Howdy Swiss People

From the top of Niesen

It’s crazy to think that in another month I’ll be done with my English Ed degree.

There are a lot of things I still haven’t done or have put off, like writing to you guys or writing my book, but with the majority of my student-teaching work finished, I can feel myself getting excited at my life to come.

I’ve been spending the remainder of my semester student-teaching in Switzerland. I had planned to come to Switzerland at the beginning of the year, but it didn’t really “click” in my mind until my plane was landing at the Zurich airport.

I’ve been here for less than 3 weeks and it’s already been a wild ride.

A view of the Alps in the distance

Student Teaching in Switzerland

My university and the principal of my school here in Switzerland have both demonstrated a lack of communication skills. My colleague (who I travelled with) and I were placed in elementary grades instead of secondary, which has been and is an issue as our degree requires secondary experiences.

So, we ended up taking matters into our own hands and reached out to different teachers in our school so we could observe and teach in more upper-level classes.

Although, I have to admit that I’m still incredibly bored at the school. As we speak, I am sitting in the classroom typing as my cooperating teacher lectures about math. Only being able to teach one English class and only three days a week kind of leaves me with a lot of extra time. I’ve already planned out the entire remainder of my lessons here, after all. I’m not sure how else to productively spend my time.

But, on the bright side, I do love the kids. They all have a ton of motivation to learn and I’m surprised at the engagement level here. They also have a LOT of energy. It’s been a challenge to wrangle them all in and keep them focused, but the majority really are just trying to get attention and support from their peers and myself.

The teachers here have been incredibly supportive, as well. I’ve been grateful to get such an awesome group of colleagues and students to work with. Even if I barely have anything to do at this point, it could certainly be worse.

For instance, some of the other student teachers that also travelled here from our University have already ran into issues of their own. 2 of them have been evicted from their apartment since their host families apparently illegally rented the rooms. Another girl has been hospitalized due to an allergic reaction, and 2 other student teachers are stuck in a German-only speaking school (which I’m sure is difficult since all of us only spoke English in coming here).

So…yeah. It could be worse.

Host Families

My host family consists of a couple of teachers and their two kids, who are incredibly adorable.

They have been extremely welcoming and showed me around the city. They also gave advice on teaching and have been buying the groceries and cooking dinner every night.

I have to admit, bread and cheese for just about every meal is definitely something I can get behind. I’ve come to love Gruyere cheese and am learning how to braid home-made bread. My family made some pumpkin soup straight from the pumpkin and I made them some roasted pumpkin seeds in return. They’ve also been cooking a lot of pasta and have discussed making fondue and raclette (cheese and potato dish) soon. The food here certainly is delicious.

The kids have loads of energy, but are super fun to watch. They play pretend stories and run around all the time. One of them has started saying “gosh” a lot because they’ve heard me saying it. They jabber on and on about their day and what they’re thinking and doing; they can even switch from Swiss-German to English back and forth very easily, which surprised me.

But I’ve really loved spending time with all of them and talking to both the parents and kids about life.

Gruyere Castle

Gorgeous Views

My colleague and I have already travelled all over Switzerland; we’ve visited mountain peaks, the country side, cute picturesque towns, museums, cheese and chocolate factories, and castles.

It is absolutely gorgeous here without a doubt. The sunsets and sunrises are always beautiful, and I love gazing out at the lush green, rolling hills with the sprinkling of red, orange, and yellow trees along the mountainside.

Sometimes, when I take the tram to and from school, I forget that I’m in Switzerland and it just feels like any other day. But then I’ll catch a glance at the country side or the rich, red-coloured sun rising over the fall trees with rivers winding beneath bridges and towering chapels in the distance…and then I remember where I am and smile.

Missing Home

As stunning as it is here, I do still miss my boyfriend, my friends, and family. Spending Halloween here was fun and interesting, but I missed the exaggerated craziness of Halloween in the US. I miss eating Swedish Fish with air-popped popcorn on Friday nights. And it definitely sucks that when I’m bored I can’t just text a friend or my boyfriend and get a response back right away…I have to wait hours and hours until they finally wake up on the other side of the planet (1st world problems, I know).

