True Life...

I'm an RA.

I'm telling you, MTV needs to make a show about the life of an RA becuause it is never short of entertaining! For example, Thursday night I was on call. Since Thursdays are the busy the busy nights, my building (which is huge compared to the others) had two RAs on call these nights. So Vicky and I are hanging out at the front desk around 9:30. One of my residents comes in with a massive bloody red spot on his forehead. We couldn't tell if he was playing a joke on us or if it was real so we asked him if it was. He didn't know what we were talking about and touched his head, at which point the cut on his head began gushing blood all down his face and chest. And what does he say.."I guess I'm bleeding" and walks into the bathroom. At this point we are in shock and are trying to get him to come out so we can figure out what to do. Vicky calls the hall director on call and explains the situation. She comes over and brings campus police to have their opinion if he needs stitches or not. He's shaking so I make him sit and show me the cut. It's pretty deep and he definitely needs stitches. He asks for a band-aid... I make him call a friend for a ride to the hospital. His friends doesn't believe him so I get on the phone with her and tell her his head is gushing blood and he needs stitches! They leave for the hospital and Vicky and I go back to our night.

The whole week it had been raining and there is practicaly no drainage on the front lawn of our building so it becomes a massive swamps whenever it rains. around 12:30, I was on a round of the building and was on the ground floor, which is the basement. I'm going up the stairs and the wall is leaking water. Yes, the walls have water pouring down them. The water was coming out of an electrical outlet, pouring down into a light fixture and into an emergency phone! So I'm standing there with another RA thinking what the heck do I do now?! I call the HD on Call who after a ten minute discussion about the walls leaking water decides to come over. Then we called campus police to send someone to look at it. So there are five of us standing there not really sure what to do, because really, when do your walls ever start leaking? Only in New Hall... After we call in a maintenance person to come in I'm on my way up to my room on the 5th (top) floor. In the hallway my room is on, there is a missing ceiling tile and rain, pouring into the hall. the puddle has taken over the hall and the rain is still coming. For this one I was able to get a bucket underneath to catch the water. As I'm mopping the hallway I am cursing the part of our Resident Assistant contract that we all sign saying "responsible for other duties as assigned."

These other duties as assigned are always the crap you would never think you would have to do. and your boss always loves throwing that phrase around. Like the time Joie had us move her old bureau out to a dumpster, I told her that wasn't in my job description and she shot back with "other duties as assigned" Oy.

So in the end, I went to bed at 4am. just another typical night as an RA at RIC :)