Brian's World

New Directions

I don’t blog a whole lot about the inner workings here at RPI because usually I don’t care, or I don’t think there is much if anything I can do.  In this instance, I kind of care but I also recognize there is little I can do… so I’ll write about it.

RPI has been changing a lot of stuff lately, mainly things related to living on campus.  I live on campus, and there is a pretty high probability I’ll be doing so next year, so I certainly care about the subject.  I can’t say I feel some strong bond to live on campus.  BARH does not count as ‘close to campus’, and don’t say that I have a dining hall in my building… because I’ve never dined there.  Nor have I enjoyed the new Sage dining hall, I walk to Commons when I’m hungry.

I hear RPI is changing the compensation package for RA’s to no longer cover full room + meal plan.  I don’t like that idea.  No, I don’t think my RA deserves to be compensated above and beyond the call of duty, but if they are required to live on campus and eat on campus than those aspects should be compensated.  Whats next? Will my RA be commuting or living off campus to do their job?  Maybe they’ll have to sneak into the back of Commons like the other hoodlums because they are financially unable to pay for a meal plan.  This sounds pretty sketchy to me, and I’m all for cutting corners with these sorts of things.

Additionally, there have been rumors that living in a residence hall will require a meal plan?  Garbage!  I live in BARH and hate the fact I’m require to have special meal plans.  The dining area is now walled in, so you can’t just walk in… and I’ve never eaten there.  Last semester, it was not possible for me to eat breakfast in a dining hall, and I would have liked a meal plan to reflect that.  This semester, I’m eating breakfast in commons everyday, so I should be paying a little more I guess.  I know, I know.  I could life off campus and save X thousands of dollars, but its really the principle of the matter to me.  I wouldn’t be opposed to a declining balance idea, or a # of meals a week idea, but this I’m going to pay out the butt to eat as many meals as I want in a certain time period… and oh yea, you’re going to be required to do that.. just upsets me.

Of course the “Residence Life” and “Dining Services” portion of the university, a place where you’d think students are involved in these sorts of decisions, seems to run more like the Gestapo.  I will likely recieve confirmation of these changes when its too late, however I have recieved 18 notices that I can stack sugar cubes in the B Wing lounge tomorrow night.  Lets all just pretend things are happy.

The impression this ‘new direction’ for student services here at RPI remind me vaguely of the new direction for greeks that they tried to push down 3-4 years ago.  While I can’t say I’m extremely familiar with it, I can say that we as people who live on campus are orders of magnitude less organized and less coordinated.  I’m not sure how sucessfully we, and really I mean everyone but me because I don’t care enough, can be at making a stand against this.  I doubt we could pack DCC 308 and design catchy shirts to draw attention to the cause.

In other news this weekend was Valentines Day, one of my top 10 least favorite holidays.  I don’t know where it falls on the list, but its pretty high.  No, Katie always does a wonderful job making a super day, but I don’t believe that there should be a designated day in February where everyone should express their love.  Why can’t I choose to express my love for someone in July, I tend to be less busy then.. or maybe September, I think the leaves could be more romantic than melting snow and slush.

Mainly I decided that there is a solar system, a bunch of planets orbitting a central body.  I am one of those objects, kind of like pluto, who’s orbit is so huge and crazy that people aren’t really sure if I’m part of the solar system or not.  I’ve found that people are far more likely to identify the passing asteroid as part of the solar system than planet brian.  Normally I would be like ya know what planet-self, I’m cool enough as it is, lets just keep doing our own thing.  Unfortunately I’ve found that plan to be unsufficient.  There have been times where planet brian intentionally goes out of his way to orbit closer to the predicited position of other planets, just to find them not there.  Statistically not what I was hoping for, but I make due.  Pluto is also a small planet, which may indicate size is an interesting factor to be considered.  I guess my decreased mass means I have the least pull (aka gravitational effect) on other planets and celestial bodies, which seems pretty fitting.  Sometimes I’m in the books as being a planet, sometimes I’m not.  Ya know?  If you’ve only got 8 lines you’re not going to shrink your font size down, your just going to leave out Pluto.

I also operated the coaches camera at hockey this weekend.  The tripod was made of wood, and in turn produced very poor footage, specifically when I had to move, which was kind of often.

Good night moon.