Thanksgiving is coming up and I’ll be making a Thanksgiving Chicken instead of a turkey (which is a bit disappointing, I have to admit). But it’ll still be fun to celebrate it on my birthday as I’ll be heading to Germany for a side-trip with my colleague directly after.

But I’m excited to return home for Christmas with my family, too, and see them all again.

Until then, I’m trying to make the most of my time here in Switzerland. There are still many adventures to come!

One of Those Mondays

After a long weekend of packing and moving and preparing for upcoming student teaching…I actually didn’t mind taking a break from all that worrying and working today instead. But apparently today wanted to be a struggle.

I woke up to the glorious sounds of high pitched barking, banging construction, and the beeping of trucks backing up.

Then I forgot about several small errands I was supposed to complete yesterday and spent the majority of my morning doing those things instead of eating breakfast…which is my fault, but still.

I went to work hungry, but thankfully they allowed me to go out to the vending machine and grab a snack. Those little bags of jerky were looking great until it got stuck in the side of the machine and refused to fall down. After calling the vending machine people, I learned that I had to walk to the very opposite side of campus if I wanted my $2 refunded. So, after work, I trekked over their because I’m more cheap than I am lazy.

Realizing the vending machine was being a buttface, I went to the nearby cafe instead, only to have to wait for 10 minutes while their systems rebooted. But FINALLY I got a sandwich and made it back to work. The sandwich bread was incredibly stale and dry…because of course it was. At least I wasn’t incredibly hungry anymore.

And I usually don’t complain about the students I tutor, but when you have people that come in with only 1 page out of a 3 page paper done, plus they want you to just sit there while they write it, and it’s due in 30 minutes because they waited until the last second, AND they also ignore your feedback and tell you to just fix their grammar…………….just, why?

Then, after work and getting my $2 back, I drove to the grocery store and there was this one lady that was just oblivious to everyone and kept getting in my way on every. single. aisle. It was just one of those little things that isn’t usually that annoying until you’ve already had a kinda crap day.

The fact that it felt like it was a million degrees outside didn’t exactly help my mood either.

But just as I was taking my groceries out of my car, thankful that I was about to be back in the cool, caressing arms of my apartment, my grocery bags broke and my cans of food went rolling all over the sidewalk.

I still have to go back to school for 2 more hours, so I’m sure there’s plenty of chances for more things to go wrong, but I’m at least glad I was able to relax a little bit and eat some non-stale bread while watching some of my favorite YouTubers.

Basically, I just wanted to rant and complain a bit because…it’s just been one of those Mondays.

Rant Time

via Mexperience

Ya know my roommates really aren’t all that bad. I’ve certainly had worse (which you can read in my past blog posts). Out of the 4 of us, the two that I am referencing are sisters. They’re a bit awkward and introverted, but at least they’re quiet and not complete slobs. Sure they leave crumbs and sticky stuff on the counter at times, but it could be worse.

The biggest complaint I’ve had is the fact that these roommates love to take 2+ hour baths, which is just ridiculous when I have to share a bathroom with one of them. They could at least ask if I need to use the bathroom before they spend hours on end in there.

It also wasn’t the greatest thing ever when they decided to get a cat for therapy reasons, which means I had to start taking allergy meds since cats and my immune system don’t exactly mix. It also meant that little poops were occasionally left on the carpet,and sometimes the living room and kitchen smelt strongly of litter and cat food.

My fourth roommate, who recently moved out, was a lot more anal about the cat stuff than I was. She set firm rules about how the litter box had to stay in their rooms, how they had to vacuum every day (as she also had allergies), and so forth. But once that roommate left, the cat sisters became a bit more lax about these things. I honestly didn’t really care that much. As long as the stank wasn’t too stanky then I could deal with it.

Although, today I realized that they had moved the cat’s litterbox into the other roommates old room, which she is still paying for and will be checked for cleanliness in about two weeks. Apparently, they didn’t ask her if they could move the cat’s stuff in her room, but it definitely reeks in there.

