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drownedinlightBecause I know you really care about learning about a crazy person.
So, towards the end of last semester, I began to notice that my phone had gone a little bit haywire, and would not deliver texts. Not that it wouldn't alert me that it had texts, that I flat out would not get them until I would text someone, and then they would text me back, or I would turn my phone off and on again. Then, I would get like five or six text messages (or more or less, depending on how long it had been with holding the texts from me). This became a problem, as sometimes I would have no idea when someone was texting me to get information or just to talk. Due to this, I would get information late, and I even missed one of my friend's birthday parties, because I didn't get the text to check Facebook about the information.
I lamented to my parents these circumstances, and when I went home for break, we decided to visit the AT&T store where I explained the situation to one of the clerks. I explained that I live on an old campus made of a lot of bricks and mortar, and for some reason, I was having trouble receiving text messages. Not sending texts, not getting calls or sending those outs. Yes, all of my applications worked just fine, and so did my battery. And it was not even all the time that I had trouble getting text messages, because sometimes, even when I was in my room where I get no service what-so-ever, unless I hold my phone towards the ceiling, I would get a text message from a friend in a timely manor. After explaining and re-explaining to where the clerk got the point, she looked up the phone towers where my campus is.
There are not one, not two, but three AT&T towers around the Hollins suburb of Roanoke. Furthermore, they are triangulated in a position around the college, so really, save for the time when I am in some of the older buildings (where brick and mortar equals bad for phone reception), I should get calls and texts just fine. She suggested that we go next door to the actually people who know how to fix phones. They were busy, so we went and saw a movie and went back a few days later.
I explained the situation again, and the technician guy actually kind of knew what I was talking about. He said that, sometimes, when you have a number of towers in an area, the phone will have trouble disconnecting from one tower when you're moving away from it, and then connecting to the one you're moving closer too. This causes very poor reception, because your phone is still connected to the tower furthest away from you. He also mentioned that the whole connection problem might have something to do with a corrupted sim chip or battery, but couldn't find anything wrong with either. Still, he replaced my sim chip and told me that every now and then I should take out my battery and put it back in, especially if I noticed that I wasn't getting any messages.
But yeah, also yesterday, I went and saw The Kids Are All Right in one of our auditoriums on campus. I thought it was great movie, but I could tell my friend A, was definitely miffed that they ended it where they did.
So, towards the end of last semester, I began to notice that my phone had gone a little bit haywire, and would not deliver texts. Not that it wouldn't alert me that it had texts, that I flat out would not get them until I would text someone, and then they would text me back, or I would turn my phone off and on again. Then, I would get like five or six text messages (or more or less, depending on how long it had been with holding the texts from me). This became a problem, as sometimes I would have no idea when someone was texting me to get information or just to talk. Due to this, I would get information late, and I even missed one of my friend's birthday parties, because I didn't get the text to check Facebook about the information.
I lamented to my parents these circumstances, and when I went home for break, we decided to visit the AT&T store where I explained the situation to one of the clerks. I explained that I live on an old campus made of a lot of bricks and mortar, and for some reason, I was having trouble receiving text messages. Not sending texts, not getting calls or sending those outs. Yes, all of my applications worked just fine, and so did my battery. And it was not even all the time that I had trouble getting text messages, because sometimes, even when I was in my room where I get no service what-so-ever, unless I hold my phone towards the ceiling, I would get a text message from a friend in a timely manor. After explaining and re-explaining to where the clerk got the point, she looked up the phone towers where my campus is.
There are not one, not two, but three AT&T towers around the Hollins suburb of Roanoke. Furthermore, they are triangulated in a position around the college, so really, save for the time when I am in some of the older buildings (where brick and mortar equals bad for phone reception), I should get calls and texts just fine. She suggested that we go next door to the actually people who know how to fix phones. They were busy, so we went and saw a movie and went back a few days later.
I explained the situation again, and the technician guy actually kind of knew what I was talking about. He said that, sometimes, when you have a number of towers in an area, the phone will have trouble disconnecting from one tower when you're moving away from it, and then connecting to the one you're moving closer too. This causes very poor reception, because your phone is still connected to the tower furthest away from you. He also mentioned that the whole connection problem might have something to do with a corrupted sim chip or battery, but couldn't find anything wrong with either. Still, he replaced my sim chip and told me that every now and then I should take out my battery and put it back in, especially if I noticed that I wasn't getting any messages.
So I get back to campus and my phone appears to be working fine. I think there was one time when I took out my battery and put it back in and then two texts from a day before popped up waiting to be checked. And as far as I knew I never had a problem getting any calls or texts after that.
THEN....about a week ago, I noticed my battery was dying really quickly. Usually, I can get it to last for at least two days when I'm using it a lot, and over three if I don't. But the battery started dying inside of a day, which I thought was really weird.
THEN...on this past Monday, I get a panicked sounding email from my mother saying I need to call the loan people and check and see when my loans are differed until. Thankfully my art class let out early that afternoon, and I went to the library, where I get the best reception on campus, and got a study room and tried to make a call to my mom to make sure she had her information right, so I wouldn't be calling the loan people for nothing (because she has loans, and I have loans and they're through different people). My phone insisted that I could make emergency calls only. So I turned it off and turned it back on again, which is standard procedure when that happens. When I saw that I had four bars of service, I tried to make the call again, and my phone still insisted that I could only make emergency calls.
