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 Posted May 8th, 2007 at 8:29PM
So the biggest downside to my apartment this year is the lack of internet. Occasionally last fall, we could snag a wireless signal from a neighbor, but winter caused that to end. And then, for awhile, it seemed like whoever’s signal it was, figured out how to mask it.
Today, I got adventurous, and tried to find the signal again. There was one spot on my porch, hidden from (nearly) all of the neighbors, where I could barely pick it up. But it was unusable. So, desperate, I climbed the hill behind our house. I didn’t go too far, perhaps ten feet up, and am now picking up the signal quite well. It’s buggy, and I fear that my display (or the illuminated apple on the back) is visible, but who cares. For now – I’m connected once more!
Posted August 30th, 2006 at 11:50AM
… in the Ithaca College library, using my laptop and schmoozing off of their free wireless internet. I decided to upload the photos I took of my new apartment, and make a brief post on this blog.
I open up iPhoto, and – surprise! – it says that there’s no library, that I need to either find one or create one. Whoops! My collection of pictures for the program was one of the first things to go last night, when I deleted a bunch of stuff, trying to free up some hard drive space (I need an external drive for archiving some of this shit). The PowerBook has a 60GB drive (that for some reason only says 55.77GB), and last night I was bottoming out at ~200MB. After purging a lot of junk, I’m now back to 5.02GB of free space. But I should have left my iPhoto library.
So now I’ll have to go back and re-shoot everything (big deal). There will be a post about my apartment in a few days, which is exciting for everyone, I’m sure.
In other news, today is Wednesday, which means the first day of classes. I only had two today, but it was quite enough. German 201 at 10am, and then Grants, Proposals, & Reports at 11am. German is going to be arduous. The prof will be speaking in German the entire time, which oddly enough is more than I got in German class in Germany. The Grants is a writing class focused on writing – you guessed it – grant proposals asking for money. I imagine it will help when I’m in the streets panhandling. From first impressions, the writing will be tedious, there are too many students in the class, and the professor tries entirely too hard.
Perhaps my other four classes won’t be as bad. Pff.
When’s the next break?
Posted August 28th, 2006 at 1:14PM
We came down to Ithaca last Wednesday to look at apartments. We found one, which I’ll write about in a later post. Then I had a few days to pack, before moving in on Saturday. The apartment wasn’t furnished, so we had to bring my bed, furniture, and a variety of odd knick-knacks for the kitchen, bathroom, etc.
My parents slept over Saturday night, then returned on Sunday. I busied myself around the house. Everything is pretty much settled, except I still need to find a chair for my desk. Going to check out the Salvation Army and the odd used furniture store here and there.
Typing this post up in the pub on-campus. Still no internet at my place, although my neighbors in the same building sometimes get a wireless signal from one of the other houses in the area. I’ll have to investigate this further – my laptop doesn’t pick up any signal. Or perhaps I’ll just forgo internet at home. It’s not terrible. Forces me to do stuff other than surf the interweb. Like read newspapers.
Classes start this Wednesday. Not looking forward to it. Glad this is my last year, I’m over college. I hate people my age.
Posted January 15th, 2006 at 10:57PM
Typing up the title, it was telling me that I already had a post entitled “Back in Town”. That wasn’t originally going to be the title for this one, but I decided to continue the tradition. Last time I was talking about “home”. This time around: Ithaca.
I took the first place I looked at. Three-hundred dollars a month, for a large room in a small house. Utilities, high speed internet, and a washer all included. There are two other roommates — one I’ve met (he seems alright), and another one who will be getting back in town at the end of this month (she’s in Colombia during research or something). Three bedrooms upstairs, and an open, flowing dining room / kitchen / living room downstairs. It’s a narrow house on a small street — it only goes on for two blocks, and one end is barricaded off. The house neighbors a church — Zionist such and such (a quick Google told me that it’s a strain of Catholicism originating in Africa (thought so)). The neighborhood does seem to be heavily black. Change from Freiburg? I suppose, but largely inconsequential. The bigger change is that I’m most likely the only undergraduate on the block. I’m thinking the majority of students live on their respective hill, although I’ve known people who live downtown (all of the cooler heads, naturally).
