I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this blog already knows exactly why I'm writing this from Utah instead of Idaho, but in case someone missed the memo (because I am, after all, an award winner at not telling people things) I'm here because, well, I lost my job.
There isn't much of a story to tell, except a short and sad one. I was hired working part-time with the goal that I'd bring my case load up to full-time by early this year. At the time I was hired, the company was getting a lot of new clients. But over the summer, we lost clients right and left. I was willing to be patient because I loved my work, but-- you know how I kept joking about being dirt poor? That's because I was donating blood plasma twice a week to be able to afford both rent and groceries at the same time. And you know I have a history with that profession. (Though the place I went to in Boise was much more professional than where I had gone before, so it really wasn't so bad. A bit of poking and a couple of hours sitting in a chair playing a game on my tablet, and I came out with forty dollars-- my parents were more unhappy with the arrangement than I was.)
So I really shouldn't have been surprised when my boss had to come to the decision at the end of October that the company just didn't have enough business to sustain three therapists. I was upset to leave, of course-- I loved my job, I had amazing roommates and good friends, I'd just started some volunteer work with tutoring refugees at a local high school, and there were so many adventures I hadn't managed to get around to yet. I loved my clients, and I'd come to love the area. But I understood why it had to happen, and all in all it's probably for the best.
That gave me about two weeks to prepare my clients to switch therapists, find a replacement for my contract in my apartment, and get packed up to move home with my parents. The plan was to go home until I could find a job.
And, well, I'm still looking. Not very many places are hiring right now, and I've had a few promising leads turn out to be disappointments. Discouraging, to say the least. It's hard not to feel like I've lot of "adulting cred", now that I'm unemployed and living in my parent's basement. But now that the holidays are over, it's time that I start looking for, well, any kind of job, even if it isn't a music therapy job. At least something temporary that can pay for health insurance and gas while I try to find a job I can love.
Man, 2016 really cleaned me out. I had a great time, but I lost all my money, my job, and my car, not to mention having to move all my stuff three times in one year. Here's to hoping that 2017 is better.
So where does that leave this blog? Well, I have a few stories from my time in Boise that are still halfway written, and older stories that I think will entertain. Lately I haven't been getting out much, but I've still managed to have one very crazy adventure that I think will be the subject of my next post. So despite the hiatus, I'm not planning to walk away. After all, life doesn't stop being weird because you leave Idaho.
See you soon.
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Monday, August 8, 2016
Moving to Meridian is Actually Pretty Straightforward...Except when I'm in charge
Well, I'm pretty much moved into my new apartment. Unpacking went much faster the second time around, so if I keep up this trend of moving to a new apartment every month, by September I'll have It down to a science! (Please oh please let this not happen).
I was a little concerned about how we'd get everything from point A to point B. My parents were a little busy meeting my newborn niece, so there wasn't a great chance of them bringing the trailer up, and most of the people we asked about helping us had some kind of activity going on Saturday. Not to mention that Saturday is often my busiest day of working, but was the only day my other roommates could move. And while the old apartments had elevators of respectable size for transporting larger and heavier items of furniture, the new apartments have no elevators. Just three flights of stairs.
But moving the furniture was actually pretty simple. My roommate who was moving from the same place as me and I split the costs on renting a U-Haul trailer for a day, and the elders quorum presidents of both our old and new ward were able to scrounge up enough help that all the furniture was moved in a matter of a few hours.
The new apartment is brand new, so for the first couple of days nothing worked. The AC didn't work properly until it had been running for three days, we didn't have internet yet, the washing machine wasn't hooked up properly to the water, and the ice maker still isn't working. For these reasons, though my roommates moved in and stayed immediately, I opted to stay at the old apartments until my time was up. After all, I'd already paid for that wifi and AC. My bed was big enough I had to put it on the trailer, but my mattress is a memory foam one that came rolled up in a pretty small bag. I figured I'd keep my mattress behind and sleep on it on the floor until July 25th, move out day. Then I'd just roll it back up into the bag, stuff it in my car with a few other odds and ends, do some cleaning, and scram! Out of there with hours to spare.
My first problem came on the morning of the day in question when I attempted to roll up my foam mattress.
It didn't want to roll.
When it did, it was about four times the diameter the opening of the original packaging. I tried sitting, then laying, on the rolled up mattress to squish it down into shape, to no avail. Finally I turned to the internet for help.
Turns out you can't put a foam mattress back in the original packaging. You can vacuum pack it to take up a bit less space, but you'll never get it in that bag again. And trying risks damaging the layers of foam. Heck, leaving the mattress on its side for too long can damage the layers of foam, though the internet lacks unanimity on how long is too long.
But the moving van was long gone, and Sheila (my car) is not big enough to lug around a mattress. So I did the best I could.
