Hypothetically, if I were to intentionally spin that quote to better fit my own situation, say, in a blog entry, I'd note that August is also a pretty challenging time to be a recent college graduate, move into your own apartment with minimal help from others, and start an accelerated graduate program. Not only do you have to expect the unexpected, but you also have to learn to handle it reasonably well.
A rose from our garden at home (Mobile, AL)Photograph taken by Dr. Sailen Barik
Today was definitely a case in point.
After spending about five days at home in Alabama, I departed for my five-hour drive back to Atlanta. One unexpected power outage, two four-way intersections without functional traffic lights, and over a dozen torrential downpours later, I arrived in Atlanta.
Unfortunately, more unexpectedness was still to come.
Granted, you can't really hope for the royal treatment when you're paying nearly nothing for an old, starter apartment within 5 minutes of an unbelievably expensive university - but after moving in loads of items in the summer heat and unpacking for an hour or two, there's a basal standard of living that you do expect: running water, functional air conditioning, and, perhaps, a general level of cleanliness (i.e., no mold, unfriendly rodents, or pesky pests with wings or antennae).
There's certainly running water and no mold, but so far, I've killed two small spiders, one creepy roach, and two unidentifiable six-legged (or maybe eight-legged?) arthropod-like creatures... and there are probably more that either got away or couldn't be caught in the sweltering 88 degree heat of my apartment interior - because the air conditioning, according to my "interesting" roommate (for lack of a better adjective), apparently "works sometimes if you don't keep it on for too long, but the temperature usually doesn't change".
For the time being, I've borrowed a sizeable floor fan from my roommate, but it's safe to say I'll be stopping by the leasing office first thing tomorrow morning. Paris might not have had central air, but at least the outdoor temperature was cool enough at nights to open the windows and breathe in chilly, fresh gusts of oxygen...
Andrew Card might have gotten it wrong in his TV interview last week - I'm pretty sure that every month is a challenging time to be president. And I'm pretty sure that September will also be a trying time to be a new graduate student in a starter apartment.
At least I know to "expect the unexpected" now.
*Quote from Frank Rich's August 8th Op-Ed article in the NY Times, "Is Obama Punking Us?"
No comments:
Post a Comment