Sidious, Snoke and Salacious B Crumb’s Sarcastic and Sassy Situation Saloon (Fanfic Social Thread)

All the freshmen are moved in. I took advantage of the buffet meals today (lunch and dinner) so I didn't have to fight the move-in traffic to leave campus.

Hours for the two dining halls and the individual food options within were also posted today, and it looks like we are now the home of Taco Tuesday. That's right, the newly redesigned dining hall that was closed all of last school year now includes a taco stand that is only open on Tuesdays. I'm not making this up. It's honestly quite brilliant.

 

I had another day of crazy amount of driving today. Had to go to Long Island, not a big deal I do that all the time. Where I was going was about an hour there and an hour forty five back. But while I was there, I learned I had to be in Philadelphia for a 7am OR case tomorrow. Well I'm not leaving my house at 4am to get there in time, so when I got home, I packed and then headed to Philly which took me a little over 2.5 hours. I was just in Philly on Monday (just for the day) so this is the second time this week.

On the other hand because it will be a Friday and I'm already half way to my parents place, I'm just going to drive there tomorrow for an overnight visit instead of going home.

 

Who doesnt love a Taco Tuesday? I dont think I ever ate at the dining hall in uni... but I also didn't live at the dorms and 3/6 years of my undergrad I lived a 5 minute drive from campus. We also had a pub and a cornerstore on campus so I just grabbed food there the days when I was too lazy to pack anything.

Oh no! That sucks that you had to do so much driving in one day (especially when you were just there), but awesome you get to do a last-minute trip to your parents!

My trip back home is just over 3 weeks away and I am so excited! Part of me is questioning if I should go or not with the massive spike in COVID cases, but I'm fully vaccinated and I just wanna go home. I haven't seen much of my family in a year and both my mom and my brother got dogs. I just want all the puppy cuddles.

At work, we hired two more permanent positions, which I am so thankful for! They don't start until the beginning of September but I am looking forward to turfing a lot of my workload off. Our summer staff is slowly dwindling because contracts are finishing, but I only have to survive next week, then we are shutting down for a week to do a major cleaning job of all our storage facilities. I can do this!!!!!!

I'm still trying to think of a treat I can buy myself as a reward for surviving the mayhem of the past month.

 

Just got a reminder via Facebook of why I hate my hometown. My hometown goes by the nickname "City of Hospitality", but it's anything but. Case in point: high school football home opener was tonight. The football stadium is on an elementary school property rather than at the high school, so there's no on-site parking. The empty lot down the street previously used for spectator parking is no longer an empty lot. So the only place for parents and spectators to park was the huge strip mall across the street. Almost as soon as the game started, the manager at Goodwill (**** that place) at one end of the strip called in an army of tow trucks and told them he had 150 illegally parked cars. Sure enough, lots and lots of cars were towed during the game and dozens of families left the game to find their cars missing. They were still towing cars when people left the game and at least one person had to sprint across the lot to get to her car before the tow truck could hook it up. The tow company told her that they've been ordered to do this at every home game and they don't have a choice because they're under contract.

 

Blueberry dessert wine?

 

Oooooh! I like that idea! I'm not a huge wine drinker (says the person who lives in wine-country - I literally have to pass 5 wineries just to get anywhere) but a blueberry dessert wine sounds like just the treat I should try! Might have to stop on my way home from my sister's birthday!

So, my guilty pleasure is procedural dramas. I typically watch political dramas or sci-fi series, or sit-coms and documentaries if I want some entertaining background noise while I write/make dinner/sew. But every so often I love me some questionably accurate procedural drama (usually medical) like Grey's Anatomy, etc. I discovered 9-1-1 Lone Star last night and I know I shouldn't be as enthralled as I am... but this is EXACTLY what my brain needs right now.

 

Hello everyone! I'm back!

So, two weeks ago I had something of a minor nervous breakdown when I found out that Mr Chyn had volunteered to go firefighting in Evia, so I took the car and left to our holiday home in the north to be with Chyntuquita. I had to drive across a major cloud of smog for about half the country, and I didn't even catch a glimpse of Evia, which should have been right there on the horizon but was really nowhere to be seen. Anyway I made it. Then Mr Chyn joined us a week later once the fire in Evia was out, and I swear that he still exudes a faint smokey smell – something like a nicely done pastrami.

Anyway, our vacation was great. Lots of intensive splittery-splattery-plopping in the sea with the kids in the morning, positively epic siestas every day and great food. Plus, my cousins took care of all the shopping, contacts with the outside world and stuff, so I didn't have to wear a mask a single time for two weeks.

