Beginning the Boston Adventure

Well, I'm here. Both of my flights were on time and went off without a hitch, and I touched down in Boston at noon on Friday. Katie was there to meet me, and none of my luggage was lost, so the first part of the move went amazingly well. We got to campus easily enough with the help of her friend's GPS and parked in the lot right next to my building. After that we walked back and forth and down the street a couple times getting my ID card and room key, but it didn't really take that long. Then we got to haul my suitcases up to the third floor. At this point I was very glad flying had restricted how much I could bring. I saw other families struggling to carry TVs and things up to the 5th floor, and they were sweating much worse than I was. That's right, sweating. It was a sticky day in Boston, though not actually hot unless you were moving around.

The next step was to find the Bed Bath and Beyond so I could buy a pillow and bedspread and other necessities (I ended up spending all of my rummage sale profits, but that was the idea, after all). At first we tried to drive, but the GPS was just sending us in circles. In the process, we discovered that there was a shopping center only two blocks from the residential campus, so we parked again and just walked. The BB&B was right there, and I found everything I needed, including a lovely green comforter that looks great with the yellow sheets I brought from home. I also bought a hot pot, which is exciting. The store was absolutely packed, what with several colleges in the area having move-in weekend and all. After putting my room together a bit, we went to a nearby grocery store (also a walk of only a couple blocks--I'm gonna be so fit walking everywhere) and purchased some necessities. I do have a meal plan, but it doesn't seem to cover breakfast. When we got back we discovered my card didn't actually work to get into the building, but one of my RAs was right there to help, and Res Life soon got it working again.

After I got everything put away, Katie decided it was time for her to go home. I walked her back to the parking garage, and then she dropped me off back at my building. I spent the rest of my night calling home and trying not to feel lonely. I haven't really talked with anyone in my building yet, and it's far from feeling like home. I'll have to work on that.

Today, as soon as it opens, I'll go explore the mail room and pick up my package (I think it's the webcam I ordered) before checking out the residence campus dining hall. There are about five different places to eat at my school, but this one is all-you-can-eat and is located right next to my dorm. I intend to make good use of it.

I miss home, and I miss having my friends around. At moments it's hard to remember why I thought it was a good idea to come out here and leave behind everything I know and love. But this city is amazing, and I know this is a good program. I think life might make more sense again once I begin attending class and start connecting with people. For now I am devoting myself to figuring out how things work here. Starting with the transit system so I can find my way to church tomorrow. Mostly, this will involve web searching, since I won't be able to pick up my bus/train pass until next week. Wish me luck!

-Kim

temporarily in Brookings

Sorry for the lag in posting. Life has been a little crazy lately. I moved out of my dorm room into Audrey's CB apartment, I finished my time at the park in grand style, and I moved home to Brookings. I'm tired of moving, but I'll be doing it one more time before the week is over. This weekend I had a rummage sale to get rid of some of my dorm things that I didn't need anymore. I hadn't realized how much hassle a rummage sale was, so when people showed up nearly over an hour early while I was still organizing and pricing items, I was very much grateful that my mother came outside to help. In the end, the rummage sale was a huge success--almost $150 in profit. Now I can afford to buy new bedding and towels when I get to Boston instead of packing them. Especially good, since not even half of my current wardrobe will fit in the two suitcases I am taking. Today, as soon as my laundry finishes tumbling in the dryer, I will be playing the home version of "What Not To Wear" and reducing my wardrobe to what works well and will actually fit in the suitcases. Fun times...

This weekend was amazing, by the way. Kevin and Beth came to stay so that I could see them one more time before I left. I love my brother and new sister, and it was great to spend this time with them. Mostly, all we had time to do was eat and play board games, but I loved it. And Sherwin came too! He tried to surprise me by showing up unannounced, but when he called the house the second time to say he was on his way, I answered the phone instead of my mother and ruined the surprise. I guess that's what I get for trying to be helpful. I still love that he came, and that it was meant to be a surprise. I'm really going to miss that boy...