Yes. I cannibalized the straps from the original packaging bag, and fastened it around my best attempts at rolling the thing up, by hooking the straps through the cheap carribeaner I use to keep my keys together. It barely held for the entire drive back to Meridian.
I'd planned out in advance how I'd make everything fit in the car, but with my mattress three times as big as I'd anticipated those plans got thrown out the window. Still, I was bound and determined to make everything fit, even if I had to drive with a box in my lap.
It didn't get quite that bad.
Next came clean up. I'd managed to get everything in the car by 11, so I figured an hour would be plenty of time to clean the apartment.
I started by vacuuming, using the vacuum I'd borrowed from my roommate-in-both-locations. I vacuumed the floor, the moulding, the walls, even the windowsill--and then, to my dismay, I ducked the ends of the cord to the window blinds into the end of the vacuum hose.
The little plastic caps managed to jam at an angle which made it impossible to just pull the cords out. Believe me, I tried. My next thought--I needed something long and skinny I could push through the house to dislodge the plastic caps. But everything was packed except a few pieces of cardboard. Oh, hey, cardboard, that rips, right? I tore off a long strip and ran it through the tube.
A bit of wiggling, a bit of creativity, and a few minutes later--I had the window shade cords AND a big piece of cardboard stuck in the vacuum hose!
Now I only had half an hour left, and I was starting to panic. Getting desperate, I went to the kitchen to borrow a knife so I could cut the cords--the only option I could see before me. As I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to saw through a pair of window cords, a sudden thought came to me: the knife in my hands was long, skinny, and, best of all--rigid.
So I spent another few minutes trying to use the knife to dislodge the cords. Turns out the knife wasn't skinny enough. But now I had new determination to find a solution less drastic than damaging the window blinds. So I borrowed a rattail comb from my roommate and finally, finally, I was able to remove the cords with a sharp tug.
So now I just had to clean the walls and Windows and mirrors in the remaining... 5 minutes until checkout.
It might not have been my most thorough cleaning job.
But, I turned everything in on time and hit the road.
Anyway, my new apartment is in the middle of nowhere. Heck, I can't even play pokemon go here, the little features don't even show up. I have to play:
While going grocery shopping
In line at the DMV
And when I visit the library.
So there is at least something to be said for making my errands more entertaining.
But anyway, I'm moved in and unpacked, and this may be further from everywhere exciting, but it's home now and not a bad one.
Sign I made for my door.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
House Hunters, Boise Edition, and Examining My Motives
I put a lot of time into finding apartments to check out for this newest batch of apartment hunting. My previous experiences helped a lot in avoiding the kinds of places that you needed to meet a certain poverty level to get or that had a three-year waiting list, and with so many places to look at, I was pretty confident I'd find somewhere in my budget.
I knew I wanted to stay in Boise--I've kind of fallen in love with this town, with the Greenbelt and all the interesting places to go and the beautiful trees everywhere-- but I was willing to move to another part of town if I had to. My first day of in-person apartment hunting was July 12th since I wasn't working that day and could dedicate the entire day to apartment hunting.
I started out in the North End. I was delighted for an opportunity to drive around there-- a lot of beautiful old houses in wonderful condition are in that part of town. This was not one of them.
I didn't end up visiting most of those places. Phone calls eliminated them quickly. But I scrounged up a few more apartments that had just gone on the market and were for sure available still.
Alas, I found that all of these places were very run-down and not really anything I felt appropriate to pay more than half my income to live in.
The above is a slight exaggeration; there were a few places I hadn't quite wiped off my list yet (like the apartment in the first video). But I was certainly feeling discouraged. Still, I came up with a few more places I could call, a few more listings I hadn't tried. Maybe a few of the more pricey (but not too much more) places were worth considering.
And then my one roommate fell in love with another place out in Meridian.
There's another girl in the ward who needs a place, so the two of them worked together to find The Franklin at Ten Mile--this fancy new place that's still under construction and features a website where all the "photos" are obvious computer renderings of the hoped for final project interspersed with random photos of people smiling. No, seriously, check out their website.
And while there are two bedroom apartments, getting three roommates would make a considerable difference in rent (putting the rent we'd each pay well below even my original budget). So my roommate proceeded to turn every conversation into an opportunity to try to convince me to move in with them. To her credit, it wasn't only the reduction in rent--we are friends, and she knew I was still looking. Still, I dug my heels in. After all, Meridian is not Boise, and has less trees and less biking areas and adds 20 minutes to many of my commute distances each way.
It got to the point where I was avoiding my roommate a bit. But despite my stubborn refusal, I wasn't sure I'd get a choice. Could I really afford to live where I wanted to live?
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| House Hunting Stage One! |
I started out in the North End. I was delighted for an opportunity to drive around there-- a lot of beautiful old houses in wonderful condition are in that part of town. This was not one of them.