Mr Chyn and I drove back this morning to avoid the massive traffic jam that is expected tonight when 99% of Greece return from their holidays. Chyntuquita is still up there; she'll be returning next weekend with the rest of the tribe. She's having the time of her life and after a year and a half of staying indoors and turning pasty white, she's now proving that she's a true Arab and she's back to her gorgeous, glowing, and healthy-looking golden olive skin tone. As Mr Chyn says we have the cutest little girl in the world [/gaga_mode_off]

Okay. This afternoon's programme: siesta, laundry, dinner and fanfic.

 

A lot of showering, swimming and going to the sauna will take care of the smokey smell.
But don't go near others when swimming. They will complain about your BBQ smell.
I experienced that after some big factory and restaurant fires

 

Fun day today. Played mud volleyball this afternoon with campus recreation. I didn't have a team, so the director combined a bunch of free agents onto a team named "Got Mud?". Our Round of 16 opponents were no-shows, so we advanced to the quarterfinals by default (and played a fun game against a team that had just lost in the single-elimination tournament). In the quarterfinals we won the first game and had match point in the second game, but couldn't close it out, and the other team ran away with the third game to win the match. In the third game I had to dive for a ball to try to save a point and got my whole front and half my face covered in mud, so at the end I said "screw it" and just dove face-first into the mud for the hell of it. Went and cleaned off with a hose, then went home and took a long shower to remove the last traces.

Getting ready to start classes tomorrow and this is my last semester and I'm so anxious to get it over with. Gotta mix schoolwork and the job search as I am hoping to get job offers by Halloween. I need a job offer by the end of November because I have to move out of my on-campus apartment by January 3 and I can't get a new apartment without a job offer sheet to serve as proof of income (my existing income is not sufficient for even the slums around here if they expect my income to be three times the rent, which is the usual).

 

I wish you great success and moments of joy for this semester.

I turned in my last round of edits for the anthology last night. I now want to start another book and chatting with my editor about my next project idea really motivated me. I need to open a new document and start work this week.

 

Yayyy! I'm so glad you got your vacation! Sounds like a marvellous time!

My annoyances with FedEx continues . I get my cat litter delivered from Pretty Litter (100% worth the price #1, I only have to scoop every few days - but I do have to change it every 30 days, and #2, it gets delivered to my door instead of me having to go buy and lift very heavy awkward boxes). I've gotten it delivered since before the pandemic and never had an issue... until now. They always leave it at my door (because who is going to steal cat litter?). But apparently, I wasn't home on Friday (I was) so I was very confused this morning when I got a call saying my package could be picked up. I've decided that I'm not going to bother picking it up . I'm going to wait 5 days, have them send it back, then I'll just order it again (free shipping is nice!).

Pretty Litter screwed up one month so I had an extra box anyways that I just used to get me through my credit-card-less month so I don't have to change it for awhile.

BUTTTTT the pick up point is at a Staples (office goods store) and I've been meaning to go in anyways to get some printer ink so it's tempting just to go get it but no. I am not forcing myself to carry that box. I can just order printer ink.

Also, my new masks came and I'm not a fan. They are the 3D style but the fabric (is nice but) is too flimsy to hold the proper structure. I'm hoping if I hit them with the iron I can give them a bit more structure. BUT I also tossed a couple of my old masks in a baking powder bath, so maybe that will de-odorize them.

 

Apologies for the double post. I'm just here to complain. I am just so burned out, not even my weekends leave me feeling rested.

And I don't think it's helping that I am basically just being used as a graphic designer and social media manager at work. No shade to either of those professions, BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I SPENT EIGHT YEARS OF POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION DOING! Ugh. I am mediocre at these tasks at best. I am so sick of three different people heaping stuff onto me, not aware I am doing things for the other two! I emailed my boss and manager basically asking for a meeting regarding my role in my organization. If they don't start using me for my qualifications and give me a better role, I'm out.

I know this is just the fall-out of losing a ton of our summer staff and the two new permanent staff not starting for another 2 weeks but I feel like I have been treading water for weeks now and Im so tired. Thankfully(? maybe) I am outside tomorrow all day and away from my computer and all these stupid tasks.

Maybe I should actually go into the office and rant to someone in person, but I just ate lunch and now I'm not feeling too great.

 

Hope you feel better.

On Friday, I got my edits back and I actually had energy, so I got the whole thing done by Sunday night. My deadline is 9/11. Well, Monday, I found out that it would be best for them to publish on October 1 instead of November 1 and my coauthor had completely felt the same urge to get the edits done in one weekend instead of 2 weeks, so we’re able to do that without any stress. Or rather, I’m stressed about it coming out, but have almost nothing left to do.

