pulling my hair out: a tale of the never-ending to-do list
It's me again! I seem to post more when I have a lot to do. Years and years of school made me an expert in the art of procrastination.
As you may or may not know, I am attempting to move to the ghetto. And, inexplicably, despite the high crime rate, the rent is more expensive. So I have spent EVERY.WAKING.HOUR online, looking at apartment listings, at condo listings, at houses for rent. I am tired of looking at Craigslist, I am tired of Googling, I am tired of reading apartmentratings.com. After a while, after I narrowed down the city that I wanted to live in, the same apartments came up over and over and over again. Over and over, the rent was too high, they were in bad areas; the ones in good areas are priced even higher (over $1000/mo for a one bedroom one bath apartment), etc. And have you ever spent any amount of time looking at how people rate apartments online? Let me tell you something: they do it when they are PISSED OFF, when they've got something to complain about. Because only extremely rarely are apartments rated well online.
And so we visited...only a few...but they were the ones with the highest ratings at the best price. And the ones that we liked the most reminded me a lot of the one we live in now, with rent that is TOO HIGH for what you actually get. Water and garbage tacked on each month -- excessively -- in addition to other fees. And so they are nice on the outside, but really not worth it at all. And they didn't have any openings for 1 bed/1 bath in the time frame that we are looking for. So the search continued. We saw one complex -- the one that's pretty much the most highly rated with recent reviews -- that I really didn't like. It didn't seem very safe to me and I just did not get a good feeling from it. The apartment there that we'd be moving into is directly on the main street AND THERE IS NO FENCE! Someone could just hop over the ledge and be in your patio! But...they do allow pets. And they do not allow criminals. And after surveying my coworkers, they seemed to have less negative things to say about that particular complex. And there is an upstairs apartment available too, so I suppose that would be more secure than the downstairs one.
And so that is where we are moving. I gave them some money on Monday to hold it for us and they did not waste any time contacting my employer to verify my income or my current apartment complex to verify that we're good renters...fine, except that I haven't given my 30 day notice here at this complex. And they've refused to fill out the form until I do. And I was going to do it tomorrow anyway (I swear!) since I work full-time Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays an hour away, I haven't been able to drop into the office during business hours to do that. I'm just hoping they can see me first thing tomorrow morning since I need to be on campus from 10:30am-9:30pm. And thus begins the long long long list of things I need to do.
Here it is, for my (probably not your) viewing pleasure:
tonight:
1. write & print 30 day notice letter
2. review lease to determine what else we have to do (paying a fee will be involved since I am breaking the lease)
3. gather whatever I need to bring to them tomorrow to break the lease
4. do research on the CA budget and enterprise zones for a group presentation
5. work on the blog and powerpoint for said group presentation
over the weekend:
1. make & color print handouts for the research symposium at Sac State next week
2. make edits to final capstone project
3. work on final paper for my practice class
4. finalize powerpoint presentation/blog
in the near future:
1. call at&t internet and try to transfer service to new address
2. set up pg&e at new address
3. cancel smud at this address
4. secure a u-haul
5. pack
eventually:
graduate
skydive when this is all over
I'm sure there's more that I'm just not thinking of right now.
Oi. I am exhausted.
As you may or may not know, I am attempting to move to the ghetto. And, inexplicably, despite the high crime rate, the rent is more expensive. So I have spent EVERY.WAKING.HOUR online, looking at apartment listings, at condo listings, at houses for rent. I am tired of looking at Craigslist, I am tired of Googling, I am tired of reading apartmentratings.com. After a while, after I narrowed down the city that I wanted to live in, the same apartments came up over and over and over again. Over and over, the rent was too high, they were in bad areas; the ones in good areas are priced even higher (over $1000/mo for a one bedroom one bath apartment), etc. And have you ever spent any amount of time looking at how people rate apartments online? Let me tell you something: they do it when they are PISSED OFF, when they've got something to complain about. Because only extremely rarely are apartments rated well online.
And so we visited...only a few...but they were the ones with the highest ratings at the best price. And the ones that we liked the most reminded me a lot of the one we live in now, with rent that is TOO HIGH for what you actually get. Water and garbage tacked on each month -- excessively -- in addition to other fees. And so they are nice on the outside, but really not worth it at all. And they didn't have any openings for 1 bed/1 bath in the time frame that we are looking for. So the search continued. We saw one complex -- the one that's pretty much the most highly rated with recent reviews -- that I really didn't like. It didn't seem very safe to me and I just did not get a good feeling from it. The apartment there that we'd be moving into is directly on the main street AND THERE IS NO FENCE! Someone could just hop over the ledge and be in your patio! But...they do allow pets. And they do not allow criminals. And after surveying my coworkers, they seemed to have less negative things to say about that particular complex. And there is an upstairs apartment available too, so I suppose that would be more secure than the downstairs one.
And so that is where we are moving. I gave them some money on Monday to hold it for us and they did not waste any time contacting my employer to verify my income or my current apartment complex to verify that we're good renters...fine, except that I haven't given my 30 day notice here at this complex. And they've refused to fill out the form until I do. And I was going to do it tomorrow anyway (I swear!) since I work full-time Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesdays an hour away, I haven't been able to drop into the office during business hours to do that. I'm just hoping they can see me first thing tomorrow morning since I need to be on campus from 10:30am-9:30pm. And thus begins the long long long list of things I need to do.
Here it is, for my (probably not your) viewing pleasure:
tonight:
1. write & print 30 day notice letter
2. review lease to determine what else we have to do (paying a fee will be involved since I am breaking the lease)
3. gather whatever I need to bring to them tomorrow to break the lease
4. do research on the CA budget and enterprise zones for a group presentation
5. work on the blog and powerpoint for said group presentation
over the weekend:
1. make & color print handouts for the research symposium at Sac State next week
2. make edits to final capstone project
3. work on final paper for my practice class
4. finalize powerpoint presentation/blog
in the near future:
1. call at&t internet and try to transfer service to new address
2. set up pg&e at new address
3. cancel smud at this address
4. secure a u-haul
5. pack
eventually:
graduate
skydive when this is all over
I'm sure there's more that I'm just not thinking of right now.
Oi. I am exhausted.