Honestly, I was just surprised at what a rude move that was on their part. They didn’t even ask permission? Were they even planning on cleaning up all that stuff when cleaning check time comes along? What were they gonna do when a new person moved in and it smelled like cat litter in there? I mean, seriously, what the fudgenuggets people? If you have a pet, then you keep that pet’s stuff in your space and deal with the stank yourself. That’s just part of the job of having a pet.

So, later tonight my old roommate’s friend (who is in charge of checking up on her room for cleaning checks) is coming by to move the cat stuff out, so we’ll see how that goes.

In other news, both of my mentor teachers for next semester are MIA and aren’t communicating with me. So, that kinda sucks.

I also read another book that I’ll be teaching, called The Watsons Go to Birmingham –1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis. I’m sorry but that book was incredibly boring. The story didn’t even start until 100 pages in. I could have just skipped all the backstory in the first half of the book and still understood the last half. So, I’m not exactly looking forward to teaching that one.

So, there’s your daily dose of rant for today. Thanks for tuning in.

The High Horse

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In this case, it would be more accurate to say high heels.

There I was minding my own business. I had just finished shopping at Savers, got into my car, and started getting my shiz together so I could leave when I suddenly heard this bang at the back of my car. I thought it was going to be some car that had bumped into me, but it was actually just some random shopping cart that had appeared out of nowhere.

I begrudgingly got out of my car and into the cold. I grabbed the cart and noticed there was also a second cart that was also nearby by car. I was prepared to bring them to the closest shopping corral, but there wasn’t one anywhere close to me. Should I have taken the time to walk through the cold to put away somebody else’s carts? Well, it definitely would have been nice of me. But it sure as hell wasn’t my responsibility and I was trying to leave. Also it was freaking cold. I moved the carts together where they weren’t in the way of any cars and then got back into my car.

After touching Saver carts I felt the strong desire to put on hand sanitizer, so while I was putting some on I saw HER. She came sauntering out of her fancy looking bright red car in her high heels, dressed like she was going to an interview. She did not break eye contact with me and gave me a frigid death glare as she walked passed my car, grabbed the carts in a self-righteous huff, and then brought them to corral (which, again, was a ways away) and then freaking continued to glare at me with absolute hatred as she strutted back to her car. I’m sure she felt as if she had just saved the world like the perfect human being she was. I shrugged at her as she glared and, when she wouldn’t stop, I stuck my tongue out at her like the child I am.

I don’t why this bothered me so freaking much, but her reaction legit just pissed me off. Like, I’m sorry the carts weren’t my responsibility or even mine to begin with? I’m sorry I decided to be an average human today instead of a perfect one???

It must be exhausting to be that judgmental all the time. To be honest, her life would probably be a lot more positive if she didn’t judge so hardcore like that. It wouldn’t hurt if she did things to actually just be a nice person rather than to showoff her judgments of others.

Congratulations, lady, you decided to be a perfect human today. But don’t you think you would have gotten more out of it if you didn’t  spend 90% of that “nice act” being negative towards somebody else? It kind of cancels out overall, in my opinion.

Online Dating

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So…apparently I have been doing it all wrong. I’ll admit, I have had a lot of really bad dates and that should have tipped me off. But I suppose I was just so content with how bad things were that I did not really think about it. It took the much-needed bluntness of my best friend to bring me to the obvious realization that all my online-dating choices were pretty crap.

Basically, I was just “too nice.” I gave every guy the benefit of the doubt rather than being much more skeptical, specific, and picky in general. Every time a guy would message me, I would always respond. And every time a guy wanted to hang out, even if we had literally only said ten words to each other, I would be like “alright, you pick a time and place as long as it’s in public.”

Now I wasn’t a total moron when it came to safety. I would never give my number or full name out unless I super super liked the guy and we had been talking for awhile. I would never meet anywhere where there wasn’t going to be other people. I also always drove separately rather than being picked up, as that would mean the guy would know where I lived  and could drive me off to anywhere.

