stood there again. Everytime someone walked by the window they stared at us and gave us the once over. I squirmed. Then from behind the conference room door came a whole line of men, who all glared at us. And finally we got our stuff. Then we high-tailed it out of there. The whole thing was slightly surreal.

Class has been very high-stress. Everyone FREAKS OUT at the drop of a hat. The "adult learners" in our class panic, freak out, and ask a bajillion pointless questions and tell stories. I'm like SHUSH just let the Prof lecture! I mean the poor Prof couldn't get through more then a bullet point without being interupted by a whole class discussion. It was driving me nuts! Plus out professor freaked out when we had a conflict with a room and went on a whole tirade about wanting to our PDA's to have sex with her PDA. I'm glad I don't have a PDA to "share fluids. The nursing professors are like...too nice to keep control. Today we had a Doctor for Pathophysiology and he kept wonderful control of the class. And things went smooth and questions were appropriate and moderate. It was lovely and normal and lectureish and I finally took notes. It helped so much. But I have SOOO much reading to do. Ok but I'm done whining now.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Wow. Your downtown sounds like the area of West LA that I lived in. We had lots of Hasidic Jews (which were interesting to see during Passover) and a LOT of Latinos.

And I hope your classes start going well for you. :)

MY NEW JOB KICKS A! :)