Move-In Day, Take Two

This morning, thanks to Emily, who already happened to be making a trip to town this morning and who also has a vehicle with a surplus of storage space, I got my bigger things moved into my room. This go-round went much better than the first time I moved in, although there were still a few snags. (Like I've said before, nothing ever goes perfect when you move in.)

Because of her classes at Vo-Tech, Carissa has been moved back in since Tuesday, so she was there to greet Emily, Cole, and I when we arrived to the dorms at 8:10 this morning. I proceeded to bring in all of my cookware, which she was delighted to see, as she has high hopes of doing more cooking this semester, as well. Perhaps we can collaborate on meal plans! Finally, I got my TV & TV stand moved into the room. After dusting both off, I decided to set up my TV. Thankfully, I remembered the antenna cables, so I was able to hook up to the cable instantly, or so I thought.

Before I get much further, I should tell you about the TV. The TV is an early 2000s model, so it isn't that old or terribly out of date, all things considered. My dad originally bought it for my Grandma Hladik while she lived in the nursing home, because her old TV was too big. After my grandma died, we ended up getting the TV, since it was my dad who bought it. It has served us well at home, because at one time, we had it in our kitchen, and my mom mostly used it to watch the news/weather while she was cooking or doing dishes and couldn't hear/see the TV in the living room. To describe the TV, it has a 16-inch screen and has rabbit ears, although it does have an antenna output at its base. It is still the deep base screen, as it was purchased before flat-screens were readily accessible for a reasonable price.

With all of that in mind, I turned on my TV and got it set up to view channels on Cable, which is what we have access to in the dorms. After I did all of that, I started flipping through channels, I got to about channel 22 and I got static. I kept flipping through channels, hoping that it was just a fluke, but it was still more of the same. Drat. So, although we are supposed to have cable and over 100 channels, I only have about 15. I later found out that we actually have about 17, because I found the Home Shopping Network and EWTN, which is the Catholic channel. (How ironic.) That wasn't too exciting though, as EWTN was airing some show that was probably circa 1970, with a stern-looking nun who was wearing a huge crucifix, thick-framed glasses, and a habit. Carissa found that to be a little bit disturbing, as would I, if I had no idea about anything Catholic-related. I tried finding a channel scanner in my TV menu, but there was no luck there, either. I eventually went over to my neighbor's room, and she told me that she had had the same problem last year when she forgot her new TV and used her small TV temporarily. She told me that she only got about 15 channels, and everything else was static, but when she brought her new TV, everything worked perfectly and she had lots of channels with no static.

I was left in a quandry: Is my TV the issue, or is it something else? Furthermore, if was my TV that was the problem, do I get a different TV, try to do something different, or just settle with what I have? I was feeling pretty perplexed, because, although I could easily go buy a small TV for a halfways reasonable price, I don't like to spend money unnecessarily when I have more economical options at my disposal. For the time being, I have decided to settle for the meantime, and see exactly how much use I will get out of my TV before I go through the trouble of doing anything else. Also, I can bargain shop to see where I would get the best deal, if I do decide to do something different.

After all of that, I decided to work on something I could easily handle: buying my books. I walked over to the bookstore, schedule and ID in hand, and prepared to deal with the perpetually grumpy bookstore people. Thankfully, there were no issues, and I was once again thankful for my scholarship. Otherwise, I would have had to pony up about $300 or so, which isn't as much as it could be, all things considered, but is quite a bit nonetheless. I was greeted by my huge Calculus book, which really only left me with a sense of impending doom, especially when I saw the little keycard that accompanied it, which has an Internet code to access online homework assignments, etc. Just what I wanted, more parts to this class that are solely based off of the Internet. Yippee. (I am really starting to sound like a luddite, aren't I? Really, I'm not; I should just buck up and move on with it already. It will be alright.) The only reason I am getting negative about that is that I will be pretty much sunk if the Internet decides to not work, as it sometimes doesn't in the dorms. Surely all the bugs are worked out of the system by now. I will take a deep breath, and hope for the best!

Finally, I got around to washing up all of my new dishes. I unpackaged everything and was ready to commence washing...or not. I turned on the hot water, and, here's the thing, it didn't turn on. At all. Really?! The cold water worked great, but there was nothing going on with the hot water. Trying to channel some of my dad and remember anything I have picked up through the years watching him do various plumbing repairs, I decided to check below the faucet and see if the hot water valve was still turned on. It was, and actually, it really didn't even move, but I didn't try to force it to do anything else. (A water line break really wasn't something I wanted to deal with at that point.) Carissa was upstairs drying her hair, as she had just got out of the shower. She hadn't mentioned the hot water not working, but I figured that I'd go check upstairs anyway. When I checked our bathroom faucet, the same thing happened. I decided to go hunt down a maintenance person to see what was up. As luck would have it, I happened to see not one, but two maintenance vans parked in front of the laundry room in the middle of the apartments, so I asked one of the guys what the problem was. He explained that they had the hot water temporarily shut off, as they had to do a couple of quick repairs. He said something about the fact that it was about to completely go out and flood the laundry room, so I suppose it was a good thing that they fixed it before that happened. Within ten minutes, he knocked on our door to tell me that the hot water was back up and running. I finally got my dishes washed and put away!

On that note, Emily, Cole, and I decided to pack up and head home for the day. I will still have more stuff (aka clothes/towels/etc.) to move back in on Sunday night, but until then, I will kick back and enjoy my final days of my vacation! I hope that everyone has a great day and an outstanding weekend!