It is actually kind of insane how oblivious some guys are to how suspicious they can be sometimes. I’ve had guys ask if we wanted to have our first date “taking a long drive through the canyon” or “walking through a park at 7pm.” I once had a guy keep asking to come over to my place so we could have a movie night (even tho we hadn’t met up in person yet and had only been talking for a day) and when I told him “no, I would rather avoid stalkers” he told me I was weird and never replied to me again.

List of creepy/weird/bad experiences I have had:

• I’ve had a guy describe himself as “psychotic” and literally say that girls who are creeped out by that are “morons”.
• I’ve had a guy read my entire profile and automatically assume that every word of it was bullcrap, effectively calling me a liar before actually talking to me about it and asking me questions about it.
• I’ve had a guy continuously ask me about how comfortable I am about public nudity and, after I refused to answer because even the question made me uncomfortable, he said it was to break the ice and reduce awkwardness. I told him it only made things more awkward and is a question that should wait until you get to know someone more, and he ended up calling me a couple crude names before leaving altogether.
• I have had a date where the guy had not even combed his hair, wore a grimy camo sweatshirt, admitted to not being able to drive, had no money but tried to convince me that he’ll “soon get a lot from his dead grandparents”, had no future aspirations, and did not ask me any questions and just talked about himself the whole time.  He thought the date went well…he was disappointed by the end.

There are definitely more, but there are a couple examples, anyway.

9/10 of the dates I have been on have ended up weird, just bad overall, or incredibly awkward. And so what was the last straw? A guy who took me out to an ice-cream place, who was probably the most awkward person I have ever met. He did not know how to approach or talk to me in any way. We spent the first 10 minutes in silence as we ordered our ice cream separately (even after I tried to ask him a couple questions). I tried to ask questions and expand upon both of our answers, but every time he would ask a question and I would answer, he would just ignore my answer and ask another question. It was awful overall and only lasted like 20 minutes total. He also thought the date went well and I had to tell him that no…it didn’t.

After I shared this experience with my best friend, she informed me that I shouldn’t be going out with guys willy nilly. I need to spend more time messaging them and getting to know them beforehand. I should also be as picky as possible when it comes with who I choose to match with. “If you can’t picture spending the rest of your life with them,” my friend put it, “then just say no.”

It was genius, revolutionary, and so completely obvious that I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been. It shouldn’t surprise y’all that I have never really had much experience with dating as a whole so I am still learning, but still I can’t believe how nice and open and hopeful I was about all the guys on online dating. So no more Mrs. Nice Gal.

I’ve more clearly stated in my own profile what I will pass on and reasons why they ought to pass me if they don’t like particular things. For example, stuff I will pass on I listed as:

• Guys who smoke,
• Guys just looking for hookups/sex
• Guys who have empty profiles
• Guys who leave 1-3 word messages

Setting these standards like this for myself will definitely be a good start in helping me rat out the bad ones and I now plan on spending a lot more time actually talking to the guys I match with.

I once had a guy that said “if you don’t meet up with the person within a week then it isn’t going to happen” but now I totally disagree. If you can’t keep up an interested conversation for more than a week, then why even bother meeting in the first place? The one good relationship I had was done online for MONTHS before we had a chance to meet each other due to long distance living situations. So when you meet up doesn’t make any difference. I am surprised so many guys are so eager to jump into meeting in person so quickly. From what I have experienced, most of guys have been much worse in person than online.

By the way, I received my first unsolicited dick pick recently and it is GROSS. I feel even less attracted to sex more than ever. Even after I explicitly said NO when he asked if he could send it and he STILL sent it. Why do guys do this? It’s nasty and violates consent rules. Just DON’T DO IT MY GOD PLEASE STOP WHY

So, anyway…that has been the evolution of my experiences with online dating. We will see if this new approach will lead to better results for me in the long run. Wish me luck.

The Star-Power Simulator

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Now I don’t know if anyone else has played this game, but if you have then you know how freaking terrible and upsetting it is. The game is basically rigged to make everyone hate everyone else and to get people all upset. Apparently it’s used as a leadership activity, but it freaking sucks.