 

That all sounds so frustrating @Briannakin! I hope you can get things sorted out so that the job gets better.

Congrats on getting all your edits done Ish! And congrats on the publishing as well! I totally understand being stressed about it, but that's great that it's edited and ready to go ahead of schedule.

 

Thanks. It’s been a while since a deadline didn’t give me some kind of anxiety. I think I’ll be working on fanfic this week, which will make me even more happy.

 

LinkedIn notified me of a high priority job opening tonight for an entry level developer position. These are the minimum qualifications for this "entry level" job:



So basically they want to hire a senior developer and pay them an entry level salary.

 

The hell? I've seen some ridiculous "entry level" job postings but that has got to be the worst one by far. I really hope they are in for a rude awakening. But you should respond to the posting anyways (if it's something you might be interested in) worst thing they can do is just not give you an interview.

My boss hasn't replied to my email about discussing my role. I was out all day with my manager and we pretty much spent the whole day ranting about our boss... and then took our remaining summer staff out for ice cream on our way back to the office!

I'm continuing to have mind-boggling experiences with Fed-Ex. They wont leave kitty litter in my lobby... but they will leave packages of (legal) recreational drugs and $800 worth of medical supplies.

 

I will not do business with fedex after they delivered my printer to North Dakota with the label to Utah as well as when they lost a package for 6 months, then “replaced” the limited edition item with a $10 generic.

 

I dont like dealing with fedex either, but here, you don't often have a choice as to how companies ship things. All the other pick up points are easy enough for me to get to, but getting to the fedex pick up point is a fair ways out of my way to get to.


Ugh. What a day. Work continued to be the same frustrating thing (and I don’t get a meeting about my role until sometime next week). I was also asked, very last minute, to do some volunteer training cycling trip from 5:30-8:30pm. I agreed because it’s 3 hours of being paid to ride on the back of a tandem bike. I tried to leave the office an hour early just so I would have time to go home, change, make and eat dinner (because yesterday I was so tired when I got home I had ordered something and I don’t like doing that 2 nights in a row). I got caught up in a meeting and only managed to get out a half hour early.

When I got home I looked at the meal kit I had and figured I had time to make it if I altered it a tad but I misread the baking time so when I pulled out the quiche they were sooooo undercooked. I thankfully had time to finish baking them while I scarfed down a nasty microwaved mini pizza. But at least I had a proper dinner waiting for me when I got home the 2nd time.


But I did get some fun news today! Where I work, we do mostly day-time trips (2-3 hours long) BUT we also have a branch that does customized multi-day hiking/fishing/hunting/rock climbing/camping adventures. Even before I worked for the organization I inquired about a trip with this branch (LONG story short I had always planned on doing an epic trip after I graduated but since I graduated in January 2020... we all know why I had to scrap my original plans of an Europe trip in summer 2020). Anyways so I've been working with this branch to create a 3 day hiking trip for me to one of the most beautiful places on the planet and it's just over a month away at this point (OH GOD I NEED THIS ESCAPE!!!)! The president of the organization is leading the trip (I keep telling people that I'm going to be hauled up a mountain by a firefighter because I am) and they are gathering the volunteers needed. Anyways so I get a random text from my former co-worker (he could be annoying to work with but we are friends) "I got the days for your trip off work. I'm coming to haul you up a mountain!" I'm super excited.

But I also got the news that one of our major new sponsors might be coming along on the trip, so they might be exposed to our shenanigans.

 

This has been a fun first week of classes. In case you couldn't tell, that was EXTREME sarcasm. On Tuesday morning (like, very, very early in the morning while night owls were still up), most of the campus suffered a power outage. The cause of that power outage? A freaking electrical fire in the main building where all of the student services are located, including the bookstore, financial aid, registrar, fitness center, recreation offices, one of the two dining halls, and more. Turns out something (we don't know what yet) caused the main electrical room to catch fire in the early wee hours of the morning, which in turn set off the sprinklers in the electrical room. Fortunately the fire itself (and the water damage from the sprinklers) was contained to just the electrical room, but the smoke got into the air ducts and spread throughout the entire building (and it's the biggest building on campus by a long shot) and covered everything in soot.

Long story short, that building is still closed and will be closed at least all of next week, maybe longer. The university has had to scramble to relocate all of the student services to other buildings, because things like the bookstore, financial aid, registration, etc. are absolutely essential during the first week of school. The remaining dining hall is almost, but not quite, big enough to handle all of the lunch traffic alone, so it's extremely crowded in there at lunchtime. It also has very few options that I actually like and I'm getting physically sick of the monotony of ordering the same thing every day.