It’s downtown Ithaca, about squarely in the middle of things. The walk to the Commons is probably ten minutes (although sorry, it’s freezing and I’m not attempting it till it gets warmer!). Wegmans is probably fifteen, twenty minutes. Great location, me-thinks. Of course, I do have the Honda with me.
Like I said, my room is damn large, although the previous occupant / sublet-er (/owner?) has left a few rubber bins of belongings behind, stowed in a corner. I can afford it; with all of my stuff moved in, the room still feels sort of bare. It’s also pretty nippy in the house, and more specifically, my room. I just received a voice mail from the woman, and she said they “usually keep the thermometer at 65.” Not that I’ve seen a thermometer, and not like my room feels anything like 65 (the rest of the house is a good five to ten degrees warmer), but whatever. I’ll leave my door open, make sure the windows are closed (a few were cracked when I first got here), and wear an extra layer. It’s a good temperature to sleep in, and it’s been unusually cold these past few days.
EDIT: The temperature thing has been solved, the radiator was off during the night, and this side of the house is an addition, with a different thermometer, which was set at 60, now pegged at 65.
Wait a second, what am I talking about? Yesterday, and the day before, I was walking around in short sleeves. I had spring fever, it hit sixty something! But that was back home, and in the time that we left there and finally arrived at Ithaca, the temperature dropped dramatically. How depressing. Anyways.
Today, besides just idling in my room doing nothing, I went up to Pyramid Mall, to Best Buy, and bought a router. The house has Roadrunner, and it’s damn speedy, but I wanted to set up a wireless LAN, like I had in Freiburg. I got really use to having (wireless) internet on my laptop. What a luxury. Setting up the router and getting my laptop online was effortless, although the house computer’s CD-ROM drive doesn’t seem to work.
It’s begun to snow once again. I’m still debating whether or not I should sit in on German 202 tomorrow. I need to take a placement exam, and my expectations of getting into 202 are pretty low. I’ll probably just go tomorrow to make an appointment to take the exam, and see if I bump into my German professor. Then Tuesday I have my first classes. Four classes on Tuesday and Thursday, three of which are writing classes, all of which are right after one another. Those two days are going to be hell, but having the rest of the week free will be redemption.
Oh wait, I really need to get a job too.
Posted January 2nd, 2006 at 2:06PM
Well, exactly a week ago, we zipped down to Ithaca to check out an apartment. At this point, I didn’t really care, and it seemed like I could stand it for six months, so we took it. Three hundred dollars a month gets me a (really) large bedroom in a house, which I’ll be sharing with two people – “recent grads” (who we weren’t able to meet, but are probably cool heads). This includes all utilities, a washing machine, and roadrunner high-speed internet. Bedroom is also partially furnished, although I have to put up with some stuff in the corner of the room, which belongs to the women who is subleting it (sort of odd, but who cares).
I’m definitely chuffed. This is by far one of the cheapest deals I’ve found. The house was EH, nothing too great. Small place, but there’s only three of us. Upstairs are the three bedrooms, downstairs there is a dining room, living room, and kitchen (whole open floor plan thing going on). Porch on the front, yard in the back. On a small street, downtown, probably ten minutes walk from the Commons or what have you.
I’ve been thinking about taking the bus for the commute to classes this semester. Since I only have class two days a week, I could stand it, and it might be more economical than buying a campus parking permit (which would be the full price for the full year, even though I’d only use it for one semester). Maybe I just got use to the excellent public transportation in Freiburg which I took every day to get anywhere. But man, I hate the TCAT (Ithaca’s lousy bus system). When we were in Ithaca, seeing those busses was appalling. They looked ancient, especially compared to the marvels in Germany… I mean the Frankfurt Airport’s shuttles are nicer. Anyways.
Mainly just felt compelled to post after a long absence. I’m still around, and still active online even. Just haven’t been in a blogging sort of mood lately. It’s still not too late to shutter this personal domain and go back to being hosted by a friend. Then again, it costs next to nothing to keep this thing running, so I’ll most likely just stay put.
And it’s 2006. Feels just like 2005.
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