I chalked this one up in the "maybe" column of my list and continued on.
The next few places seemed nice enough but didn't actually have any openings until well after I needed to vacate my current premises. Then I found a place that stopped me cold-- a beautiful sky-blue house on a fancy street. How the heck did something like that make it onto my list?
Well, I quickly figured out that it was the basement that was for rent, which explained a lot.
After walking out of there, I immediately called the company to see if I could turn in an application. Turns out someone bought the lease the day before I got there.
The rest of the day was filled with disappointment. Everywhere I went either had no available apartments or had apartments more expensive than I'd anticipated. Though I'd scheduled an entire day's worth of visits, by 2PM I was physically and emotionally exhausted and wasn't sure whether I was more likely to fall asleep at the wheel or start crying. I decided the wisest course of action was to go home and take a nap.
After I had recovered a bit, I wised up and started making phone calls to places instead, crossing off everywhere that I couldn't afford or that didn't have openings. I did make it out to one more lock box showing that evening.
I wasn't encouraged.
Now, meanwhile, my roommate was doing some searching of her own. She was determined to move to Meridian, since it's closer to her work, and was doing her best to persuade both me and the third roommate (the one who's lease is still good until May) to move with her. She very quickly found and fell in love with a townhome out there and turned in an application, willing to take the risk of paying the full rent if she couldn't convince two people to move in with her. I didn't really want to move to this place-- not because of any bad feelings towards her, but because of the fact that I had no desire at all to live in Meridian-- but I thought it was nice to have that as a backup if my efforts in Boise failed.
Well, the owner of the townhome called back to say that this house had a limit on unmarried adults who could live in it and they were wanting to rent it to a family. So, too bad about the $40 application fee.
Back to my apartment hunting in Boise-- while my first day was a disappointment, I did not give up. I decided that I needed to raise my budget for potential rent by $100, which made me wince since that meant looking at places that cost more than half of my current income. But I am supposed to be getting more hours as the year goes on, I could survive a couple of lean months until then.
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| House Hunting Stage Two--with an increased budget |
I didn't end up visiting most of those places. Phone calls eliminated them quickly. But I scrounged up a few more apartments that had just gone on the market and were for sure available still.
 |
| House Hunting Stage Three--and I'm getting a little concerned at how short this list is |
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| In retrospect, using a clear pin as a reference point for my current apartment isn't super helpful |
And then my one roommate fell in love with another place out in Meridian.
There's another girl in the ward who needs a place, so the two of them worked together to find The Franklin at Ten Mile--this fancy new place that's still under construction and features a website where all the "photos" are obvious computer renderings of the hoped for final project interspersed with random photos of people smiling. No, seriously, check out their website.
And while there are two bedroom apartments, getting three roommates would make a considerable difference in rent (putting the rent we'd each pay well below even my original budget). So my roommate proceeded to turn every conversation into an opportunity to try to convince me to move in with them. To her credit, it wasn't only the reduction in rent--we are friends, and she knew I was still looking. Still, I dug my heels in. After all, Meridian is not Boise, and has less trees and less biking areas and adds 20 minutes to many of my commute distances each way.
 |
| That itty bitty half a centimeter on this side of the map is about ten miles in real life |
Now, I usually try to keep things pretty light here. But sometimes bigger issues have to be addressed, like it or not, and depression is one of them.
Depression has been a part of my life for a long time, though it's only in the last couple of years I've been able to admit to myself that I needed help and start getting treatment. And I'm actually doing quite well, perhaps the best I have in a long time, at managing my symptoms. I take medicine that helps, and I've been learning more and more about figuring out which of my thoughts are rational or irrational and how to manage them.
Still, I get "moods", times where nothing is OK and about me least of all, and all of the stress and pressure I was under threw me into one. I spent some time crying in my room, unable to sleep until very late at night.
But I felt much better when I woke up the next morning. I sat in bed for a while, taking my time about getting up. I took a look at my notebook where I've been writing down all the addresses and phone numbers and rent and details.
And I realized I needed to move to Meridian.
It wasn't, understand, simply a matter of running out of options in Boise. I still had places to try. But that night of feeling broken put some things into perspective for me.
When I'd been so upset and angry the night before, the idea of accepting the offer to move to Meridian had felt like admitting defeat. Thinking about it more, I could see that I was getting attached to the idea of romanticized independence-- that's what adults do, right? They get their own place and they pay for it themselves and they find it themselves and they keep it running themselves and they don't need help ever because no needing help means that you are strong and successful. Right?
Yeah, no, that was being irrational.
