So Saturday we drove down south separately. After having not driven more than a mile, literally, in months, and having never driven in Baton Rouge...this trip was something else. I hate driving with a capital H. After we got to the red stick we got separated even farther apart and because of conflicting gps systems we took different exits. That did not make me happy one bit.
I finally wound up here.
Which was only the beginning of my love/hate feelings for this whole deal.
J and I quickly found each other on campus and we ran off to begin the long check-in process. Upon first glance you would think all the dorms are just full of sunshine and daisies, but in fact they are not. As we quickly learned. I kept thinking "wow this place is so nice" until we drove up to Jeremy's "dorm" and I told him "Are you sure this is it? It's a police station."
Why yes it was it. A ghetto dorm attached to a police station. At least we had paid for a single room so he could escape the super ghetto in his own little semi ghetto space. After we walked in and were attempting to figure out where to go a guy walked in behind up and promptly attempted to kill me with his dorm fridge. He was lucky Jeremy caught it before it shattered on the ground. At least we thought he was lucky J caught it. He immediately started fussing at Jer not to touch his fridge. Okay. First crazy down. Check.
This ghetto dorm is called Calecas by the way pronounced Ka-leak-us. I decided to continually call it Cialis. There was one called Babbington. I thought it would have been fitting if Babbs would have lived in Babbington.
Next we walked into the common room to completely check in. If you read Twitter you know what the common room smelled like. My jacket still smells like old ratty crawfish if you want a sniff. Gross. We completed out check-in, or so we thought, and ran off to his new abode.
But for some odd reason there was junk already in the room. Yes, the single room we paid for. Meaning he lives alone. So off we went to the stinky common room so my jacket could further soak up the sent like a box of baking soda. While begging for a room change Crazy numbers 2 & 3 made their grand entrance.
Crazy #2 came in offering everyone navel oranges. She was an odd one for sure. The kind of odd I tried to escape in my dorm days years ago. After we turned down her offer she asked for a pen "to open her orange". Hmm. I didn't know Bic made orange peelers.
Thus brings us to Crazy #3. #3 made her grand entrance just as I had finished beggin' mercy on our sad-married-not-your-common-dorm-dweller-selves and demanded her room be changed. Or in her own words "Can you get rid of her then?" The RA then proceeded to tell us how she was sure J would get a room because once people see this horrid place they refuse to live here. Oh and we totally understood.
You see, on our way back to the office Jeremy made it very clear he was feeling sorry for me at first because he was going to experience all this new, cool stuff and I was stuck in old North LA teaching until graduation. But that changed once he saw his room. He said he wanted to find the dean and tell them to take me, we had the same GRE score and were both Psych. major...so it was a fair trade. He even contemplated getting his old job back.
All of our determination and drive to get him through this program went out the window when we saw the peeling paint of what was obviously a dorm that had seen its fair share of hurricanes.
We were contemplating getting a hotel and coming home when the minute I called my Mom to cry about the horror they changed his room to a single, twin beds, but a single none the less. Praise the Lord!
So we packed him into his paint peeled room.
Joked about the crazy people we encountered. Did the traditional dorm kid pilgrimage to Mecca aka WalMart and filled his fridge full of the traditional foods of Ramen, Coke, and Oreos. Finally we drove to Applebee's and used the gift card the Special Ed. Department gave him as a farewell gift and had our last date until who knows when.
This morning we got up, filled my car with gas and went in search of King Cake. Now, as a lover of south LA King Cake I am here to tell all of you....if your cake taste like a cinnamon bun you do not have a real King Cake.
I got the strawberry cream cheese filled one. Yum! After that we headed back to the dorm and had a breakfast date of cake, donuts, and coffee.
If you were wondering, we ended up staying in the dorm last night. And yes, we both slept in that twin bed. I woke up at 4am plastered to the wall begging Jeremy to roll over haha.
When I left I decided to meet my long time friend Brittany at What-a-Burger in Baton Rouge to meet her new little man Cayden and visit with her, her mom, and see little Mr. Caleb. I just wish I would have taken a picture.
Which brings me to now. Searching for positive while I feel like I am missing something majorly.
Which is also way I chose Proverbs 31:25-26 as my 2nd scripture to for SSMT this month.
25 Strength and honor are her clothing;
She shall rejoice in time to come.
26 She opens her mouth with wisdom,
And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
If you read Beth Moore's SLI you remember we repeated verse 25 constantly with the NIV translation of "She is clothed in strength and dignity." I loved that verse. But I liked how the NKJV ended it with "She shall rejoice in days to come" instead of "she will laugh at the future" like other versions had.
As much as I would love to curl in a ball and just act like a baby I cannot. There are things to do on my end of this deal to ensure I can actually move during the summer. I must daily clothe myself with strength and dignity to make it through this is I ever want to rejoice in the time to come. I also have to practice the law of kindness (which a lot of my blog friends will remember from the simulcast we attended in the Fall) big time, there is no need for me to be short with people because I am not 100% happy about the current situation. I have to be kind and speak wisdom. Honestly kind, not see through nice.
Well that is all for tonight. I am going to now call my man who is 200 miles in the opposite direction. Night.