I'm going to miss everyone I leave behind. At least the wonders of technology will keep us all connected via email, phone and facebook. My mom even got facebook to make it easier to keep track of me in Boston! It's great, actually, since now she'll be able to see pictures of what I'm doing more easily that way than any other. I also bought a webcam, which is being shipped to my Boston address and will get there several days after I do. One less thing to pack, thank goodness. Using the webcam should help me keep my phone bill lower (Sherwin is on a different provider, which, sadly, makes the minutes disappear very quickly.). Which reminds me, this afternoon we're going in to renew our plan and upgrade my phone. I'm pretty pumped about that.

The next post will more than likely come from Boston, unless I go stir-crazy on Thursday waiting to leave. I covet your prayers as I travel and get adjusted to city life. I'm not actually too worried, since I know the Chicago airport pretty well and will be met by Katie when I arrive in Boston, so as long as my flights are on time we should be golden.

-Kim

Really?

So this morning I was awakened at 8:00 by the sound of male voices and a vacuum cleaner in my hallway. Very not cool. One of the voices was Dan Boyle, who should know better than to break intervis. For those of you who haven't heard, he's also the one who informed me exactly one week ago that I would have to move out by next Friday so that they can wax the floor in my room before the next person moves in. It will be an interesting feat, since I'm scheduled to work at the park through the 17, next Sunday (don't worry, Audrey said I could crash at her place for a few days, so I've got a place to go). Needless to say, I'm a bit aggravated right now with residence life in general and Dan Boyle in particular. Even though I fell back asleep for another half hour, what I had heard morphed the dream I was having and made it a dream about living in a co-ed dorm hallway (which will be a reality in a matter of weeks). It was very odd...

In other news, my park hired a new night person, so I'm not working by myself anymore. This means I won't get overtime next week after all, but I think I'll be able to handle it. The interesting part is that Brent gets bored easily, so I had to keep thinking of things to tell him to do last night to keep him busy. I find it funny that the city keeps hiring people who aren't prepared for the relaxed nature of our job. Sure, we work hard when we have to, but most of the time it isn't really necessary. Although, last night I assigned myself an unusual project that was very enjoyable, partly because I got to use power tools. The stall door in the upper womens' restroom has been having trouble with its latch all summer. It's a hook and loop arrangement, and the hook part kept falling out of the door. I assume this is because the girls are in too much of a hurry to get out of the stall to unlatch it properly and just push on the door. Whenever I found the hook on the floor, I would screw the end back into the hole in the door, and it would hold for a few days before I had to replace it again. But about a week ago, the hook fell out and disappeared. Last night I decided to do something about it. The first task was to find a new hook. This was actually the easiest part of the project, since I found a shiny silver one in a box of random metal bits after only a few minutes of searching. My first thought was to just insert it in the old hole and continue with my pattern of replacing it every few days, but that didn't seem good enough. So then I had to find a drill so I could make a new hole. In our shop we have three different drills and about seven different battery packs, and two battery chargers. And no charger fits a battery that actually fits one of the drills. Go figure. Finally a found a drill that had a battery pack with charge. But there were no drill bits in sight. I looked in the bin where the hook had been, but could only find one that was too big. Eventually I found our collection of drill bits (half a dozen in all, and most of them too big to ever be useful) in a coffee cup pushed out of sight behind a tool box on the work table. Once I had all the pieces, the hook replacement was a simple enough procedure. Even so, I'm proud of my work. I took the initiative to complete a project that no one thought to assign, and I did it in spite of a work space that was "organized" by someone who clearly never used the tools or gave any serious thought to where things should logically be stored. It was my moment of triumph.

And as long as we're talking about moments of triumph, I beat Sherwin at mini golf on Wednesday. Twice. And I got a sunburn in the process but, as it has already mostly faded, it was well worth it.

I'm also finally getting used to how empty this dorm room feels without Dianna in it. We knew we would have to separate eventually, and I'm glad things are working out for her in Texas, but I miss her constant presence and ever-ready laughter. But soon I'll be gone too, and then the room will welcome new guests, and only the chips in the walls will show we were even here. Dang, that ended up more emo than I had intended. Sorry about that. Moving on is good! We're going places and learning new things and connecting with the world in new ways and becoming the people we were meant to be. The grieving for the end of this stage is brief and will soon be overshadowed by the thrill of new adventure. Besides, we still have facebook.