So, I took out the battery, and put it back in, and turned the phone back on, and waited for confirmation that I had service. When I saw that I had a couple of bars of service, I tried calling again, and it still didn't work.
By then, I was feeling a little panicky, not just because I couldn't call my mom and find out which loans she was talking about, but because I also couldn't call the loan people if I needed too, and I wouldn't be able to defer the loan, and then my credit would be terrible for forever, and everything was just going to go wrong with my life, and I was going to have to drop out of school....I started really overreacting in my head. So I went back to my dorm, where my roommate was out, so I couldn't use her phone and went upstairs to see if some of my other friends were around. Thankfully, I found someone and finally got in touch with my mom.
She was talking about her loan, but we had a very long, drawn out conversation about this (and my deposit for next year, and tuition for next year, and about my loans, and about how I should go by financial aid and see if mine really were differed until after graduation [which they were] and that I needed to get all my figures for next years expenses together so that my mom could tell my dad about what was going on) all while I was on one of my friend's cell phone. I eventually said we just needed to talk about it over email, because it was my friends phone, and it was getting past the point of letting me use it for a favor.
So, as I've been telling my friends this past week, my phone is now functioning as a very expensive watch. Only now that it's daylights savings time, it's not even a very good watch, because I can't get it to change forward an hour. But I do have an extra watch feature that lets me put daylights saving time on it, so I have two clocks telling me two different times on my phone face, and I now have to set any event in my calendar an hour early anyway, so I'm kind of not seeing the convenience of technology right now. Because this all just majorly sucks.
And that is the story of the phone. Now on to other things, because I'm having a creative block and I don't want to go write fiction today.
This weekend was a generally productive one; Friday, I went to my work study for three hours in the afternoon, and helped one of the other girls move files from one filing cabinet to another. Then we helped each other figure out how many work hours we each need left to work (because since the government has cut collegiate grant and scholarship funding, our financial aid office has declared that we are not allowed to be on call at our offices, we actually have to have something to do. Which sucks, because I am having a hard time making up my hours). It's more okay for me than some of the other girls though, because I do have a job now as a tour guide (which pays at a high rate than some of the other jobs), but I need to get my second training tour in before I can actually start giving tours, and that's kind of difficult because I have class when all of the tours run. And unfortunately, since work study is a school run gig, I'm pretty sure they would report me to the Honor Court if I skipped class to work. (Not that I would).
After work study though, I ate an early dinner and then went back to my room and not only did my project for the day, but finished an annotated bibliography, a character analysis for my acting class, and a play analysis for the same class. I felt very productive. Then yesterday I did nothing. Today I worked on a drawing and read some of the submissions for the literary magazine I'm a member of, but I still need to read workshop submissions for my actual English class before I can fully be considered done. I don't think it's going to happen tonight, so I'll probably to it tomorrow before class on Tuesday.
The other day I realized that 2012 is a leap year, and since I started this on March first, I will have to do this project for 366 days instead of the 365
After work study though, I ate an early dinner and then went back to my room and not only did my project for the day, but finished an annotated bibliography, a character analysis for my acting class, and a play analysis for the same class. I felt very productive. Then yesterday I did nothing. Today I worked on a drawing and read some of the submissions for the literary magazine I'm a member of, but I still need to read workshop submissions for my actual English class before I can fully be considered done. I don't think it's going to happen tonight, so I'll probably to it tomorrow before class on Tuesday.
The other day I realized that 2012 is a leap year, and since I started this on March first, I will have to do this project for 366 days instead of the 365
But yeah, also yesterday, I went and saw The Kids Are All Right in one of our auditoriums on campus. I thought it was great movie, but I could tell my friend A, was definitely miffed that they ended it where they did.
Speaking of literature: I finished Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction today, expect the review forth coming, and I started Kingdom Come, which is a comic book. I think I might also aim towards finishing to today, even though my fifty page goal is also about restraint, because it is not a very text laden comic. One of the other books I have, Trickster, is also a comic, but it's about Native American trickster legends, so it seems pretty thick with text. Kingdom Come, while a very good story, is expressed more through it's art, which means that it's a very well done action comic, because it's leaving the balloons for the dialogue like it's supposed to. So there's less to read, and more to look at and understand. So I'm probably going to finish reading it tonight and start on The Story of Women's Underwear tomorrow (this is also a picture and diagram heavy book, as in full pages of picture every other page, so I'm probably going to be taking it as full pages of text, rather than just simply page by page). After that (based on the order in which the books are due), I'll have to decide whether to read Trickster or The Divine Comedy, and that will just depend on how much I care about due dates and renewals (my next non-fiction book is due on the twenty-eighth, and if I read The Divine Comedy, I'm definately not going to have enough time to read Girl Power, but with Trickster, I might.)
And on a semi-end note: I WANT IT TO BE SPRING BREAK ALREADY! PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Okay, so I have one more week, in which I will encounter some mid-terms and all that jazz, before I get to go home with my friend Julia and spend the week in the DC area. Hopefully, I will have some time to relax and look up scholarships for next year (PS: It's not looking good kiddies.) So, i think I'll beg my teachers to leave off on the home work. Oh, drat, I just realized I'm going to have to write a piece for English this week. Oh, well, I'll email my professor tonight and see what our endowment for the week is before I get to work on it tomorrow.
And now you have had over two thousand words of me ranting. So I'll stop
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3/13/11 WC/Journal WC: 2032
Project Count: 30708
Now Reading: Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross
About to begin Reading: The Story of Women's Underwear by Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
