October 13th, you saw me carry laundry

I zoomed into the sunset from the bathroom

Dear October,

So just now my friend and I were trying to get our laundry done. Before I go on about that, let me name the different sections of our dorms. There are four main ones in the building/structure/area that contains the Caf, and we shall call them North, Soot, Eats, and Ham. I live in the North Hall.

Soot Hall is famous for its air conditioning (because it's the only section of us 4 that has it) and it has a curving hallway on its first two floors. North Hall is unfortunately, the highest in elevation compared to all the other Halls, and I happen to live on the highest floor in North Hall, so everyone on my floor has to travel more than anyone else in the dorm area to get to their rooms. We try to feel better about it by telling each other that at least we're getting a lot of exercise.

All the halls are connected to each other, mostly. For instance, if you walk in the correct direction on the correct floor in North Hall, you can get to Eats Hall. And if you head uhh north(?) from the third floor of North Hall, you enter a breezy passageway that goes into Ham. Soot is the one that's a bit isolated from everyone else :( Theirs is the only one with an entrance into their hall after the very first flight of steps. Everyone else has entrances on either the next outdoor "floor"/level or the one after that. But they have air conditioning and they're right in front of the entrance to the dorms, so when carrying things they don't need to go up another 1-2-3-4 outdoor stairways to just get to the entrance of North Hall. I guess it all evens out.

So my friend (her name will be Pugs) and I brought our laundry down to the floor with a laundry room in North. We put all our clothes in the washers and I swipe my card--and the little card swiping machine doesn't work! It just has the same display on. I swipe it slowly and then my friend swipes hers too, but it doesn't work. So we put our laundry back in our bags, go up some stairs, and get into Ham. We enter their 2nd floor laundry room and try our cards and it works, but then we find that 2 of the 3 not-currently-washing washing machines have clothes in them. :( So we talk for a while and then this guy comes in to get his clothes and says 'oh yeah I kept checking back but those machines have been left full for a while'. So we take all the clothes out and pile them on the table that people usually put other people's clothes if they've been in the washer for too long. We feel bad, but then we put our clothes in and swipe and yay everything is good!

I forgot to mention, Ham has pretty much the most facilities of all of us. They have a very nice lounge by the entrance, which includes some pool and ping pong tables and maybe foosball (can't remember). They have the typical large tv hanging on the wall and new carpets and couches. Then right next to that is the kitchen, and outside the kitchen is a little reading area by the glass walls. It's very small, but at least there are couches and tables and its cute. Next to that, there's also the sole computer lab in the dorms. Then, if you go up a few floors, there's the sole DDR machine. There's also one of the "hidden" old pianos up there and a foosball table. So Pugs and I go up and play DDR as we wait for our laundry to dry. Unfortunately the front and back of the room are glass, so people from both the second and third level outside can see you play DDR. Also, the room is in the middle of this connection between the Caf and Ham, so occasionally people pass by behind you. So it's a little weird, but for some reason nobody really cares, and I don't either!

Beep beep alarm, so we go back to get our laundry. Then we find that another dryer has broken (there was one that was already not working before) so now only one dryer works, and there's someone in line for that dryer. So we hear about this laundry room on the ground floor of Ham, and so we sadly put our somewhat damp clothes into our bags and go down and yay there are two dryers! We hooray but then look at this girl standing next to one of the to dryers and Pugs asks if she's going to use it and she says yes, her boyfriend is just getting something so she's kind of holding it for him. So then Pugs says that I can use the dryer first, and then I say that maybe we could just both go to the Soot laundry room, which our friend Cat said always worked (we made it so complicated lol) and then Pugs says I could just dry my clothes here and she'll go to South, and then I say that I'll come with her in that case because I felt bad about taking it first (oh laundry etiquette). So that's what happens. She lugs her laundry to Soot and then I carry it around the stairs in Soot until we get to the Soot laundry room, which is on the ground floor (which has nothing except a laundry room...). It's kind of creepy, all alone and with pipes creeping around and pretty blue paint that turns into tile that turns into something else, but there are plenty of open machines (no one wants to trek all the way to Soot if they don't live in Soot). Yay unload.

Back to DDR! I am steadily improving! Whilst before I always got D's I finally got a few C's and then once I got a B and I was so happy that it was sad because well it was DDR and also it was for a B. We were cheering whenever one of us got a C, and we were playing in the easiest mode possible that still gives you grades. So we're terrible at DDR but just ok enough that we hit enough arrows for it to be fun!