And my roommate's persuasions had triggered some of my knee jerk reaction too. Now's not the time to get into that story (maybe later, this person will certainly show up in other stories), but there was a person who put me through a lot of emotional manipulation and abuse. I didn't recognize how much she had hurt me until after she was out of my life, but I did learn that I am susceptible to that kind of thing. So when a repeated argument focuses less on the logical reasons I should do something and more on how the desired action relates to my relationship with another person-- I get a bad taste in my mouth. It reminds me too much of what happens when those tactics go too far.
When I stepped away from my more irrational thoughts and feelings and considered my choice from that saner standpoint, I saw the one vital reason that I couldn't stay in Boise.
If I stayed in Boise, I'd be alone.
I mean, I'd make friends, of course. I've made some friends in my ward in the short time I've been here. But at night, after a long day, when I'm most susceptible to the demons that live in my brain, I'd be alone in my room every time.
I'm an introvert with social anxiety, so it's very easy for me to be a "hermit". Don't get me wrong, some time alone is good for you. But too much is like a very weird drug; you hate it but you can't figure out how to stop. Being alone at home seems so much easier because there's no one to judge or reject you.
But dealing with mental illness sometimes means recognizing that the person who rejects you the most and judges you the most harshly is, well, you.
In college, I had a lot of lousy roommates. And a handful of absolutely wonderful ones. But during my first year of school, I was alone. The structure of the apartment meant I never saw my "roommates" unless we passed each other on the way to the bathroom. And that was the year when I went through the worst depressive period of my life. I just... I couldn't handle being that alone. I needed other people around to pull me out of my brain. Even lousy roommates were better than that lonely year had been. And when I had good roommates, that support system made a huge difference.
So, through that lens, my choice was pretty clear. I could spend a year living all alone in Boise, in a lousy apartment for a price I could barely afford. Or I could spend a year living with two girls I actually liked in Meridian, in a nice apartment for a price I could definitely afford.
So I swallowed my pride and asked if they'd still let me move in with them to Meridian.
I still haven't seen the place in person. We had an interesting time with the application process-- computer errors, it turned out, so it took them longer than expected to tell us and we still haven't signed the lease. But the application was accepted, and somehow (if we can manage to get everything up the stairs) we're going to move into this new place on Saturday.
Maybe in the future, I'll move back to Boise. With more time to anticipate the move, I could find roommates there and struggle less with the fact that a two-week window does not leave a lot of available apartments. But that's a good way into the future. For now, I have a place to live, and people to share it with. Maybe it isn't perfect, but it's enough.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Housing Update
Well, my very angry roommate just had a very angry conversation with the office, in which she found out that the lease renewal date is 60 days before the end of the lease. In other words, a week before I moved in.
I'm not as upset about this as my roommate who hadn't even bought the lease at that time and has only been living here for two weeks (meaning that she is getting kicked out with no warning from them after passing two month 'so rent for less than a month of actually living here) but the insistence of the office staff that they are in no way to blame for not saying anything is currently grating on the less forgiving part of my nature.
Look, I typically avoid naming anyone that I dislike or disagree with in this blog because that's a petty and unprofessional thing to do which does no one any good. But I am currently fighting the urge to say some truly nasty things about the incompetence and apathy of the employees here. I will restrain myself and only say that if you, anonymous reader, happen to be looking to move to Boise, don't go to Vista Apartments. They are not worth your money, or the headaches they'll give you.
When Adulting Is Not Enough
"Adulting" is a curious concept.
For those of you who don't speak millennial, "to adult" means to be successful at doing the things your parents took care of when you were a child. Such tasks include cooking, canning, arranging furniture, paying bills on time, and getting the oil changed on your car.
There's been a lot of adulting going on in my apartment this last week. We are all finally unpacked. I now have a beautifully arranged and organized bookshelf. Our shared living space has a pantry with shelves, a table and chairs (and a table runner!), a couch, and a nice stand for a television. We've been very proud of ourselves and our adulting, even branching out into such tasks as freezing fruit and baking patriotic-though-burnt pies.
But sometimes, our best efforts at adulting just aren't enough.
On Wednesday morning, I noticed an email from the office of my apartment building reminding residents that if they had not renewed their leases they needed to move out by 7/25 at noon.
Now, here's the thing. I'd bought my lease from a previous resident with only a couple of months left on the lease. Naively perhaps, I'd assumed that the office would contact me when it was time to renew this lease. So I found this email somewhat concerning and decided to stop by the office to find out what the process of renewing the lease was.
Well, upon entering the office I was informed that I'd already missed my chance and that after July 25th someone was already set up to move into my room.
The best I can figure out from contextual cues is that the window of time during which I could renew the lease ended just about the time that I actually moved into the apartment. No one in the office told me so at the time-- I'll let you decide whether that was due to absent-mindedness, lack of interest, or incompetence. And now, even if I wanted to move into another room at the same price, all of the four bedroom apartments are completely full starting in August.
