The Kids Are Back in Town!

Well we have had over 8500 students move onto campus in the past 8 days, and boy has it been a rush.  This is my third opening at UNC, and my 8th overall, and I feel like there's been at least some improvement each year.  But one thing that never changes are the influx of parents and students bringing with them the same questions, no matter how obvious we make the answer on our website.

Case in point, "When can I move back in?"

Me: "As early as Wednesday, August 18th, or any day after."
Them: "So what about Thursday?"

Me: <speechless>

And schools are becoming much more direct with the separation of students and parents, and forcing it to happen earlier.  I fully appreciate this movement, as the longer a parent stays around the more complaints or requests I get that simply cannot be accomplished.  We've learned that parents generally are much more needy than the students, which is interesting since it's the student that lives on campus.  But sure enough, if the parent remains on campus for more than a day someone on our staff will hear from them about an improvement that is needed for their perfect student to achieve greatness.

We've always called these people "helicopter parents" for their nature of hovering.  But yesterday I heard a new term, "velcro parents."  I think that adequately describes their tendency of sticking to their students in an almost annoying fashion.

Don't get a me wrong -- I know that parents and students are my job.  But sometimes I wonder if we all just take a few seconds to think about what we're asking if stress can be eliminated -- especially since I get the same question 15000 times!

HUGE

I'm not sure why ABC Family has been off my radar for so long, but now that my busy season at work has ended I have a little time to catch up on shows via Hulu.  One show I decided to give a try is called HUGE, about a fat camp which puts together Nicki from Hairspray fame and other kids who are battling more than just their weight.

It's an interesting show, although I doubt it'll be around for long because it's a little slow and has had next to no publicity.  But if you're in the mood for social issue exploration masked by comedy then give it a try, I'm sure you'll like it.

New Computer

Well, I've finally taken the time to build a custom computer.  It's a work in progress, but it's definitely shaping up to be what I really wanted.  I gave my old computer to my mom, and thus the old, old computer I had once given to her is now going to charity for another family to use.

My new system includes a 2.9Ghz quad-core AMD processor, 4 GB of RAM (soon to be upgraded to 8), a decent graphics card (soon to be upgraded), a 1TB hard drive, and a blu-ray drive (thanks to the Swanstroms on my birthday!).  It'll allow me to do more video and graphics designs that I've wanted to embark upon for a while now without waiting painful hours for rendering.  Not to mention, I can also play some cool video games I've been missing out on.  I'm very excited.  Stick around and I'll share my projects as they are created!