Pics - Looking Back (Summer MA)

Now that the summer's over, I thought I'd look back at my summer MA days and reminisce of good times. As summer MA's, we all worked together, at least 5 days a week from morning to night for over 3 months, and lived right next to one another. When it was all over, we barely see each other anymore. We have different majors, live in different places, work in different departments, and hang out in different areas.

I see Kevin at least once every week because we're in the same PSYC (RA) class, and Cliff at least twice a week because we're in the same Computer Science class. The rest of my summer MA team, I never saw them since we all moved out and school started. It was a little weird, but like most things in life, you get use to it.

We love riding around on our carts. Kevin and Agnes pushing the cart with Clifford on it.

And we enjoy jumping around on top and between towers of mattresses. [Kevin & Greg]

Resting on an old couch while waiting for the truck to come by to take the couch to the storage area... [Matt & Agnes]

Inspecting the current condition of the couch... It wasn't comfortable to sit on. [Agnes, Matt, Kevin & Joe]

CA's (Conference Assistants) Odessa & Chinonso staring at the watermelons growing in the Harbor Hall courtyard

The 2 watermelons that came out of nowhere...

Matt taking a nap on top of the desk on the truck, at the same time, getting a tan.

Everyone's tired from lifting and carrying heavy furniture all around different dorms and up to 3 floors without elevators.

A fourth of the desks we had to move to 3 different dorms and to every floor in each dorm. There are more of them and they're very heavy.

Kevin pushing 2 desks at the same time from one end of the hall to another.

Elk 3rd Floor Balcony

One of my favorite thing to do after work is hang out with friends / other summer staff and talk about how good or bad the day was. There's no better way to unwind than to be with great company. Starting this afternoon and for the next 24 hours, I'm on duty. I can't go anywhere outside of Residential Life premise. Fortunately, other cool summer staff, my favorite CAs suffer the same fate as I. They too have to work the desk or be on duty at some point in the next 24 hours. Misery truly loves company.

Hillside 3rd Floor Balcony After Work
Chilling with other summer staffs and fellow Resident Assistants (RA), discussing about work, hall decorations and themes, the managers, schedules, tennis, textbooks, the resource room, and more. Good times!

Erica, my roommate - I've lived with her for the past 2 months, and I just found out she's a writing tutor. Now I know where to go to get help with my papers.

Sweet Chidyyy, sitting outside of my apartment - She's a sweet girl.

Amanda, sitting outside her apartment, which is right beside my apartment. She's not really in a good mood at this moment in time because of Abhinav. He said something that made her angry, and she hasn't been feeling well the past few days.

Abhinav - He dares to climb up on anything that's climbable, like a monkey, but plays it safe in poker. I learn a lot about Indian culture from him.

Sitting outside of our apartments on the 3rd floor balcony of our building. The weather was awesome too, so that's a plus.

Pics - Philadelphia Weekend

A few pictures from Taan's camera....

Some guy giving out free hugs at Love Park

Love Park and the fountain thing in the back

A random wall mural on Market street

The Athena statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Duty Weekend

Last weekend, I went to Philadelphia and had lots of fun. This weekend, I'm stuck here on-campus working. It's been pretty slow today, but we're expecting a really busy day tomorrow. I can't wait. I'd actually much rather be busy than be bored, doing nothing but watch Buffy the whole day.

This week was packed with activities other than work. I finally went to gym with Malcolm. He designed this work-out plan for me based on my goals. He showed me and explained to me (in great details) every single exercise from bench press to a cardio work-out on the treadmill. I was in pain for days, but it felt good. I'm hoping to do this regularly just so I can get in shape and stay in shape.

Right after working out, Yan called to watch a movie, so I rushed to get to the mall. We watched the new Harry Potter movie. It was kind of boring and slow, but it was still good. I'm just not a fan, but I can watch it. Right after that, we watched Transformer, which was awesome. It was so good, that I might just watch it again. Malcolm's already called me to watch it again next week because it was so good and he loved it too.

We got out of work early the next day, and I decided to drop by MoCo. I dropped by to see Taan, and we went to the Montrose Starbucks for a little bit and met up with her friends. It been a while since I've been there, and I used to hang there all the time with Pat and JP checking out cars and bikes. Good times.

Right after I left MoCo, Yan called to stop by and show her how to burn DVDs, so I did that. I got to bed really late, which has been the case the past weeks. I think I'm getting used to it now. I'm not as tired the next day as I used to be. I guess it's good because I'm preparing myself for the Fall semester, which is going to be very busy for me. I probably won't get to sleep that much with my schedule. Yay, I'm excited. Haha.