Apparently, there is some possibility of my moving into one of the three-bedroom or studio apartments in the same building. However, those options are more expensive. And I can barely afford this apartment (read: I've been considering donating plasma to make ends meet until I get more clients, and you know how well that usually goes) as is. Not to mention, after dealing with a few messy pieces of red tape from this apartment complex I'm pretty certain I don't want to pay more money to keep receiving this high level of service.
So apparently I get to go apartment hunting. Again.
At least I had the thought to go to the office; this would have been a nasty surprise to receive on July 25th.
I broke the news to my roommates with ice cream. One of my roommates was sad on my behalf, noted with relief that her contract ends in May of next year, and offered to help in whatever way possible. The other roommate is furious, and only got angrier when she found out that she is almost certainly in the same boat as me.
As for me, I'm sort of bouncing between the extremes of angry-stressed-frustrated and optimistic-and-this-is-kind-of-hilarious. But I've got a few people to contact and about two weeks to find something, so hopefully this works out alright.
For those of you who don't speak millennial, "to adult" means to be successful at doing the things your parents took care of when you were a child. Such tasks include cooking, canning, arranging furniture, paying bills on time, and getting the oil changed on your car.
There's been a lot of adulting going on in my apartment this last week. We are all finally unpacked. I now have a beautifully arranged and organized bookshelf. Our shared living space has a pantry with shelves, a table and chairs (and a table runner!), a couch, and a nice stand for a television. We've been very proud of ourselves and our adulting, even branching out into such tasks as freezing fruit and baking patriotic-though-burnt pies.
But sometimes, our best efforts at adulting just aren't enough.
On Wednesday morning, I noticed an email from the office of my apartment building reminding residents that if they had not renewed their leases they needed to move out by 7/25 at noon.
Now, here's the thing. I'd bought my lease from a previous resident with only a couple of months left on the lease. Naively perhaps, I'd assumed that the office would contact me when it was time to renew this lease. So I found this email somewhat concerning and decided to stop by the office to find out what the process of renewing the lease was.
Well, upon entering the office I was informed that I'd already missed my chance and that after July 25th someone was already set up to move into my room.
The best I can figure out from contextual cues is that the window of time during which I could renew the lease ended just about the time that I actually moved into the apartment. No one in the office told me so at the time-- I'll let you decide whether that was due to absent-mindedness, lack of interest, or incompetence. And now, even if I wanted to move into another room at the same price, all of the four bedroom apartments are completely full starting in August.
Apparently, there is some possibility of my moving into one of the three-bedroom or studio apartments in the same building. However, those options are more expensive. And I can barely afford this apartment (read: I've been considering donating plasma to make ends meet until I get more clients, and you know how well that usually goes) as is. Not to mention, after dealing with a few messy pieces of red tape from this apartment complex I'm pretty certain I don't want to pay more money to keep receiving this high level of service.
So apparently I get to go apartment hunting. Again.
At least I had the thought to go to the office; this would have been a nasty surprise to receive on July 25th.
I broke the news to my roommates with ice cream. One of my roommates was sad on my behalf, noted with relief that her contract ends in May of next year, and offered to help in whatever way possible. The other roommate is furious, and only got angrier when she found out that she is almost certainly in the same boat as me.
As for me, I'm sort of bouncing between the extremes of angry-stressed-frustrated and optimistic-and-this-is-kind-of-hilarious. But I've got a few people to contact and about two weeks to find something, so hopefully this works out alright.
Monday, June 6, 2016
Moving to Idaho is Entirely too Complicated
Hey, long time no see.
Moving to Idaho is the reason I've decided to give this blog another shot. You see, back when I first moved to Logan as a college freshman, I combatted homesickness and stress by sending home a newsletter. Nothing formal, it was called "The Word from Logan" and it was just a way to tell my immediate family about some of the weird and crazy stuff that happens to you when you start life in a new place. Unexpectedly, however, I picked up something of a following.
Then on my mission I sent letters home almost every week about life on my mission, and they also spread farther than I had expected among relatives and acquaintances. And, again, the letters helped me process what was going on and find the humor and adventure in events that were otherwise kind of stressful.
Well, now I'm moving to a new city, in a new state, where I currently barely know anyone. I hope I've outgrown the worst of homesickness by now, but there will definitely be stressful things. There will also be opportunities to have adventures, and I kind of like those.
So this is my goal for my first year of living in Boise. Every week, have some kind of crazy adventure. Whether that's something I find (a trip to the zoo or something, per say) or something that finds me. And every week I want to write about that adventure in this blog.
I don't expect to be talking much about my job, although that will be an adventure in and of itself. Ethically, morally, professionally, and legally, I have an obligation to protect the privacy of my clients. So any stories about my work as a music therapist will have to be carefully filtered of any identifying information. Some might make it in, though. But I want to focus this blog more on what I do when I'm not at work, as I try to make myself a life in Idaho.