The whole point is that everyone going into it has no idea what’s about to happen or how the game works. The entire thing is supposed to be a surprise. It starts out all innocent and happy, where you have to trade colored chips for more valuable colored chips. But then it all starts to go down hill. Those who have the higher scores, based purely on luck, end up being in “the high class” and then there’s a middle and low class as well. Once people get separated into classes that are just formed by luck, just like our actual society, then the high people get more expensive chips to start and get to make up the rules and it’s all just insane and makes no sense and people start yelling and thinking other groups are out to get them and so yeah…it got emotional real quick.

It’s one of those games that you think would be better served in an economics or sociology class, where you’re actually learning about how our society functions or something. But this was done at a freaking leadership retreat and I honestly don’t understand what the point of it was. They said that over time I’ll think it was the best game ever, but I have serious doubts about that.

To be honest, it has been pretty hard for me lately and going into a game that purposefully tries to make you super upset and without any warning…well let’s just say I don’t think that was a great idea. I wasn’t prepared for it and ended up not having any fun after like 10 minutes and by the end I was literally bawling my eyes out and had to leave the room for awhile.

I actually found it kind of cruel to make people play a game like that, in which you trick them into thinking it’s fun, not even warning them that this may not be the best game if you’re having a rough time or something. I was already on edge, but that game just tipped me over without even a whisper of what was to come.

Sure, you could say that the game teaches you not to assume other’s intentions or to communicate better or to stay positive or to take a step back and breathe…but could we not learn those things in a less upsetting way? It just seemed like an extreme game; one that shouldn’t be used unless you have a group that has already been having serious issues with these ideas.

And yes, it’s just a game, but the problem it doesn’t feel like a game when you’re playing it. It is emotional and intense and you lose a lot of control over how you’re feeling unless you were prepared for it from the beginning, which 98% of my group wasn’t. It’s easy to laugh it off afterwards, but it was absolutely horrific for a while and so I just don’t see the point of putting people through that. I have more than enough to stress me the hell out so I’d rather not be thrown into a game that’s actually made to stress you out for no clear reason.

They never actually tell us what the point is. They just ask us what we thought we learned about working as a team and about ourselves. I definitely didn’t learn anything about myself. That I get emotional easily? Yeah, like that wasn’t already obvious. Basically, they made us give meaning to the game after putting us through hell. So I just don’t think it was a very fair thing to do.

And so now I just think it was stupid and just not worth doing and a waste of time more than anything, but I wanted to rant about it cause holy crap did it suck. I think the tricky thing is…you don’t know if someone in a group of people is having a hard time in their lives and a game like that could really screw with someone’s head. In this day and age, where almost every other person has a freaking mental illness, I don’t think a game like that is necessary.

Do y’all have any thoughts?

The Battle

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The eve of “the discussion” is upon me. Tomorrow I shall wake up and know that I will soon be sitting in front of him for an hour or hours and we will talk about all our issues and how we feel about how it’s been and how it will be. Will I be single in 24 hours? Only the future knows.

Our break from each other has ended. I was greeted with a text that ordered me to think about certain things and to prepare for certain topics for our discussion tomorrow. You know it’s times like that when he really comes off as a future therapist/psychiatrist/psychologist. He certainly didn’t need to order me around or tell me the obvious (which is that the discussion will be long and serious), but he did so anyway and I already feel myself inwardly rolling my eyes and wondering how well tomorrow will go.

There really wasn’t any one event that started this whole thing. We hung out too much, I suppose, and so my exhaustion got the better of me. But still, despite being worn out and weighted down, I forced myself to socialize and fulfill his expectations and so I only made it worse.

The real problem began after we went on a weekend vacation. The first couple days were marvelous and relaxing, but then it all went and blew up in our faces. He wanted to sleep in the bed, which was a bit too small (especially for someone like me who struggled to sleep in the same bed as others), and I saw it all coming. I knew I wouldn’t sleep well and that I would wake up cranky and feeling claustrophobic. But I still stayed in the bed instead of moving to the couch and grimaced as his arm would flop over me and he’d push up closer and closer against me. He was in a blissful sleep and I just inwardly screamed ugh!

