Today's rambling: I want a new one.
Written on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2002 at 5:00 p.m.
while feeling a bit

I want a new advisor.

This is Freshman Advising Week, and the Comm department had a little group meeting thing just to show us how to go about registering for our classes and such. I think I'm a little more clued in, but at the same time I feel like I'm going to screw up somehow. The teacher emphasized that we should meet often with our advisors to clear up questions. All the advisors were seated at a little round table at the side of the room. My advisor had this condescending sort of smirk on his face, as if he thought this was all absolutely ridiculous and pointless. The teacher talking to us even pointed out that he was 'the only one smiling' or something like that...

I don't want an advisor with that sort of attitude. Y'know, he's old, he's probably going to retire soon--Kristen down at the station told me that a lot of people had expected him to retire last year--so I guess he's a bit on the cynical side. Do I want that, however? No. I want someone who's actually willing to help me, not someone who thinks it's a tedious chore. Yeah, I'll bet with tons of students running in asking sometimes-lame questions, it gets to be irritating. But these people went into teaching--I hope--because they actually want to help students. And I'm not getting that impression from my advisor.

Who I'd like to have is Bill Adams. Yes, the radio station's advisor. He was there today as well, and there's just something immediately welcoming about him. He actually reminds me of Tiff's dad in a way, except he doesn't talk quite as much. *grins teasingly* But he's got these bright blue eyes, a very amiable sort of demeanor...I was pretty much drawn to him right from the time I first met him. And not like THAT, I just mean that he's someone I very much respect and would not be at all afraid to go to if I had questions. And this being my freshman year, I have a lot of questions. The problem right now is, I can't really formulate them into anything. :P Like, if someone were to ask me, "What do you want to know?" my answer would probably be "Everything". Because I can't think of any specifics. If we were able to go through the registration process, I could stop and say "Okay, how does this work" and "I don't really know what you mean there", that sort of stuff. I could go through the process on my own and think up those questions, but...I still don't really know the process! If I came to my advisor and said something like that, he'd probably try to clarify, but he'd make it clear in some way that he thought I was ridiculous.

The next time I'm in the studio and I see Bill--or maybe even the next time I'm in the basement near his office--I might ask if it's possible to switch advisors. A part of me is scolding me for making such judgments when I've only met my advisor once. But I've mentioned countless times before in here that I have an affinity for 'feeling out' someone's personality pretty quickly. Not like that's a special quality, but it takes a few meetings for some, while others can figure it out almost immediately. Anyway, especially after the snarky way he was acting today, I do not want this guy as my advisor. And I don't have to have Bill Adams as the other advisor; with the exception of one other woman (who I'm a little iffy about), I would've taken any of the other people.

*sighs* Ya think things are going well, and then your advisor turns out to be a creep. :P Kristen (from the studio...maybe I should start using her DJ name) has never had one of his classes, but even she's heard bad things about him! I'm glad I found out about him for myself before hearing that, otherwise I'd be here thinking, "Okay, was he REALLY that bad, or is it just all that hearsay getting to you...?" As it is, I feel like what she said is just a supporting point for my argument, hehehe...

Oh. In other news, I got no call from Geoff last night. Men are so aggravating. :P

Kristen (my roommate) and I were feeling cheeky, so we decided to call up Pam. Well, Kristen was the one who actually did it, but we conspired together, hehe...Anyway, she called up and said, "Is this Pam? Is your refrigerator running?" Pam ended up saying, "Should I go catch it?" so Kristen laughed, then paused, then murmured, "I'm supposed to hang up now."

*giggles* You can see why neither of us would make very good prank callers. ;) I would've ended up laughing before I even got the question out, so it would've been ruined even before Pam got to say "Should I go catch it"!

It's been raining all day. Not heavy rain, just that light, soaking drizzle. Good for the plants and trees and things, but not good for me. I'm feeling rather down again. It's probably just because of that meeting and my advisor problems, but gloomy skies never help me when I'm already feeling bad. At least the day started off well, though, right? Ugh, and I've got friggin' Earth Science tonight, too...which reminds me, I need to get my atlas back from Maria.

I don't know what to think about that girl. She was my roommate during orientation, and she lives down the hall from me now. She's never been rude to me, but if we pass each other on campus or something, she'll say hi, smile very briefly, and then keep going...I can't explain it, but the look reminds me of a person who only says hi to be polite, but doesn't really mean it...sorta snobby, I guess. But I know she's generally a nice person, because even though we didn't see each other for more than a couple minutes during orientation, we still had a friendly enough chat. I've never let myself believe she's a snob; one of my first assumptions was that maybe she was having personal problems or something, because she could be friendly one minute and then sort of indifferent the next. But she's starting to warm up a bit now, especially as we have Earth Science together (i.e. common ground). So I dunno.

Okay, my roommate's back. She came over to talk to me and saw my mention of our prank call...it's a good thing I didn't complain about her, eh? :P She tried using my printer while I was away, but my printer is a fickle little thing (a lot like me), and it didn't work. I'm not quite sure whether it irritates me that she tried using it without my being here or not. It's not that I mind her using the printer at all...but my stock of printing paper is running out, and if she starts using it, then I'm going to have to ask that she chip in to buy printer paper (and ink, since that's probably nearing the end). That's only if she prints a lot, though. One or two papers wouldn't be enough reason to make her start contributing.

Anyway, I'm going to go. Mom's supposed to be home at any time, and she said she'd call me. I need to talk to someone on the phone...This IM stuff just doesn't cut it all the time.