The Wednesday Post

I—self appointed Tiny House guru of Champlain College—am finally building a house on campus, which is cool, but harder than I could have imagined when we started this project (if I even could have imagined anything about what it is like to build a Tiny House) . Being a student activist who wants to help other people become student activists, I’m going to tell you what it is like to stand in the culmination of all the work I have put into planning this sustainability week. It is a complicated place, because it is the intersection of my two lives: the “college student doing finals and making summer plans” life, and the “eco-hero of the week “life.

6:45 AM: My alarm goes off in the middle of one of those dead sleeps where I realize later that I may not have moved (even a little) for the whole night.
7:00 AM: A bowl of Kix and a bowl of Frosted Cheerios for breakfast. Yessss…
7:13 AM: Shit! I have to leave. Must catch the 7:25 bus, but my teeth aren’t brushed and my backpack isn’t packed.
7:17 AM: Teeth briefly brushed. Backpack packed.
7:20 AM: At the bus stop in record time.
7:21 AM: Oh. Actually the bus doesn't come until 7:35. No matter, I’ll do my homework while I wait…
7:30 AM: (on the bus) Can’t read with angry republican financial radio talk show in my ear. Oh well. 2/52 pages of reading complete.
7:45 AM: Arrive at Little House worksite in Hauke Courtyard. Randy (the carpenter helping us this week) works hard pounding nails, making measurements, and cutting wood with power tools. I stand around watching him, because I am unqualified to operate all tools in the world.
8:30 AM: Randy gives me a job to do!
8:31 AM: Job is hammering nails into wood.
8:32 AM: Randy chuckles while I hammer away (generally) in the direction of the nail and manage to pound it in about 1/8th inch with about 12 strikes from the hammer. This is the hardest wood I have ever pounded a nail into.
8:33 AM: Randy leaves me to struggle in privacy, which I prefer.
8:45 AM: Have learned to fear nails, because if you hit them at a weird angle when you first start pounding them in, they ping off in crazy angles at 1,000 times the speed of light.
8:46 AM: Ask Randy for safety glasses, which pleases him immensely, because he is the safety inspector on the construction site where he normally works.
9:00 AM: Every nail I hammer in brings me closer to safety.
9:30 AM: Caity arrives and is equally unskilled at hammers, which means it is funny instead of life threatening now.
10:00 AM: It’s funny, but still impossibly hard. I have lost about 20 nails to lightspeed pinging now.
11:00 AM: Have gone back to observing work instead of participating in it, which is where I feel most comfortable at the moment.
12:00 PM: Etc.

INTERMISSION

1:00 PM: Eating Yak meat at Rob William’s Vermont Yak Company presentation. The sun is shining and I am eating free food.
1:15 PM: Time to get to my class that started at 12:30…
1:25 PM: (In journalism class) Being asked questions about the student newspaper. I feel proud but also nervous and defensive about answering them.
1:26 PM: Come off sounding more defensive than proud.
1:30 PM: Class gets out early.
2:00 PM Another class.

INTERMISSION PART II: ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIES

3:08 PM: Class is not boring, I manage to sound intelligent after only reading two pages of homework, and we get out early. Yesss…
3:10 PM: Work at the seed-planting table. I love plants, so feel happy about helping people plant seeds in the sunshine.
3:30 PM: Asked by Chris Yoon and Connor to be in their Zombie movie.
3:31 PM: Get filmed walking into an elevator and screaming at Chris Yoon’s dead body. (No Chris Yoons were injured in the making of this movie.)
3:50 PM: Clean up and prepare to job search downtown.
4:10 PM: Inquire about summer work at Old Navy, Gap, Aeropostal, Bath and Body Works, and Famous Footware.
4:45 PM: Inquire about work at a little gift shop downtown where the girl at the counter says, “Let me get you an application,” and then proceeds to pull out a stack of 50 already filled out applications. Unable to find me a clean one, she prints another off and sends me on my way feeling less confident about the prospect of finding a summer job.
5:00 PM: Call mom to tell her about my job search.
5:15 PM: Bust out in tears on the phone over my nervousness about finding a job and guilt of wanting to pay to live in Burlington for the summer even though I don’t have a job yet. My deposit is due in two days if I decide to stay.
5:20 PM: Mom is calm and reassuring.
5:25 PM: Am all snuffly and puffy red-eyed in public, looking like an ultra-stupid idiot, but have at least stopped crying.
5:30 PM: Hang up the phone and decide to discreetly walk to the locker room to pick up my backpack, even though I look like a hurricane just hit my face.
5:31 PM: Run into my boss on the sidewalk. He is a very nice person, but I would rather not have run into him so shortly after the tear-busting incident.
5:32 PM: Escape by saying I had to go apply for a summer job. I hope he thought it was for a job as an actress in the crying scene of a Zombie video.
5:35 PM: See Lorelei with her shirt half on (everything was covered) in the locker room and run into her arms.
5:45 PM: Tell her my whole story. She cheers me up by telling me jokes and talking about this kid in a totally worse situation. I feel better.
6:25 PM: Get on the bus and go home.
6:45 PM: Get home and none of my roommates are there to greet me.
6:55 PM: Grab a fresh Pillsbury Homestyle Biscuit and my Spanish book and go next door.
7:00 PM: Tucker makes tacos while we discuss jobs, summer, and whether or not Peeps (like wine) get better with age. I also am semi-barely studying Spanish.
7:30 PM: Go back home and eat cod and carrots for dinner.
8:00 PM: Tell my roommates, Allyson, Carl, and Scott about how I won’t find a summer job and will die.
8:15 PM: Allyson finds me an ideal summer job about WRITING about TINY HOUSES, which are the two things I love most (not including any people who I love.)
8:15 and half a minute PM: Scream and kick the yoga ball hard because I am so happy.
9:00 PM: Start writing this blog.