Now, the first adventure was just moving here. If you like the tv show House Hunters (my mom watches it all the time) then this post is for you.
After I got the job offer, I started looking for apartments in the area. Rather to my dismay, most of the listings I found online were rather severely out of my budget. See, I'm starting out working part time and working my way up to full time, and this is after a year of not getting paid at all, so my budget is pretty tight.
I had more luck contacting people through Facebook and through the LDS Institute at Boise State University, and came up with a few people who were looking to re-let or rent or get a roommate or whatever. I also got talking with another couple of girls who were moving to Boise at the same time as I was and talked about just finding a place together. So, armed with a long list of everything I could find that might be within budget for myself or for myself and two strangers, I made a trip to Boise with my mom to hit the streets.
The first place I tried ended up being one of those high-end student housing places--you know the type, that is always throwing parties and has a hot tub and all kinds of fancy stuff but the rooms are all tiny? There was some drama in Logan while I was there about one that didn't manage to finish construction until almost a year after the move in date students had paid for. It was a big ugly mess that I felt glad not to be involved with, and it left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to such apartments.
But the girl who was selling her lease gave us a tour and it did seem like a very nice place. Also, one of the other bedrooms in her unit was available, which seemed good to know.
Then began several excruciating hours of trying to find an apartment complex with room for three girls. Most of the places I tried had a waiting list of two to five years--one even had a waiting list of ten years! Others were these government housing places where you had to prove you met a certain poverty level before your application was looked at by some board in three months or so. All in all, not encouraging to someone who was hoping to move in a month later.
One of my facebook contacts went better, though--a girl with a two-room apartment who was looking for a roommate. I kind of fell in love with the apartment right away; I'm a sucker for weird shaped spaces and this was an apartment full of triangles and rhombuses where other builders would have used squares. It also had a nice balcony where I could've kept a little garden, and a huge kitchen.
After this I met up with one of the two girls also moving to Boise to check out the places she had found. They both ended up being in Meridian, a town Northwest of Boise. We met at the first, which ended up being a huge complex with very fancy expensive apartments--and other than the master bedroom, very tiny rooms with tiny closets. And this place, in what I suppose was a refreshing change from everywhere else I'd gone, insisted on you turning in pay stubs with your application so they could make sure you were wealthy enough to afford the rent.
The next place we tried was a townhome, and it was the strangest property tour I've ever been on. In order to get in, you would fill out a form on a website. They would then text you the combination for a hidden lockbox which held the key to the front door. The house itself was nice, though not cleaned very well--you don't want to know what I found in the fridge--and had kind of a bizarre mix of very nice features with confusing features. Like, a jack and jill bathroom and weird closet sizes. Also, one of the mirrors was a smart mirror, which I've never seen in person before. The peephole was secretly a video camera so you could keep tabs on who showed up on your doorstep. Also, somebody who'd been there earlier had left behind a valedictorian pin on the counter. (I gave into impulse and took it home with me. But if you are reading this and happen to be a valedictorian who lost their pin somewhere in Meridian, Idaho, let me know and I'll give it back)
I haven't been too successful at keeping this blog updated in the past, but third time's the charm, right?
Well, here's the abbreviated update. I spent the last school year working as a music therapy intern at Hartvigsen School in Taylorsville, Utah. It was absolutely amazing, and heartbreaking to leave. But I kind of had to leave because the internship was unpaid. And, to quote "Stressed Out" by Twenty One Pilots, "Wake up, you've got to make money."
So. Anyway, I've been hired to work as a music therapist for a company up in Boise, Idaho. And your enjoyment of the following writing will increase by at least 15% if you play this song in the background:
Well, here's the abbreviated update. I spent the last school year working as a music therapy intern at Hartvigsen School in Taylorsville, Utah. It was absolutely amazing, and heartbreaking to leave. But I kind of had to leave because the internship was unpaid. And, to quote "Stressed Out" by Twenty One Pilots, "Wake up, you've got to make money."
So. Anyway, I've been hired to work as a music therapist for a company up in Boise, Idaho. And your enjoyment of the following writing will increase by at least 15% if you play this song in the background:
Moving to Idaho is the reason I've decided to give this blog another shot. You see, back when I first moved to Logan as a college freshman, I combatted homesickness and stress by sending home a newsletter. Nothing formal, it was called "The Word from Logan" and it was just a way to tell my immediate family about some of the weird and crazy stuff that happens to you when you start life in a new place. Unexpectedly, however, I picked up something of a following.
Then on my mission I sent letters home almost every week about life on my mission, and they also spread farther than I had expected among relatives and acquaintances. And, again, the letters helped me process what was going on and find the humor and adventure in events that were otherwise kind of stressful.