Philadelphia, Water Balloons & more

A Weekend in Philly

I was in Philadelphia this past weekend with Taan and her friends. It's a really nice city with a lot of history and character to it. I wasn't able to explore as much, but at least now I know where to go and how to get there. I feel much more confident about driving around there now. The weekend was really hot, and there was a lot of walking involved, but I had fun and enjoyed my time there mainly because of the company. ^_^

It's been awhile since I've been to Philly. I've only been there 3 times, and this is the 4th. The first was with Pat and JP to check out the Hot Import Nights car show, then to check out Live 8 in 2005, and lastly to see Katie Melua in concert at the World Music Cafe. I'm definitely going back to Philly soon. Besides, it's only a couple of hours drive.

One thing I was very surprised about Philly was the number of homeless people in the city. I felt sad seeing the sights of them sleeping under the shade of trees in the parks, and sitting beside the streets and sidewalks. And I appreciated the efforts of the people who did a food giveaway the Saturday we were there. It was thought provoking and eye opening.

TPs, Mints, and Football
It was a slow day at work today. We didn't have that many things to do. A few work orders here and there, and blitzing Potomac went pretty fast. We passed time by chatting with the CAs who were prepping Potomac, playing go-fish card game, and playing catch with a bunch of toilet paper. We also managed to "acquire" a huge bag of mints. We now have a full supply of mints for the whole summer.

I also came across a room full of boxes of brand new football shoulder pads, Gatorade, and new deflated footballs. Apparently, the football camp who checked out a few weeks ago, left them there and never informed us about it. More free stuff! So if anyone needs football shoulder pads, there's a huge stash in the storage closet.

Dinner and Ice Cream

Matt treated me to dinner at Carrabba's. He owed me dinner for helping him out with that Chesapeake flood a few weeks back. It's about time he buys me that dinner. Good food! Then, we went for ice cream with his roommates. I found out 2 of his roommates live in the city as me. Milestone area!

Water Balloons and Cows

After work, Abhinav, Amanda, and Sam strategically positioned themselves at the top floor balcony of the Elk building outside our apartment and started throwing water balloons at everyone at the bottom passing by the Elk building. There were a lot of victims, and I was one of them. Thankfully, it was the end of the day, so no worries about going to work dripping wet. That Abhinav can definitely throw. His aim was pretty accurate.

A plan to have a water balloon fight came up, and the tentative plan is to do it on Amanda's birthday, which is in two weeks. It'll be like a party / celebration, except for without the cakes, and instead, we'd have soakers, water guns, water balloons and more. Fun stuff!

The conversation moved on to Cows being holy and sacred in India. I think that's where that expression "Holy Cow" came about. Hhmmmm... And growing up playing with mini-dynamites and fire crackers, and playing pranks on cow in the middle of street in the city. Why there are cows roaming around randomly in the city is beyond me. It must be fun growing up in India.

Fun, weird, and interesting stories are endless with these summer staff people. ^_^

July 4th, Chili, Poker & more

July 4th - US Independence Day

We didn't have to work on the 4th of July, but I was scheduled to be on duty that day. I never really got the day off. It was also raining, so I didn't get to see any fireworks. Although, I think it was postponed. Hhmm.... I stayed in the whole day and watched Buffy. I know, lame, but it was relaxing, and I didn't get any calls at all. Super!

Weekly MAs Game / Movie Night

I went grocery shopping with Greg and Kevin right after work on Thursday. We were getting stuff for our get together in the evening. I ran into someone I haven't seen in years at the local Giants store. I saw Doanh there from CLC. She looked the same, and she was pretty chatty about what she's doing now. That was pretty random and cool.

Kevin made his famous specialty - his Cincinnati Chili. It was really good. I brought in some MD (Mad Dog). It was good, but it was strong. We were going to watch "Stranger than Fiction" but ended up playing poker until 1am. I lost because I suck. Haha. Thankfully, we weren't playing for real money. We were considering playing for Duty calls, but that wasn't fair. I'd probably end up with duty for a whole month and no day off at all. Bad idea!

(Kevin cooking his Chili. It's actually done, he's just mixing it.)

Jane, my identical twin (a fact we established at last week's movie night, because all Asians look the same and are related to each other somehow... right), won the poker game and took home all the chips (figuratively speaking).

We're not busy at all

Here I am again, blogging in the middle of the day. Technically, it's our lunch break, but Agnes already sent us back to our apartments at 10am, because we didn't have anything to do this morning. We came into work at 9am, and we're done at 10am. I still think it's one of the best job ever. ^_^

(Kevin, Agnes, Gregg - Trying to find something to do this morning)

And we finally got our free bags. It's very convenient. So much better than the MA tool bags, which were too heavy to take everywhere with me. The cheerleaders have also checked in. My cousin's one of them. They haven't really caused much trouble, which is awesome. Their counselors and coordinators also gave us a lot of free stuff for helping then out. Free stuff includes: deodorant, body mist, tampons, shampoo and conditioner, shaver, etc. All from sponsors of the cheer and dance camp. I love free stuff.