-Kim

Tales form Tuthill

There's never a dull day in the park. No, I take that back. There have been a few dull days, but those were rainy days. Those days don't count, because a park isn't really a park without people in it.

Anyway, tonight there was more craziness than usual, and all in the last hour. I had been running a sprinkler on some new grass seed for most of the evening and was on my way to turn off the valve by the bathroom when I walked through a group of six guys arguing about somebody's girlfriend and what another of them had done, knowing full well that she had a boyfriend. It was tense, and at least one of them was ready to bring it to blows right there. I was very much relieved when one side of the fight got in their cars and left without incident. That left me rather freaked, so I was very glad that Audrey came with me to lock up, especially when we got to Yankton and discovered that one of the restrooms had apparently lost power, since all the lights were off, inside and out, even with the switches on. Had I been alone, I don't know how I would have handled checking the dark bathrooms to make sure they were empty. So, when we got back to Tut I had to call the night supervisor to check out and report the power outage. Unfortunately, he wasn't answering his cell phone. The usual guy has Mondays off, so I gave the fill-in the benefit of the doubt, but he never answered. In the end, I called my boss at home and he told me to try one more time and then just leave, promising that he would explain to his superiors tomorrow why I never checked out properly and wrote down a half hour of over time. (I'm already getting over time this week, so I'm not sure why that part matters...) Leaving the shop later than usual, in a night that was darker than I usually experience, it was such a blessing to have the presence of a friend.

And that was just today. Yesterday a little girl fell off the playground and dislocated her elbow. The mother was absolutely hysterical, and they chose to wait for an ambulance instead of taking her in themselves. So I stood by and watched, not knowing what to do. Technically, we're not supposed to do anything if the people involved have everything under control. And we had a thief. A disc golfer had his bag stolen, along with the 20 or so discs inside. (For anyone who doesn't know, that's at least $250 worth of stuff) He even filed a police report and enlisted the park workers' help in looking to see if it had been stashed in the trees. As it turns out, the kids had hidden it in the corner of the park that they treat as a hideout, and the owner found it himself. That made my job easier.

I don't remember anything particularly exciting about Saturday. I guess that was one of those rare boring days. My only other real adventure was nearly a month ago, but since I never blogged about it, I'll tell it now.

So we've replaced all the upper disc golf tees with cement pads now to make them better. (In the process we also moved a couple of them, but that's not the point at the moment.) On the day that we poured the last two tees, me only job for the evening was to watch the cement dry and make sure no one wrote in it. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, the two tees were pretty far apart, making it impossible to have a good view of both at the same time. I happened to look at tee 4 right when a girl was writing in the cement and saw her continue playing disc golf with her friends. they say me calling my supervisor to report it and got away, which was terribly frustrating. Luckily, most of the Tut kids just go sit at Tomar when they leave my park. So I spotted her later that night while I was locking up. This time, the cop got there in time to talk to her, and she gave up her two friends, who had also written in the cement. Ah, sweet justice.

Usually, the excitement is smaller changes of pace. Like today, for instance. Jack, who mows all the grass in the park, has decided to trim every tree in the park because they've been left for far too long. What he's done so far is a great improvement. Because he's doing that, I get to spend time hauling branches away in the gator, which is much more fun that it sounds. At least, I prefer it to weeding all night, which is the other option.

So there you have it--an almost detailed account of my experience as a park worker. For these next two weeks I'll be working every night and getting overtime pay, so I fully expect to acquire some more stories for your reading pleasure.

-Kim

The View

I promised pictures of the amazing place my grandma lives, so here it is, The View on Elk Drive.





This is the lobby.



Here's the third floor lounge where we played Scrabble every night.



And here is grandma Elsie and me in her apartment. In all, it was a good trip. Quality time spent with grandma, fun playing mini golf and swimming in the hotel pool with my parents, phone calls and texts from the boyfriend and the traveling roommate to keep me updated on life outside Minot, and time in the car to finish two 400 page books--what more could a girl ask for? Probably a better score on the mini golfing, but I did manage a hole-in-one on hole 18.



-Kim