Well, now I'm moving to a new city, in a new state, where I currently barely know anyone. I hope I've outgrown the worst of homesickness by now, but there will definitely be stressful things. There will also be opportunities to have adventures, and I kind of like those.
So this is my goal for my first year of living in Boise. Every week, have some kind of crazy adventure. Whether that's something I find (a trip to the zoo or something, per say) or something that finds me. And every week I want to write about that adventure in this blog.
I don't expect to be talking much about my job, although that will be an adventure in and of itself. Ethically, morally, professionally, and legally, I have an obligation to protect the privacy of my clients. So any stories about my work as a music therapist will have to be carefully filtered of any identifying information. Some might make it in, though. But I want to focus this blog more on what I do when I'm not at work, as I try to make myself a life in Idaho.
Now, the first adventure was just moving here. If you like the tv show House Hunters (my mom watches it all the time) then this post is for you.
After I got the job offer, I started looking for apartments in the area. Rather to my dismay, most of the listings I found online were rather severely out of my budget. See, I'm starting out working part time and working my way up to full time, and this is after a year of not getting paid at all, so my budget is pretty tight.
I had more luck contacting people through Facebook and through the LDS Institute at Boise State University, and came up with a few people who were looking to re-let or rent or get a roommate or whatever. I also got talking with another couple of girls who were moving to Boise at the same time as I was and talked about just finding a place together. So, armed with a long list of everything I could find that might be within budget for myself or for myself and two strangers, I made a trip to Boise with my mom to hit the streets.
The first place I tried ended up being one of those high-end student housing places--you know the type, that is always throwing parties and has a hot tub and all kinds of fancy stuff but the rooms are all tiny? There was some drama in Logan while I was there about one that didn't manage to finish construction until almost a year after the move in date students had paid for. It was a big ugly mess that I felt glad not to be involved with, and it left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to such apartments.
But the girl who was selling her lease gave us a tour and it did seem like a very nice place. Also, one of the other bedrooms in her unit was available, which seemed good to know.
Then began several excruciating hours of trying to find an apartment complex with room for three girls. Most of the places I tried had a waiting list of two to five years--one even had a waiting list of ten years! Others were these government housing places where you had to prove you met a certain poverty level before your application was looked at by some board in three months or so. All in all, not encouraging to someone who was hoping to move in a month later.
One of my facebook contacts went better, though--a girl with a two-room apartment who was looking for a roommate. I kind of fell in love with the apartment right away; I'm a sucker for weird shaped spaces and this was an apartment full of triangles and rhombuses where other builders would have used squares. It also had a nice balcony where I could've kept a little garden, and a huge kitchen.
After this I met up with one of the two girls also moving to Boise to check out the places she had found. They both ended up being in Meridian, a town Northwest of Boise. We met at the first, which ended up being a huge complex with very fancy expensive apartments--and other than the master bedroom, very tiny rooms with tiny closets. And this place, in what I suppose was a refreshing change from everywhere else I'd gone, insisted on you turning in pay stubs with your application so they could make sure you were wealthy enough to afford the rent.
The next place we tried was a townhome, and it was the strangest property tour I've ever been on. In order to get in, you would fill out a form on a website. They would then text you the combination for a hidden lockbox which held the key to the front door. The house itself was nice, though not cleaned very well--you don't want to know what I found in the fridge--and had kind of a bizarre mix of very nice features with confusing features. Like, a jack and jill bathroom and weird closet sizes. Also, one of the mirrors was a smart mirror, which I've never seen in person before. The peephole was secretly a video camera so you could keep tabs on who showed up on your doorstep. Also, somebody who'd been there earlier had left behind a valedictorian pin on the counter. (I gave into impulse and took it home with me. But if you are reading this and happen to be a valedictorian who lost their pin somewhere in Meridian, Idaho, let me know and I'll give it back)
After all that, I was exhausted and feeling kind of burned out. I had one more appointment before we had to leave the next day, but, on a hunch, we decided to drive by it on our way back to the hotel. It ended up being a tiny mother-in-law suite attached to a falling-apart house in a really sketchy neighborhood. I looked at my notes at what the price of rent had been--higher than anything else I'd seen that day--then I called the owner and politely canceled the showing.
That night, I looked back at my options and decided I really only had two--the luxury student place and the weird angles place. (Huh, describing it that way makes it sound like the apartment in Dreams in the Witch House, by HP Lovecraft). The places in Meridian were nice but I felt like the commute would be a pain--my job is going to take me all over the valley but I'll mostly be based in Boise. Nowhere else had really been a good option.
