Sunday, November 23, 2008

Finishing the apartment

I was finally able to make it out to Ikea...and I have gone from a living room is full of $400.00 worth of stuff:


to a quasi-FINISHED apartment:


And - I have dishes! Full place settings for eight, in fact --- dinner parties, here I come!





I also hacked a pantry out of two filing cabinets that the Bioengineering department was getting rid of: while heavy, they are certainly useful in keeping food and files contained.


I'm still waiting for the "desk" top - it's super heavy and I haven't been able to find anyone to carry it back to Ashdown with me.

AND my room is finally a bit more complete (minus the shoe rack which is still at home).









Life is good!

As I journey back and forth from Minnesota, I imagine that my apartment will become more finished, and my space and home will become more packed away (and yes, mom -- much more organized and out of your way...believe me, it bothers me more than it bothers you!)

I have also applied to become a Graduate Residence Tutor this upcoming January. A GRT is kind of like an RA, but older, wiser, and that cool connection between peer and mentor. We have to keep our doors open for residents to come and chat for ten hours a week, and hold a study break every two weeks. However, we never have to be "on call" per se, yet if we see something going down, obviously we need to step in and take the proper steps (eg, call the police, notify the housemaster, etc...). For this, I have free housing in an apartment within the residence, which means I'd be able to save a substantial amount of money in the next few years.

Even without the money, I really do miss mentoring younger students, and as someone who did a complete 180 in music to biology, I feel I have a lot to offer in terms of advice and encouragement about life decisions. Precisely because I have no idea what I'm going to do after I graduate, letting students in college know (especially one as stressful as MIT) that it's okay not to any clue about future life plans is really important to me. Also, I miss the sense of community from IWU: although dorm life had its downs (ugh. BIG downs) it is so different to come into Ashdown and know absolutely no one except my roommate and people from BE (plus one or two others that have done the unthinkable and GASP -- made eye contact and said hello). I'd like to know people where I live. I miss that.

4 comments:

M. said...

Looks great! Isn't it SO much fun to have your own place? Also I am really impressed with the looks of the Ikea dishes. Very nice. Good luck with the job!!

bridgetwhoplaysfrenchhorn said...

Well, to be completely fair, it really isn't *my* place (due to the roommate and pretty stringent decorating conditions).

It took me quite a long time to decide on the dishes (ask Scott), but I'm really happy with them. Unfortunately, I have a different standard as far as how clean they should be kept, but such is life.

M. said...

Did you get a new roommate? I never got an update on that.

Good heavens, I can picture you and Scott staring at dishes in Ikea for three hours or something, and poor Scott wanting to break one over his head out of pure bordeom.

bridgetwhoplaysfrenchhorn said...

Psh, Scott was strategizing as well...frankly, the silverware gave us more trouble. I think he really did have a good time (his dad was there too, and I did buy them meatballs).