It all continued just as I had predicted. I woke up hours earlier than planned and felt exhausted and cranky and overheated. He woke up too, once I was awake. And as soon as I explained what had happened then he immediately was overcome with guilt and all I could do was sigh and say I should have moved to the couch. He wanted me to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t go back to that bed where I had just spent a sleepless, restless, overheated, and smothered night. I just wanted to go home and recover.

But as if it would be that easy. He had saved the best part of the vacation for last: the hot spring. It was a bad decision from the beginning, now that I look back on it. Knowing me, he really should have done the best thing first. Figures that I would have issues by the end of the week and wouldn’t feel up to going. But he hadn’t paid for it in advance, so at least there was that. And I felt dreadful because of course I did. I felt guilty and was already beating myself inwardly over it and preparing to say sorry a thousand times. And so I begrudgingly said it, “I don’t think I’m feeling up to going to the hot springs.” and it all just avalanched downwards from there.

He said the words, “okay,” in that tone I dreaded. Disappointed and upset. He immediately became much more negative and it was exactly what I feared and wanted to avoid. But I said sorry, of course, and went on to try to make him feel better.

“At least we got to spend an awesome weekend together anyway.” I wanted him to see the bright side of things. There was a part of me that said it to make myself feel better, but for the most part, it was for him. Think about all the good, don’t dwell on the hour lost…but that’s not what happened.

It only made things worse. “Don’t expect me to be skipping for joy over it,” he said. And so I cried. I had no expectations other than negative ones for how he would react and he fulfilled those expectations more so than I expected. I already felt extremely guilty, exhausted, and overwhelmed and then he had to go say something like that: an obvious, rubbing-it-in-your-face kind of phrase that only made me feel exponentially worse than I did before a word left my lips.

We argued. He said he wasn’t upset, but he was. And he didn’t want me to use that phrase ever again because I guess it undermined all the work he had put into the vacation. I still don’t totally understand why he hates the phrase so much. I was too tired and upset to ask while it was going on, but I honestly still don’t think it’s all that bad. I was at least looking on the positive side and looking forward to our future endeavors. Meanwhile, he was stuck in his disappointment that I had to cancel once again because of who I am as a person. It really only showed me that he doesn’t actually understand me all that well.

I was disappointed too. I wanted to see the hot springs and how gorgeous and lovely they were supposed to be, but I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it if I was feeling like that and I was already thinking to another time that we could go up to the springs while he was being a negative nancy.

In the end, though, he drove me home and we said our goodbyes and shortly thereafter we decided to have our break.

After an entire week of taking a break I can honestly say I feel better in general. Despite my doubts and irritations and issues, I do feel more hopeful. But I know the discussion will likely be a struggle and I usually get so emotional, but I feel more clear-headed now than I did a week before.

I’ve decided that I ought to say “no” much more often and say “sorry” much less. No more apologizing for my anxiety or introvertedness. No more agreeing to fulfill all his expectations and force myself to change.

And he’ll most likely read this before we have our discussion and it will probably be a good thing. I have been keeping up with his blog posts about our issues for a week now and have been prepared for it, but he may not be prepared for me. I feel stronger and more resolute than before and am going to go back on my previous agreements and statements. I know he doesn’t want an argument, but I feel that, considering my nature, it may be inevitable. I plan to go back to past grievances and argue with what happened.

I feel that a discussion is more accurate when you’re both on the same page and both in agreement, but an argument is when you both have conflicting views and are not on the same page. And I can say for certain that the two of us definitely have conflicting views. We have been able to skip about, pretending that we are so alike, but if this week-long-break has proven anything, it has proven that we are more different than we appear.

So I’m ready for the battle. The battle to overcome my fears and emotions and to face his. I know he says he’s not upset, but I know he is (his blog has kind of proven that). And he ought to be. He ought to be upset since this whole thing is a very upsetting situation. Will we even be together by the end of tomorrow? That question is quite upsetting, but very accurate. But I want him to be himself and show his emotions and then turn them into something useful. Usually all that ends up happening is he keeps to himself and they fester or get squashed down. I have this issue sometimes too, but that’s what therapists are for. But despite it all I know the discussion will be beneficial overall. And so I am ready for it.