I made my apologies to the two girls also moving to Boise and backed out of looking for a place with them. Not because of anything wrong with them, understand, I just felt like continuing to search for a place long distance would only result in finding more of the same of what I'd been finding. And I really wanted to just settle on somewhere and call it good. After thinking a lot about it, I decided to go with the Weird Angles Place. The rent was great, I loved the apartment, my future roommate seemed nice, and the quiet out of the way apartment just seemed like a good fit for my personality. So I called that girl back and worked out the details, then let everyone else know I'd found a place. And everything was good.
Until we were in the process of checking out of the hotel the next morning, when I get an email from my would-be landlady.
"You are not allowed to move into this apartment. Ask ____ for more information."
Somewhat distressed, I contacted the girl who lived in the apartment, but she was at work and wasn't able to reply. It ended up being a really looooong five hour drive back to Utah with something like that hanging over my head.
Well, it turns out that my would-be roommate didn't read the fine print on her lease agreement which said that she wasn't allowed to get a roommate. She was very apologetic, and it was probably a rude awakening for her as well. But that still left me apartmentless.
So I got over my prejudices and bought the lease off the girl in the luxury student housing.
Now, actually moving in was its own challenge. The office of this apartment (which is going to remain unnamed) has surprisingly strict rules about, well, everything, and I was in Boise for almost twenty-four hours before I was allowed to check in. But, here I am. I'm moved in (if not anywhere near entirely unpacked yet) and my furniture just barely fits my bedroom. So far my roommates are all pretty nice.
Oh, and remember how there was an empty room? Well, one of the two other girls who were moving to Boise got that room, and the other one is buying a lease for another room in the unit later this summer, so we're actually going to be roommates after all.
Anyway, so now I'm in Boise. It has lots of pretty trees. It also has lots of one-way streets that I keep trying to turn the wrong way onto. I live pretty close to downtown, so there's a lot to do, though much of that will have to wait until I get my paycheck because I am currently a few steps away from broke. I need cheap adventures for the first few weeks, I guess.
So that's life just now. If you happen to know of things in Boise that I should try (especially inexpensive ones), or if you have any questions, feel free to comment. Hopefully, I'll soon have some stories that are a little more exciting than describing lots of apartments I decided not to rent. I'm optimistic about it though. I do have a way of stumbling into weird situations...
That night, I looked back at my options and decided I really only had two--the luxury student place and the weird angles place. (Huh, describing it that way makes it sound like the apartment in Dreams in the Witch House, by HP Lovecraft). The places in Meridian were nice but I felt like the commute would be a pain--my job is going to take me all over the valley but I'll mostly be based in Boise. Nowhere else had really been a good option.
I made my apologies to the two girls also moving to Boise and backed out of looking for a place with them. Not because of anything wrong with them, understand, I just felt like continuing to search for a place long distance would only result in finding more of the same of what I'd been finding. And I really wanted to just settle on somewhere and call it good. After thinking a lot about it, I decided to go with the Weird Angles Place. The rent was great, I loved the apartment, my future roommate seemed nice, and the quiet out of the way apartment just seemed like a good fit for my personality. So I called that girl back and worked out the details, then let everyone else know I'd found a place. And everything was good.
Until we were in the process of checking out of the hotel the next morning, when I get an email from my would-be landlady.
"You are not allowed to move into this apartment. Ask ____ for more information."
Somewhat distressed, I contacted the girl who lived in the apartment, but she was at work and wasn't able to reply. It ended up being a really looooong five hour drive back to Utah with something like that hanging over my head.
Well, it turns out that my would-be roommate didn't read the fine print on her lease agreement which said that she wasn't allowed to get a roommate. She was very apologetic, and it was probably a rude awakening for her as well. But that still left me apartmentless.
So I got over my prejudices and bought the lease off the girl in the luxury student housing.
Now, actually moving in was its own challenge. The office of this apartment (which is going to remain unnamed) has surprisingly strict rules about, well, everything, and I was in Boise for almost twenty-four hours before I was allowed to check in. But, here I am. I'm moved in (if not anywhere near entirely unpacked yet) and my furniture just barely fits my bedroom. So far my roommates are all pretty nice.
Oh, and remember how there was an empty room? Well, one of the two other girls who were moving to Boise got that room, and the other one is buying a lease for another room in the unit later this summer, so we're actually going to be roommates after all.
Anyway, so now I'm in Boise. It has lots of pretty trees. It also has lots of one-way streets that I keep trying to turn the wrong way onto. I live pretty close to downtown, so there's a lot to do, though much of that will have to wait until I get my paycheck because I am currently a few steps away from broke. I need cheap adventures for the first few weeks, I guess.
So that's life just now. If you happen to know of things in Boise that I should try (especially inexpensive ones), or if you have any questions, feel free to comment. Hopefully, I'll soon have some stories that are a little more exciting than describing lots of apartments I decided not to rent. I'm optimistic about it though. I do have a way of stumbling into weird situations...
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