Before all this I went to the nature lab to finish my drawing homework, and I chatted about drawing and classes and majors and things with an acquaintance-friend, Ming, while drawing! Meanwhile she was setting up a very complicated self portrait, which was interesting. Later I had to move downstairs to set up a skeleton and finish that with the some of my drawing classmates.  I also talked to my parents over the phone today, which was something I missed doing, so that was nice.

Thanks for the perfectly chilly night (so nice after DDR and laundry hiking),
Indigo

song of the day: Home by Gabrielle Aplin (!!!)

Paint

Ah. Regarding the poll to the right, my room is currently a musty dull yellow tan color. It's really sad. It matches the color of the fuzzy brown-like carpet. I have a lot of brown woody furniture. So everything is brown! Ahh! And  I have been wanting to paint my room for a while now but my parents keep saying next summer. So hopefully sometime before I set off on my adulthood voyage I will get my room painted into a nice lively, happy color fit for teenagers like myself. Hooray! I just can't decide on a color. So yeah. Please vote.

Now I must go off and try to sleep in order to prepare for the first day of school. Goodnight!

Wahoo! Clean room!

Well, four of my friends came over, re-organized, de-clutterized, and cleaned up my room.

It started one day when a friend of mine decided that it would be so much fun to clean up my room. And so all of us just chose to do that one day because its fun to clean up other people's rooms, just never your own. We also made a group playlist and each added songs to it to listen to while we were organizing.

Before, my room was full of stuff, but according to them it was cluttered. I think it was pretty clean, except my closet, bookshelves, and the space under my bed was bursting with stuff. Of course, I laid down 5 rules, which they agreed to, and were all broken.

1. Don't touch the books or pig collection on the bookshelves.
2. Please clean up one area at a time in case we don't finish and half my room is still dead.
3. Don't mess with the stuff in the drawers.
4. Don't throw away anything without my consent!
5. Don't break anything.

#2 Step one to cleaning up a room is to mess it up. From all areas of the room, socks, clothes, and everything was being thrown into one big pile in the middle of the floor. Everyone's stuff was in the bathroom, and the springs and backing of my old bed were being stuffed under my bed, while my other friends were pulling out the paper and books from under my bed so there was room for the old-bed-stuff.

#3 Two of my friends tried to cram a plastic box of 200 crayons into my craft drawer. The drawer wouldn't open enough to take out my craft box, so we tried to pull the box out and succeeded after it was crushed. And then after my help, the drawer would barely open at all. But finally, my friend miraculously got the crayons out and we then stuffed everything back into the drawer.

#4 They tried to throw away my old Disney posters and cards which I don't have up anymore, but I already had a nice little collection, but they insisted on throwing em away because it was going to grow bigger and I was too old for it all. So they asked, but didn't listen to me anyway. :)

#5 There is a slight dent on my closet door. I'm not really sure how that happened.

Some of the wonderful additions and improvements:

All my clothes are hung up, and the boxes have been moved to the side so you can actually walk into it. All the luggage is stacked on the poor little shelf above.

The space between my bed and the wall is actually clear except for the extra mattress. We threw all the squishy pillows and too-small-to-sleep-on pillows into the area and laid down a blanket, so now there's a nice little reading corner right under the giant window.

The pile that has accumulated in front of my bookcases is gone. Before, there were almond jars filled with trinkets and ribbons and random things inside. Now all the jars have been transported to different places. I actually have one empty one under the desk as a trash can now.

The space under my bed has more room for stuff now! Although I'll try not to put more stuff under it.

A bunch of stuff is being thrown out. Its still in a pile in the hallway, but it'll disappear soon.

From an idea from one of my friends, a rope is tied between the two things on the end of my bed, and all my old stuffed animals(which were previously stacked in a row on my old mattress) are sitting in a row between my bed and the rope.

A collage we made over winter break is hung up on my wall.

My friends ambushed me while I was looking for my camera.

Afterwards, for some reason I was mad and started cleaning up all the tiny leftover things(like moving the mattress back and re-organizing my drawers so I knew where everything was again) and now my room is completely clean.

That was fun. :)

Listening to: How Six Songs Collide by Norwegian Recycling (from our group playlist)