I needed to get my swim stuff out of my locker in the fitness center; to do that, I had to sign a disclaimer this afternoon about potential hazardous conditions and don disposable shoe covers, disposable gloves, and a KN95 mask, then be escorted in and out. From what I saw, it was hard to tell that anything happened, except for the traces of soot on the floor in the main lobby and the blowers and electrical cords everywhere. The locker room where my stuff was was thankfully behind a closed and locked door. I emptied my locker completely; my stuff looks clean but I'm going to wash it all tomorrow just to be safe. (It probably was due to be washed anyway, and I'm due for a general laundry day anyway.)

On top of that, the fire and resulting power outage severely damaged the cooling towers on three other nearby buildings, including the dorm adjacent to the building where the fire occurred. So those buildings had no air conditioning Tuesday and Wednesday (they were fixed late Wednesday), and since we had temperatures hovering in the upper 80s all week with high humidity, the dorm residents were given the option of a temporary move to other buildings, while classes in the two other affected buildings were cancelled on Tuesday and moved to other locations on Wednesday. One of the cancelled Tuesday classes was the first class meeting of the second half of my capstone course (which was supposed to meet at 8am Tuesday), so we lost two days and didn't get started until Thursday morning.

As a computer science student, my "home" during the day where I spent the majority of my time is the engineering building. This campus has an amazing network of underground tunnels connecting every academic building on campus except the medical school, so once inside, you never have to go outside to get from one building to another, so you can stay out of the rain, snow, heat, cold, or whatever else the weather tries to throw at you. The sour icing on the rotten cake here is that the engineering building is a dead end in the tunnel system and the building where the fire happened was the only connection between the engineering building and the entire rest of the tunnel system. Which means I no longer have tunnel access to the engineering building. so I have to track the weather and move that way extra early if I see thunderstorms approaching.

I swear this university is cursed to never have a normal semester again as we've only had one since spring 2019:

Spring 2019: three-week faculty union strike (100% the administration's fault, though; the faculty basically had no choice but to strike)
Summer 2019: white supremacist propaganda spread all over campus
Fall 2019: an actual normal semester (this was my first semester at this university after transferring)
Spring 2020: COVID shutdowns
Summer 2020: all classes and campus operations fully remote, all campus buildings remain locked
Fall 2020: 98% of classes fully remote, campus is a ghost town
Spring 2021: 95% of classes fully remote, campus is still somewhat of a ghost town
Summer 2021: 95% of classes fully remote, campus is a complete ghost town
Fall 2021: electrical fire disrupting student services in the first week
Spring 2022: idk but I don't care because I'm graduating in December and I'll be gone by then

 

Your week sounds like mine.

The fire alarm went off around 1:30 AM. At least this time I grabbed my coat and it wasn't December. We were only out there for like 20 minutes this time. Last night was our first kinda cold night so I figure someones heat came on, burning all the dust (and smoke residue from the forest fires) and causing our super sensitive smoke alarms to go off.

I was planning on being productive today - cleaning and maybe getting outside but I decided to order breakfast and watch Hamilton. Maybe I'll put a load of laundry in, but other than that, I'm not doing anything.

 

I'm starting to prepare for the whitewater rafting trip next weekend. Received the itinerary and packing list yesterday and bought a couple of supplies today (a Nalgene water bottle and a good carabiner to attach it to myself while on the raft). Still need to get sunscreen and bug spray.

Looked at forecasts today and it looks like the remnants of Hurricane Ida are going to pass through West Virginia on Wednesday or Thursday. I'm wondering what the heavy rainfall from that will do to the river (we are hitting the river on Sunday).

 

I went hiking this morning and am sore due to there being a completely impassable section that we had to try working around four times and a large rock tumbling down the hill to smack my left ankle.

I’m elevating said ankle and watching TPM for the first time in a while. I love Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan so much.

Edit: my brother-in-law tested positive and now eight members of the family are exposed. I’m not one of them, but 6 of them are under the age of vaccination. I’m encouraged that he’s got mild symptoms and is locked in the basement apartment for the next week except to retrieve his food from the family people upstairs. I’m still anxious. The partial moral of the story is to not stop taking precautions at a 500-person work party when vaccinated.

 

A bigger hurricane than Hurricane Katrina is headed toward New Orleans. If you guys know anybody in the state wish them luck. It’s probably to late to leave, but I wish them all luck. The problem is that their hospital beds are already at capacity more or less. So Covid made what will already be a bad situation worse.

 

Why does a city below sea level exist in an area where hurricanes are common? It doesn't even make sense to me.