The air conditioning system was broken at my university today. There was a heat wave. It got up to about 95 degrees and with the humidex it felt like 115. The workers who would fix the AC system... are on strike.

And also the worst, at times. But mostly the best.

Phobos and I both went to a really small college in the middle of Michigan, so it wasn't exactly the most exciting territory, but the people more than made up for it. The entire campus is no more than a fifteen-minute walk from one end to the other, and that's only if you stretch to the really out of the way student housing, so your friends and any cool activities going on are right there when you want them.

That's the thing I miss most. Chicago is great and there's plenty of stuff going on at any given time, but it's rarely on my doorstep, and my friends are scattered thirty minutes apart or more. Plus, I can't just turn up to something new and trust that most of the people present are friendly or have anything in common with me outside X thing, which makes it really nerve-wracking to make the effort to find the ones that are and do.

One particularly cool thing about my college, though, is that our gaming and anime club hosts an annual con in February, and this year Doug Walker (the Nostalgia Critic) is one of our guests. Check it out if you think you might like to go. Phobos and I will be there, and we'd love to see you. {= )

As for my job, I work from home, so not much to add there. I have a cat, though. He sleeps next to me on the couch while I work, and that's nice.

~Neshomeh

... but you did add a parenthetical (& workplaces), so maybe I can throw out some horror stories from my job at an industrial chemical company?

Like the part where we have a brand new plant for making bleach from chlorine gas, and people keep doing clever things like cutting into active pipes 'because it's quicker'?

Or the part where, for no reason whatsoever, one of our storage tanks decided to snap in half, fall over, knock over a second tank full of hydrochloric acid, and blow HCl fumes all over the nearby main road?

Ooh! Or the time we thought a test reaction would only heat the tank up to 60C (er, 140F, apparently), only we hadn't taken into account the fact that all the chemicals were going in through one small pipe, and accidentally set a 25 tonne tank rocking and rolling as the water boiled inside?

^_^ Chemistry is fun!

hS

I actually started at this university in the Spring quarter, so I've been cooling my heels here since the Summer quarter ended... and Fall quarter's at the end of the month. But my favorite thing about campus is the crows. They're everywhere and wicked smart and becoming quite friendly to me.

Really there are cool things all over though, and since I moved here from about 2800 miles East-Southeast, everything about the valley and town is new. Mostly the most awesome thing so far is the church, actually, which also hits "workplace" in a roundabout way - I started tentatively attending, then got informally adopted en masse by about 1/3 of the congregation, and then because I was having trouble finding a job and had nothing to do, I started working on the grounds.

And then, despite repeated warning to not work too hard/take it easy, I proceeded to get really intense about working the grounds, and started spending pretty much all day pulling weeds and wrestling bushes and fallen limbs. An awesome way to spend the summer... and also sort of an awesome way of eating all my time. Which is why I've not been around here as often. Still reading! Just a lot less energy to respond.

My favorite part of the university, though, is the newspaper. It's awesome and the folks are awesome and even though I'd rather be a reporter I'm gonna be assistant news editor starting Fall. It's all very exciting!

I've started my first year of grad school a few weeks ago. My school is in a very large city that attracts a lot of famous people, so there's always a lot going on. I think there's an X Factor audition today because I heard some people talking about it.

Peter S Beagle stopped by my school during the tour for The Last Unicorn movie. I've met him before and he is just the nicest person. If you like his work, definitely try to meet him if you can. He makes a lot of time for his fans and has some great stories!

Hmm. What else is interesting about my school?

There are a couple of bars on campus. I went to a small institution for my undergrad, so it's still amazing that this campus has so many food places. I spend most of my time in one building, so I don't really experience everything.

Does anyone else's school bookstores sell Hello Kitty plushes with your school's logo on a little shirt? I think they're adorable and I've bought them from my undergrad and grad schools. XD

It's a really crazy place, I'll just say that. It's not surrounded by much except a bigger university, but that just makes the area pretty nice and healthy by comparison, so I'll just leave that be.

As for my favorite part... I have two. The one is my current composition teacher (who's frickin' amazing at what he does), and the other is the electronic music room (which has a bunch of synthesizers plus a computer, keyboard, and hard drive full of all these awesome virtual instruments). So yeah...

...is really kinda boring. Except for the group of people that get together for medieval dancing and heavy fighting and what. They're pretty fun. :3

My last Uni was in the home of Rugby League (you can guess which sport we specialized in), and we had the Sir Patrick Stewart (AKA Jean Luc Picard, Charles Xavier etc etc.) as our chancellor, even better? I got to speak to him once (I then joked with my friends "Right that's it, that's all I came here for I'm leaving" and lo and behold I'm not there anymore.) We also had our own Games Studio that released games onto the Xbox Arcade and have a Canal running right through our campus (complete with a lock and the occasional barge).

That's just about it for my University besides the notorious bad weather, but that's England for you.

I feel really childlike compared to y'all. I'm in High School.

Anything cool? Well, We celebrated our school's 50 year anniversary. Oh, and it's located in a forest. No joke, for track, we used to go running on the trails in the forest...that our school is located in. It's also next to a power station. And there's a graveyard nearby...I feel a bit scared because GRAVEYARD.
Oh and one year during our recess, we swung on vines. Like Tarzan. I'm not kidding. We also got to explore the forest and trails for P.E and recess and fun. And we see deer a lot.
But I think the best part about my school is the teachers.I've known them for a while due to going to a small private school and the fact that some of them taught me in middle school. They are really dedicated to their jobs and a lot of them have talents/hobbies/occupations/etc. we wouldn't expect; my former Math teacher was a ballet dancer and choreographs the school's musicals, my Biology teacher was a Nurse and a Cheer leading coach. I had two teachers that loved Star Trek and many fandoms in general.
I guess that's all I've got. Kinda plain, but I like it.

I'm currently on my second week of my first year of high school, and so far, it's actually quite good!

For one, there is free (well, included in tuition) lunches that are good for you and very, very delicious, and also tea and bagels in the morning if you want. (It's a small school; about 400 including the teachers.)

Also the location's really pretty; it's in the Presidio, a forest-park-thing right near the Bay (I live in San Francisco) and everyone's very nice, including the teachers.

Lastly, it seems like half the school, at least, knows what fandom is, so that made me happy.

I rather like it.

-Aila

Damn kids! Get off my lawn!

Back in the 1880s, my university ran an experiment that became one of the foundations of relativity theory. They literally will not shut up about it- there's I think six or seven different plaques around campus, two named buildings, a small museum of the thing in the department of physics, and a fountain.

We also have one of the largest LARP games of "Humans versus zombies" in the word.

I still insist that the two are connected.