Monday, August 31, 2009

First Night

Highlight of the night was how Samil somehow got into a tangent on Privacy rights when I was explaining to him that it wasn't exactly normal to go to your neighbor and just ask for their wireless router's password. Somehow, he made the jump from that to "You know, like, what about when they put microchips in brains and it makes you so much smarter you'll need one to function. What'll privacy people say then?"

It was also humorous when he relayed this story....

Saturday night he went to a party in Philly and saw a girl he at one point had a crush on, which he told said girl who did not share his interests. This night in Philly was the first time, as he said "she was warm to him," making him feel really good about himself. He stills find the girl as he says slamming (which will pause, then say in a higher pitch and softer than his regular speech in order to highlight it). He also found out that this girl's little sister (by about 3 years, putting a gap of 7 between her and Samil), just got a job working in our school district, which really excited him. This 'silver lining' has a lot of potential, especially if the little sister is just as 'fly' and cool as the older sister.

Oh, the couch is not comfortable w/out the mattress. Resolution has not been found on that. Work starts tomorrow. Should be good.

(Also, I showed up to work today to set up my room for a few hours and got put to work by all sorts of teachers to move stuff. So now my room isn't set up, but theirs is. Do I look like I LIKE moving? I'm sick of it.)

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Getting the Keys

Two days ago we paid our rent and got our keys. We also paid for a few extra days in August to facilitate moving in.

Samil set a time for us to meet with our landlord, Christina, to get the keys and pay rent. I had actually been away for a few days with work, and I am fairly certain he said he'd do this without me in that time, but he didn't and its not a big deal. Still, it made my schedule a little wacky, but I managed to fit it around the frenzy of packing up, getting ready for work (we're teachers), and the daily nuisances. I get there about 20 minutes early, which was really only five minutes early because Samil and I agreed to meet ahead of time to talk things over. Of course, that's when Samil calls and tells me he can't make it because he's at the mechanic to fix his car.

His car failed inspection for about three weeks, and for the last three weeks, he's been riding around NJ with that big red sticker of shame. I guess he had decided to take care of that in the morning, and went there about half an hour before we agreed to meet to take care of it. Oh, did I mention he failed his exhaust test in the inspection? No, I didn't. He had to have his exhaust system fixed. And he dedicated thirty minutes to do this.

So I pay the rent, which was a little more than what I had in my bank account, hoping I'd get money from Samil that day to deposit, drop off a few boxes, and take off. I had to hide his keys around so he could get in later while I did some stuff I needed to in Brooklyn. Lacking a good place around the house to do it, I decided to hide it at the base of the PERMIT PARKING ONLY sign next to the house. I buried it in just enough dirt so that it wouldn't be seen yet easy to get to, and took off for the city while leaving him a message explaining in detail how to find the keys.

Five minutes later, he calls. Apparently he didn't check my message, and when I told him I left a message on where to find them, he responded "oh, where are they?" "I left a message explaining it." "Ok. But um, hm. Where can I find them?" Rather than repeat that exchange a few times, I tell him again how to find the keys.

A few hours later, I get a call from him again. "Hey, so I'm at the house. Where are the keys?" ::Head against keyboard I'm sitting at in a meeting::: I explain again.

***
Yesterday we moved in the big stuff. It wasn't a big deal, but Samil did miss most of the first trip of stuff because he overslept and half of the second trip grabbing me and him pizza. Not a big deal, my dad was there to help and lots of things like that are really only two person jobs. I'm just trying to give a bit of context on Samil, really.

When we moved in, I put my stuff way far in the back of the apartment to get it out of the way. The reason we didn't like this apartment, really, is because you have to walk through one bedroom to get to the other. Of course Samil wanted the room with more privacy, and so did I but really I don't care that much. Him seeing some of my stuff there resulted in a really painful passive aggressive conversation on his part.

Problem: he doesn't have a mattress and is planning on using the mattress in the pullout couch. Okay, that's not the problem. The problem is that he doesn't like using the couch part when sleeping and pulls the mattress off, taking up twice the space. Wait, no... that's still not the problem. The problem is that the couch sit right when you pull the mattress out, so if he's sleeping on that mattress in the far room, I'm going to have to be uncomfortable on the couch. This is a pretty epic problem in his mind, and we're still awaiting word on how he's going to resolve the issue. When I explained it, he was genuinely dumbstruck for about a minute.

Tonight I moved in the small stuff with my buddy Steve. Samil was in Philadelphia hanging out with some people and is coming back shortly. Tonight's the first night we'll be rooming together.* We may not have Internet, but I'll try to keep updating to let you know how things go.

*this does not include the first month we lived in my 1br apartment that I will explain in more detail at a later time

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Signing the lease!

Yesterday Samil and I signed our lease for a new apartment! Some things about the apartment:

It's in the wonderful "Garden State" of New Jersey, but in the part more associated with the "Armpit of America." We'll be living in a house across from a University in an old awesome house, apparently once owned by some European royalty (or so say our landlords). Its about 10 minutes to work for both of us, and on a gigantic hill. When I mean gigantic, I'm not exaggerating. Its steep. Like, 'those guys that lay down on a piece of wood with wheels and roll down a hill at insane speeds' steep.

Now, the complicated part - due to samil's (and mine to a degree) fascination with a great 3 bedroom apartment on the top floor that wasn't ready until October, we will be living on the floor below for a month. This, of course, means we have to move twice in two months, set up Gas/Electric twice, deal with cable twice, and so on. Possible advantages include waiting to get some furniture and having two housewarming parties.

When we proposed this idea to our landlord, Christina, we were first dismissed immediately. Then later that night she called Samil and said she had talked it over with her husband and decided it was okay. Samil didn't want to pass up our chance at this apartment so told her he would put her on hold and confer with me. He then put his cell phone in the bottom part of his t-shirt, wrapped it around a few times, and then put his hand over it. After a few short exchanges, we agreed to take the place and he told Christina, who I'm sure heard our whole conversation anyway.

The worst of the entire process was when Samil had to call the owner of another place we were only tepidly interested in but wanted to keep our options open with. Samil had been in contact with her for those two weeks, and I have no idea what he said, but it did result in a voice mail from this woman's husband telling Samil that "we took advantage of her kindness, and were unfair, and it was wrong." Like I said, for all I know he agreed to take the place and just never told me. He spent the rest of the evening wondering if he should feel bad for how he handled it, or if he should just let it go (His words). I'd be slightly worried he'll be carrying the emotional scars of not living in that apartment for a long time, but the reality is that he'll probably forgot about it before the end of the night.