Sharing a Bathroom

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Sharing my bathroom with my roommate has been a struggle since I moved into a new apartment. I am one of those people who prefers the bathroom to be clean, at least to the point where I can’t see any big problems. Unfortunately, my current roomie basically doesn’t have any common decency when it comes to this sort of stuff.

At first I noticed she was one of those people that left huge dried up clumps of toothpaste in her sink and counter area. That was gross to me, but I could deal with it since it was only on her side. Then she started using my hand towel and leaving dried toothpaste on that. I decided to let her use my hand towel since I had a spare, which I just kept in my room so she wouldn’t touch it. I also noticed that she would leave my body wash open and in a different place in the shower, basically giving me the impression that she was using my body wash. From there I inferred that she had also been using my hand soap since she didn’t have any on her side (and also no hand towel of her own). I texted her about it, since she is so busy and doesn’t get the chance to speak to me in person very often, and she defended herself about using my hand soap, but not about my towel or body wash. At least she has seemed to stop using my stuff now.

Then there was the toilet paper. Although this is partially a fault of mine as well because I can be a passive aggressive buttface, this is basically what happened. I bought like eight rolls of toilet paper and changed it out in our bathroom. However, once we ran out of the first roll, she didn’t put in a new roll and instead just left it atop the toilet. This continued on over and over again. She would never switch it out for a new roll OR throw away the cardboard cylinder of the old one. You’d think that’d be something that wouldn’t have to be discussed as it’s just common sense and decent to do that, but whatever. I’ve mentioned it to her and hopefully we can both keep track of that from now on.

The worst part of sharing the bathroom, though, has been the struggle with our shower. Our shower is also half bathtub and so it is a pretty decent size. As someone who is slightly OCD and afraid of germs, I avoid leaving any sort of hairs or clumps or dirt in the shower. My roomie doesn’t really care about such things, though. She leaves an absurd amount of hair and hair clumps all throughout the tub after her showers. I also sometimes see crumbs or spots of unknown substances. She has also somehow managed to leave smears and footprints of dirt and grease and grime on the sides and edges of the tub. Basically, it’s freaking gross.

So, of course, I ended up having to have a chat with her, wherein I politely asked if she could clean up the tub and maybe look around the tub before getting out of the shower to see if she left any hair or other mess (which is what I do before getting out of the shower every time). The first time around she was totally good about it and cleaned it up no problem and said that she would try to avoid doing that in the future. That didn’t last long though.

It was less than a week later when it became blanketed with hair and grime all over again. If it were just hair then I could deal with it and rinse it out myself, but there’s just so much of it and the grease and dirt is just ewwwwwww. So I texted her again and let her know that the tub was super gross (again). She, of course, got all irritated and said it wasn’t just her and she only showers once a week anyway and it isn’t fair to make her clean up the tub if she isn’t the one doing it. I then told her that I probably showered less than her because I can’t stand to shower in a place that is already so dirt and that I make a habit of cleaning up after myself in the shower because I hate it so much and that the tub had only been getting dirty after she was done with it, conveniently around a weeks time each time it happened. So, yeah, I told her that I may just have to ask our other roommates if I can use theirs since there is no way it was me since I’m so self conscious about it.

And so she immediately texted and said she’d come and clean it up. I understand that she is super busy. I can totally relate. But just taking an extra 60 seconds before getting out of the shower to look down and rinse out any eye-sores is easy and doesn’t take much time. And I’ve already talked to her several times about it now so there’s only so much I can do. I’m only living with her for two and a half more months so it’d be nice if she could just try to be clean for that amount of time. Otherwise I guess I’m going to have to borrow someone else’s shower because no way am I cleaning up someone’s body grime off the tub.

Cleaning Checks

Now I am not sure how many people have to deal with this, but cleaning checks has been a major struggle the past couple years for me. Living in student housing would be the main cause of this. Every once in a while the apartment management comes to do a “cleaning check” and just make sure that the apartment is in good shape and what not. At least, that’s what it ought to be.

