(no subject)
Friday, November 21st
Started therapy with a college psychological councilor on the 6th floor of the Education building. The actual interview was uneventful, but the wait beforehand was interesting because, as with all psychologist's waiting rooms, the real attraction was the other people. There were a pair of women who were apparently there for couples' counciling that dropped a 1-year Al-anon token, and another woman who I learned through conversation was a lesbian nurse. I also learned that you can't sign up for psychological experiments unless you're a Psych 101 student.
However, let me tell you about the education building and the eighth floor.
The Education Building has a number of architecural eccentricities. For example, from the stairwells each floor of the tower appears to be almost twice the size it needs to be- even accounting for crawlspaces and such. The morning of this tale, I was riding to the university with my brother. He jokingly called it the 're-education' building, and said 'Don't worry, you'll be okay as long as they don't send you to the eighth floor.'
When I got in the elevator for my appointment that day, I saw that the elevator only went up to the seventh floor, and figured he was joking about it. I took the elevator up to the sixth floor, and had my head shrinked. When I was done, I took the stairs down to the ground floor, and wondered if it was possible to reach the roof. I took the elevator up to the 7th floor, and checked the stairwell. I climbed up a floor.
There it said '8th floor, no access.' The sounds of running machinery came from the other side of the door. And there was stairs further up. At the top of those stairs, next to a broken old desk that clearly was left over from the filming of 'The Ring', there was the roof access (which was, after all, locked.)
This was clearly odd. Why would they have a machine room on the eighth floor, instead of in the basement where a sane engineer would place it? Furthermore, I knew for a fact that the air conditioning and heaters for this building were in the basement- like all good college campuses, one can reach any building on campus from the steam tunnels. Pondering these facts, I entered the elevator.
This elevator went up to the eighth floor.
Clearly, the 8th floor had come for me. I pushed the button. It didn't move. I tried the button on the other side. It didn't move. I pushed the button for the lobby.
If the power went out at that exact moment, I would have wet myself. But no, I merely went to the bottom floor very slowly.
When I left the elevator, a man in a severe black suit and sunglasses was entering that same elevator. I gave him a frightened look as I passed him.
After class, my brother purchased Final Fantasy X-2.
THAT EVENING:
Rather than being able to go to a facinating lecture on the Patriot Act and National Security from the head of the ACLU, I was forced to boredly watch my little brother Mike go to a boy scouts meeting. Worse, it was a rubber-band rocket ralley. They sung a song to the theme of 'My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean' about a astronaut being stranded in space, presumably to die a horrible slow death. Not that I'm bitter.
Saturday, November 22
Marched for the Ada County Democrats in a Christmas parade. It was very cold. On the other hand, I managed to get some long underwear out of the deal, so it's not that bad.
Started therapy with a college psychological councilor on the 6th floor of the Education building. The actual interview was uneventful, but the wait beforehand was interesting because, as with all psychologist's waiting rooms, the real attraction was the other people. There were a pair of women who were apparently there for couples' counciling that dropped a 1-year Al-anon token, and another woman who I learned through conversation was a lesbian nurse. I also learned that you can't sign up for psychological experiments unless you're a Psych 101 student.
However, let me tell you about the education building and the eighth floor.
The Education Building has a number of architecural eccentricities. For example, from the stairwells each floor of the tower appears to be almost twice the size it needs to be- even accounting for crawlspaces and such. The morning of this tale, I was riding to the university with my brother. He jokingly called it the 're-education' building, and said 'Don't worry, you'll be okay as long as they don't send you to the eighth floor.'
When I got in the elevator for my appointment that day, I saw that the elevator only went up to the seventh floor, and figured he was joking about it. I took the elevator up to the sixth floor, and had my head shrinked. When I was done, I took the stairs down to the ground floor, and wondered if it was possible to reach the roof. I took the elevator up to the 7th floor, and checked the stairwell. I climbed up a floor.
There it said '8th floor, no access.' The sounds of running machinery came from the other side of the door. And there was stairs further up. At the top of those stairs, next to a broken old desk that clearly was left over from the filming of 'The Ring', there was the roof access (which was, after all, locked.)
This was clearly odd. Why would they have a machine room on the eighth floor, instead of in the basement where a sane engineer would place it? Furthermore, I knew for a fact that the air conditioning and heaters for this building were in the basement- like all good college campuses, one can reach any building on campus from the steam tunnels. Pondering these facts, I entered the elevator.
This elevator went up to the eighth floor.
Clearly, the 8th floor had come for me. I pushed the button. It didn't move. I tried the button on the other side. It didn't move. I pushed the button for the lobby.
If the power went out at that exact moment, I would have wet myself. But no, I merely went to the bottom floor very slowly.
When I left the elevator, a man in a severe black suit and sunglasses was entering that same elevator. I gave him a frightened look as I passed him.
After class, my brother purchased Final Fantasy X-2.
THAT EVENING:
Rather than being able to go to a facinating lecture on the Patriot Act and National Security from the head of the ACLU, I was forced to boredly watch my little brother Mike go to a boy scouts meeting. Worse, it was a rubber-band rocket ralley. They sung a song to the theme of 'My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean' about a astronaut being stranded in space, presumably to die a horrible slow death. Not that I'm bitter.
Saturday, November 22
Marched for the Ada County Democrats in a Christmas parade. It was very cold. On the other hand, I managed to get some long underwear out of the deal, so it's not that bad.