Busiest Work Week So Far

Last week was the busiest we've been at work so far. We had all buildings open, and conference and camp attendees living in all the dorms. The night I was duty was the busiest I've ever been since I started working. One group had over 500 people, so I was working from morning till late at night. I didn't even get to eat dinner, but the best part was that this man saw how hard working we were, he decided to buy us dinner. So we got a free late night dinner of Chinese food.

A little explanation of what a summer staff does....

During the summer, when the dorms are empty, they are converted into a hotel-like housing service. Conferences and camps would rent out the rooms, and the summer staff would be in charge of making sure they get what they need - towels, linens, soap - and also see to it that everything works fine - running water, working toilet and A/C, lights, etc.

The summer staff is divided into 3 teams - Conference Assistants (CA), Maintenance Assistants (MA), and Project Assistants (PA). I'm an MA, so my job is to make sure everything is working fine. We fix minor damages in all the dorms and apartments - plumbing, lights, furnitures, HVAC, and more. The CAs deal with the customer service part of the job. They check people in and check people out, they work at the front desk of each building, and they prep rooms - making beds, making sure there are towels, soaps, toilet papers, etc. The PAs work on different projects throughout summer - basically, they do a lot of painting of rooms and patching holes in the walls.

Throughout the summer, we would have a lot of groups coming in and out. Last week we had a Native American Conference with over 800 people, Tennis camp, Boys Lacrosse camp, Girls Lacrosse camp, Meyerhoff Scholars, Upward Bound, Honors College Scholars, and more. In the next weeks, we would have cheerleading camps, soccer camps, and more academic and athletic groups come in. So it is a busy summer.

The big groups from last week had already checked out, so the dorms are cleared and empty, except for one. This week has been pretty mellow so far, but then again, it's only Monday. Unfortunately for me, I'm scheduled to be on duty this July 4th, and more groups are coming in a few days. I'm just hoping to see some fireworks on the 4th. I'll have to strategically find a nice location where I can see the fireworks. A few people already gave me some locations with nice views.

Chesapeake Flood

Why am I online and posting random stuff at 10 AM, when I should be at work around this time. Well, we didn't have to do right now, and I'm on call, so I'm just waiting for people to call me to fix stuff. Agnes was nice enough to let us retreat to our rooms and do whatever, as long as we keep our radios on. I love my job. ^_^

The part of my job I don' t like that much is when there's a major flood. My first flood was in Chesapeake Hall. The basement community room of the dorm was flood after a major rainstorm. We worked all night to vacuum all the water out. It was interesting.

Randomness 6/27/07

* Advanced cardio exercise for a beginner - I had to escort and unlock doors for the fire extinguisher inspector as he check for every single extinguisher in every single apartment room on campus. We had to go through West Hill, Hillside, and Terrace. West Hill has 6 buildings, each building has 2 set of stairs on both ends, each building has 12 apartments, and all are 3 floors up. That's just West Hill. Now it doesn't sound too bad, but if you have to go up and down over 30 staircases in 3 hours non-stop and not to mention going up and down the hills of UMBC, that's a work out. I actually felt awesome afterwards. I felt like I was in better shape in just 3 hours.

* Movie and game night with the MA's - We packed into the guys' apartment to watch a movie. Gregg got us free pizzas from where he works (Domino's), and Kevin set up his movie projector and surround sound speakers (awesome stuff). We watched "Back to the Future - Part 1", and right after the movie, we decided to play some cards - Apples to Apples. Before we know it, it was already 2 AM and we had to get up early the next day for work. Let's just say, we weren't very efficient nor energetic at work. Good times!

* Yarn shopping with Matt - Matt's going to knit me a hat for me in time for winter. We went to the Yarn Shop to buy some yarn, so he can start knitting. Being the president of the craft club, he's pretty good at knitting.

* Buffy the Vampire Slayer - I'm currently wasting my time watching Buffy from the very beginning until the end. I'm actually enjoying it a lot, and the show's pretty good. I just finished season 1, and I'm working on season 2 now.

A New Year & A New Post

It took almost a year, but an update is finally here. Since I'm currently on summer vacation, I figure this would be the best time to start posting again. There are no exams and homeworks to worry about and to prepare for. I have work and that's it. I'm working on campus right now, and getting free on-campus housing too. How cool is that? No rent! One less thing to worry about for the next 3 months.

I'll be blogging about random stuff throughout this summer. Mostly about work because I spend almost all of my time at work anyway. Here's a preview of what we do at work.....


Team meeting in our office or shop (the MA Shop - Maintenance Assistant's Shop) - Me & Agnes (our manager), and Matt's feet in front of us


Is this what we do at work everyday??? No, we actually do real work sometimes. Haha. (Gregg & Cliff taking a nap)