The student housing/apartment that I have been living in the past two years has some hard core freaking cleaning checks. You’d think a normal cleaning check would just be a list of things like vacuuming, dusting, clean dishes, general organization, no trash lying around and so forth. But freaking my apartment asks you to do a butt-ton of stuff. Vaccuum, sweep, mop, wipe down walls/outlets/switches, dust bed/desk/shelves/counters, clean blinds/window/windowsill, clean baseboards, wipe down doors inside and out, wipe down sinks, clean toilet till it’s spotless, wipe down entire shower inside and out, clean washer/dryer, make sure couches are vacuumed, clean out entire fridge, wipe down oven/stove inside and out, and basically just CLEAN EVERYTHING TILL IT LOOKS BRAND NEW.

Now this sort of ridiculously detailed and in-depth cleaning check is something that you’d expect once you are getting ready to move out of an apartment, but not here. Here it is like this every other month and is even freaking worse when you’re moving out. I wouldn’t mind doing all this stuff if the management here was more chillax, but they’re not. They will wipe their greedy fingers over every little thing to make sure that it doesn’t have even a speck of dust on it and, if it does, then you’ll be charged somewhere between $30-$60. It’s ridiculous.

They do have an incentive, however. Whoever has the cleanest apartment at the end of the month doesn’t have to get their apartment checked next time. The problem is that means the ENTIRE apartment has to be perfect. So, even just one lazy or dirty roommate could ruin this chance.

Although, it also depends on who you’re rooming with. From 2016-17, me and all my other roommates were brand new to the apartment and the management didn’t know us so we got checked freaking ridiculously hard during our cleaning checks. However, this past year I was roomed with people who have previously made friends with or just sucked up to management and, therefore, all the management did was glance over everything and pass us as well as gave us apartment-of-the-month every single time. So we ended up only cleaning half as much as everyone else. It was awesome.

In a sense I was a bit pissed as I failed my cleaning check and had to pay money the first time around because I didn’t have connections, but it made up for it this year I suppose. It definitely relieved A LOT of stress when I didn’t have to clean as much. To be honest, I usually spent DAYS cleaning in advance for cleaning checks in order to pass. Even then I sometimes still failed. I also learned that actually being present when they are doing the cleaning check makes a big difference. They aren’t nearly as picky when they have someone looking over their shoulder.

Once my mom, who was in the military, came to help me clean and told me that my cleaning checks were more hardcore than the ones she had when she was still in the military. Yeah, that’s a bit ridiculous.

Now cleaning often and cleaning well does have its perks and I realize that. The apartments are almost always in good condition because of it and, if you clean often enough, then cleaning isn’t as bad when it’s time to actually do it. But we’re freaking college students…do you actually think we are going to clean on our own time? Besides, we all know that these apartments don’t do hardcore cleaning checks like this to keep their apartments in good shape, they do it because they want money. If it wasn’t for the money then they wouldn’t charge us so much for failing the cleaning checks.

Today I finished my last cleaning check for that apartment and have now moved into a new place that only does one cleaning check a semester. That’s more like it. Yes, the place is not as great as the last apartment, but if it helps me cut down on stress and anxiety then I’ll take it.

Freaking Snow

via Daily Prompt: Glimmer

Snow is beautiful – it shimmers and glimmers as the sun’s rays sparkle over it, thus lighting up the cool and chilling air that refreshes and awakens you. But it’s freaking spring and it needs to stop. I’ve had enough of this cold wet stuff that I have to trudge through, through freezing wind that burns my face off. I am tired of wrapping up in several layers and wearing boots. I want to wear short sleeve shirts and flip flops for God’s sake.

I want to look out the window and see a beautiful, warm, and sunny day, with birds flying around happily, flowers blooming, and bright green grass making the world seem colorful. I don’t want to freaking wake up freezing on a Friday morning and look outside to see cars blanketed in snow and 15+ mph winds throwing large clumps of snow from the trees all over the place.

It is even worse when you are given false hope. There have been some beautiful days lately that really made me feel like Spring was coming but NOPE. It was just winter dangling a flower in front of us before ripping it to shreds. These glimmers of hope are annoying. Either let me dwell in my cold misery or give me warmth already.