First Saturday in Boston

So far nothing has happened today other than going down to get breakfast, but so far it's nice. I woke up around 11:30, while the other two roommates and one's boyfriend are only up within the last half hour. Said boyfriend was actually very much a gentleman while he was here, and he's welcome to come back as far as I'm concerned.

I went down to get breakfast earlier and talked to Ingo, a kid from Germany who lives down the hall. The first day we were here I helped him hook up his internet, and we've chatted occasionally since then. One thing I'm constantly amused by is the fact that most of the other girls up here are head-over-heels ga-ga over him and have trouble talking to him, since he is pretty nice looking. Not me, for obvious reasons, but it's amusing to watch the other girls walk into doors whenever he's around. And the funniest part is that he seems to have no idea that he has that effect on the heterosexual female population.

Speaking of secret admirers, that person who wrote me the note the other day never showed up. I'm slightly ticked off, but I guess that's how it is sometimes. However, if one of my floormates indicates that they set me up with a fake person like that I'll break their arm. Okay, maybe just bruise it. My point is, don't do that to me. Brings back way too many bad memories. As I was waiting I talked with a few people, two of whom were swooning over Ingo to my amusement.

In a few minutes I'm going to see if Jen down the hall is awake, since we'd talked around going up to a Target near here. Even if it's not with her I might just want to go up to the North End or Cambridge today and just look around. As they say, the world is my oyster.

A-hem. "Eve" Mystery solved.

I think I solved the mystery of the note and the mysterious "Eve", and managed to confirm my instincts that. It wasn't the girl named Eve who wrote it, it was the roommate of the girl named Eve is who is trying to get her to stop playing WOW and meet people in the outside world.

That explains it. My main clue was when this other girl (the roommate of Eve) asked me to come up to her room to meet her roommate Eve. Then it got weird when Eve said that I'd left her a a note, when I've never even been up to the fifth floor where she lives. The roommate's behavior was also suspicious, since when she came into my room she went right for the note and said it had been written by her roommate, so why don't we come up and meet her? and she kept pushing me to talk to Eve once we got up there when it was obvious that Eve was perfectly happy playing WOW and ignoring everyone.

I smelled a rat, and sure enough a quick glance around the room told me that the roommate's handwriting matched that of the writing in the note.

Ah-hah. So, basically I was stereotyped into being a geek (I am, but not that kind of geek) and set up with someone. I sort of appreciate the gesture and can understand why the roommate did that, I don't appreciate being lied to and being manipulated. That's a surefire way to piss me off.

So, next time I see the well-meaning roommate I will make clear that while I understand what she was trying to do and that it had good intentions, do not do that again.

One reason this made me a bit angry is that while I know that I value privacy, and though I may appear to be the person who never comes out of their room (see several posts back when I was worried about that) since then I have managed to meet several people already and know when I need human company, and in fact Jen just called me back (she's lost somewhere in Cambridge and I helped her figure out where she was). However, you can't force someone to come out of their shell, and manipulating others to make someone do that is not cool.

Mystery solved, but I'm actually not as pissed as I could be. At least there was good intent behind an otherwise stupid plan.

The plot thickens

Apparently this whole "Eve" mess is because roommate K and Eve's roommate want to move in together. They deny writing the notes (which I've compared and they have nearly the exact same wording) but that aside they are basically manipulating the two of us (including one trying to bribe me) into moving in together when both of us have made clear that this is not something we are comfortable with. And further more, remember how I mentioned I hate being manipulated? They broke the rule, and now anything they say will be taken with a giant heap of salt.

Eve and I talked and came to the same conclusion, mainly that we think this stinks, so we are dragging at least one RA into this, and I'm keeping the evidence of the notes from "us", and have scanned them into my computer just in case I lose the originals.

Protip: Never try this shit on a Criminal Justice major. I can and will see through this. I also have a gut instinct that I trust, and unfortunately it once again turned out to be right about this whole mess.

Fun on a rainy day

I'm very glad that I'm inside and several stories up right now, since Tremont St. looks like an tributary of the Charles River from out the window.

Earlier we were swapping weather horror stories while having dinner, and I think being in Northern Russia in February has prepared me for anything. But at least snow can be packed down, while rain just gets everywhere. This weather here is supposed to be over by tomorrow morning, but it is wet out there!

Jen and I did end up going to Faneuil Hall, and though it was pouring and we got soaked we had fun. She's a big Red Sox fan, and inside Faneuil Hall we found a place that sold photographs, and she bought one of Jonathan Papelbon, the player she loves. The lady who was there was also very nice, and I realized that Boston really has a lot of Ireland influence at least in how people act. I also got some stamps, and FYI Mom the Suffolk decal is in the mail now for you, so you'll probably get it Monday.

We then went to the new Newbury Comics over there, which literally opened yesterday, because she'd never been in there. We had a good laugh at the stuff in there, and looked around the other shops before heading back. As we were getting back into the T my horrible luck with umbrellas once again manifested, as it exploded when I tried to close it. I apologized profusely, but she said it was okay. It meant that we both got even wetter, but I was more mortified that it had happened again.

I now have a bit of a headache (probably from the rain and the atmospheric changes), but I'm rereading some of my philosophy notes and in general hanging out here. Not sure what I'm doing tomorrow, but I'll think of something. I sort of want to go to the New England Aquarium, but the tickets look a bit expensive. Still, I want to see penguins!