Return of The Night Stalker!

School has started. Before this week, we've pretty much been on the most extended vacation of my life, not having been in school since December 11th, it was tough having to get back to the grind.  I had my first class Monday night, and though it was interesting, I'm not quite sure I want to continue in it.  For one, the teacher absolutely does not know what she's doing, and has problems explaining things so that the class understands.  Secondly, it's Textiles: Print, which is not printmaking, but rather printing on fabric.  And the entire class is about florals, so I feel like it is much more fashion oriented.  I've looked into it, and only taking three classes while over here (a normal course load in Aus, because each class is 6 credits rather than 3) I'll still be able to finish up at Columbia on time. So I'm still thinking about doing that.  My class on Tuesday is Aesthetics of Industrial Design, which I think is going to be really interesting.  We already have our first project, which is researching the development of a particular product over time, not in terms of functions, but rather design and style, and why it has changed; whether it be technology, demand, etc.  We're working in pairs, and my partner is a guy named Nick, who is a mech. engineer at Cornell.  We decided to be partners because he lives in UniLodge as well, and would make it much easier to coordinate working together, considering a lot of the people in the class commute to school everyday, some as far as an hour away. Anyways, we pulled our product and got Decor Kitchen Accessories, neither of us knew what this was.  Our professor explained to us that it's like Tupperware, "but a much better version!"  We started doing some research, and couldn't find too much back info on containers and all that, but did find a lot of information about a BYO Wine Chiller. Sidenote, they use BYO a lot here, a lot of people were shocked that you could bring your own drinks into restaurants here, but I didn't find it too crazy since there are actually a lot of BYO restaurants in Chicago nowadays.  So the plan is to do the research and project using soley the wine chiller. Should be fun.  I have two more classes, one Thursday and one Friday. 

Today is Ash Wednesday, so Emily and I are planning on going to get ashes later on at St. Mary's.  I think that maybe a couple other people are coming with us as well.  I'm still debating what I'm giving up for lent.  Emily and I had a plan to rather than give something up, try something new everyday, so that might be an idea.  But I'll figure it out by the end of the day obviously.

So now let me explain the madness that happened last night.  I think I've mentioned before someone I like to refer to as The Night Stalker.  Well, he's back.  We were getting ready to go out to Scruffy's last night (after Broadway Cafe, obviously. I may give up pizza actually!) and the Night Stalker decided to make another appearance.  I can't recall if I explained this man to you, but I'm going to do it again to refresh. He is HUGE, with a bald head and a weird patch of hair on the back of his head, and tattoos all up and down his massive arms.  Pretty much he is the epitome of intimidating.  Since the first time he scared the crap out of all of us, we've been keeping the door to whatever room we're in closed.  Apparently he doesn't care. Last night he decided to come down with a baseball bat, and slam it on the frame of the door and then proceeded to swing it around at Luke, not actually hitting him, but most definitely threatening him.  He then went back up to the fourth floor and got into a screaming fight with Luke, telling him he was some exorbitant amount of  of kilos of raw testosterone.  It's clear the guy is not in the right mental state. Oh and I believe he also told them he was 37 years old, living in student housing? He accused Luke of being loud in "his" country...just madness.  Luke had called the police right after it happened, but they were not showing up, so I decided this was not ok, and went down to find security, who really did not do much, I just explained to him what was happening, and he wrote it all down. He told me he knew the guy that I was referring to, and that they'd had previous problems with him.  He later revealed (under confidentiality...) that this guy was a tenant/owner, in other words, they really couldn't do much about him until they had something on him.  I pointed out that threatening people with a baseball bat could be thrown into this category, and he agreed but didn't do much.  Though I'm sure that as soon as my mother reads this she'll make sure that something happens...  The police ended up never showing up, or maybe they did, but we decided to go out since we didn't feel like staying at UniLodge with the crazy, and the security guard told us they probably wouldn't show up, or if they did, it wouldn't be for hours.  And at this point it was already 12:30, so we just wanted to have a good time. Took a cab to Scruffy's, and came in contact with our first cab driver who knew where he was going, and he drove fast! Perfect guy, Julia even tipped him even though tipping is not customary in Australia. The Gumal girls had dipped out of UniLodge as all the madness was happening, so we ran into them there, but then lost them again. We also ran into Steven and Ameet, who were just arriving as well, and so we hung out with them for awhile. Once we'd had enough we decided to mosey on home, and ran into two really nice guys from Ireland who we talked to for awhile. Then stopped at the only place that was open at that hour, McDonalds, which I honestly do not like, but ate anyways because I was hungry. Moral of the night, don't piss off Night Stalker! 

Since I don't have class today, the plan is to do some laundry and clean up my room.  I have a doctors appointment later today too because I've been sick for awhile and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, and I'm tired of sounding like a raspy old grandpa.  I'm planning on finishing up a website that I was working on as well, and then going to church.  The plan is to take it easy for the next few weeks, hopefully that will get me feeling better. Welp, time to clean the room! 

Oh and just to put everyone at ease, a surfer was attacked by a shark at Bondi earlier this week...I suppose I'll be staying out of the water on future trips?  I think he was really far out though, so could be his own fault...

Cheers