The new house is tight, hella crazy posters and stuff and I've met almost everyone here now. Folks are from all over the place. One Bay guy from San Leandro, 3 guys from Washington/Oregon, 1 from Miami, 1 from Houston, and I forget the rest. The house kinda reminds me of those old timey Mississippi river boats that people used to gamble on. There's a fireplace where one of the guys, John, burns cedar sticks which makes the house smell like BBQ. I'm the only person on my floor so I'm pretty much the only person it seems that uses the bathroom which seems good but on the other hand it is by far the coldest and not wanted to let the heat out is making me keep the door closed which feels sorta anti-social but this isn't freshman year so it's really not the same sorta issue I guess.
My bed has these two foam pads as mattresses which really sort of suck. they are by far my biggest complaint with the place. Yesterday they had a mad lean to the right. I switched up which one was on top and now there's sort of a canyon in the middle. Tomorrow I'm gonna take one of them off and see how that is. I tried it today and you can totally feel the wood under but that might be preferable in the end.
I wasn't sure whether it was cool to leave my room heater on all night. Luckily due to the power of facebook folks told me it was the norm in colder environs. My mom always told me it would catch on fire but I'm nearly positive that was a lie to get me to save electricity. Oh mom... I don't know how well that heater works but my room is a warm enough 60-63, though not the balmy 70-75 I prefer. Probably not worth buying my own heater unless winter gets way colder.
I'm super stoked for my neighborhood which is pleasantly called Mt. Pleasant. It looks like a predominantly latino neighborhood cause if you walk down 16th it's all Mexican and Salvadoran restaurants. If you know me you know how excited I am to eat at all 12 of them. I'm going to make a concerted effort to cook more but with so many delicious looking places I don't know how well that's really going to go.
I went to get a haircut today on that street. Luckily my barber understood almost no English and I'm too embarrassed to even attempt my gringo ass middle school Spanish. I told her tomorrow was my first day at work and asked her what she thought would look good. She said something to the effect of "no dice" which I think means I don't understand what you are saying. So she showed me a big poster of angry looking latino and black men sporting various fades. I chose #10 (1 on the sides 2-3 on the top) and off we were. She really spent a while getting it all even and lining it up including using a straight blade like my buddy down on Venice in LA. I have this dilemma, I personally like my hair long enough to gel the front but it's so cold that I want to wear beanies. If i have gel in then i can't really wear a beanie. What to do? Does my vanity outweigh my dislike of being cold? Only time will tell.
I'm trying to buy a cheap bike right now (max $120) and went to see the first one today. It was at the end of the metro line in Greenbelt Maryland. Awesome. I get there at 2:30 thinking I'll grab a bite to eat before I was supposed to check out the first one at 3:30. Turns out there is literally nothing walkable in Greenbelt. And it was 40 out. Excellent. I started to read On The Road which would have been enjoyable if it wasn't so damn cold and I wasn't so damn hungry. Anyways one of the ppl with one of the bikes I was interested in happened to live near by so he brought his bike which was chill. Turns out the original guy I went to meet basically stood me though and I left fed up with the cold at 4 I WAS THERE FOR 1.5 HOURS!!! He called me when I was already back at Columbia Heights but I wasn't down to pay the far to go back out to meet him. BOoooooo
Mable invited me to go with her and some friends to this Korean fried chicken place called Bonchon but her friends bailed so her and Seng cooked everyone dinner instead which was insanely nice of them. They made fried tofu, tofu and bok choy (i miss bok choy), and Beef fried rice. All three dishes were awesome. We had wine with dinner which really makes me feel like a college graduate. Seems like adults drink wine with meals. I'm still a beer connoisseur which I guess is more of a guy thing? Def doesn't seem as classy. The two girls from friday were there as well as Mable's other roomate Seng who went to UCLA and did APC also. Super randomly there was a girl from the party on saturday who was there. She was the only other Asian person at the party and I didn't talk to her cause she looked sorta angry that night. Turns out she also went to UCLA. Small world. Go Bruins. We watched this show called salon takeover or something like that where this angry brit or ausie goes to dysfunctional salons, yells at everyone, then remodels it. Meh.
I'm debating wether to sign up for a zip car. I wanna check out parts of VA and MD cause there's Asian markets and com tam out there. As well as probably some sort of legit dim sum which dc has none of. It's $75 to sign up then 10 bucks an hour or 70 a day after that but there's no monthly fee. It also includes gas which is pretty cool. I don't know how much I would use it but I like driving too much to not do it for 4 months.
It's kinda weird here but I'm usually ultra polite to people who work at restaurants and stores, or really just strangers in general. A lot of the folks here look at me like I'm crazy when I'm nice to them or try to make some conversation. At home when I asked folks if they were having a long day and when they got off they usually enjoyed the company. Here people kind of just stare at me. My have a good one parting remark is often unreciprocated. Sorta weird.
It's my first day at work tomorrow! Gonna get my grown man on!
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