Adventures in Walking!

I have had so many adventures today!

I found an adult, female German cockroach in my bathroom just before I went to bed yesterday. I was able to capture her, and I have named her Hilda. So, I shall now begin a war on roaches in my apartment. My plan of action includes getting glue boards so I am able to assess the extent of the problem, and releasing wolf spiders in my rooms if I am able to find any. There is a pest control place scheduled to come to my apartment Monday to spray, which I do not find an ideal solution, but could be okay. For one thing, all of the dishes and cans of food which I unpacked yesterday have to come back out of the cabinets. I am glad I will be able to be at home when the pest control person comes, so that I can talk with them about whether my cabinet liners will interfere with the effectiveness of the spray, what exactly they are spraying, and generally what it is like to be in that line of work. I have considered going into pest control, if the whole academic research and agricultural work doesn't work out.

I decided to walk into campus today. I intended to attend a library seminar, and I also visited the secretaries to get a jump on my paperwork to get ID, parking pass, etc. I decided to walk partly because parking around campus is ridiculous and I don't have a pass yet so I would have to feed a meter, and partly because it is a beautiful day. It is a 3.7 mile walk to campus. The first 0.7 miles have only intermittent sidewalks, but it's actually not too bad. I can see myself walking to campus regularly in decent weather. Especially if I don't have to take much with me. Plus it is good exercise, and let's face it, it's a nice way to trick myself into getting my exercise. I do love walking though, and I saw some cool things. Firstly, I saw my first roadkill armadillo. It was in pretty good condition so it must have gotten hit very recently. It was amazing to see, because I just don't think of Arkansas as being the right environment for armadillos. I also saw a sign for an estate sale that I may check out, and a cool little mural painted around a manhole cover. It was a psychedelic lizard. I saw a house that was labeled with a name and date, so I assume it is some historic place. Once day I will google it to determine whether it is a place you can tour or not. Next time I walk that route I should bring my camera!

I was a bit peckish when I got to campus so I visited an on-campus cafe thing. The hummus wrap that I got at the Peabody Perks cafe thing on campus was gross. It had a label from the 10^th on it (gross) and it was just completely soggy. It may have been technically safe to eat, but not appetizing at all. I will not be eating there again, at all. Even if their other stuff is okay, I am offended that they even serve such low quality fare. Five days is a bit much. To be fair to them, I did not complain, I can't comment on whether they would have tried to appease me or not.

I got onto campus too late for my the first library seminar, but an hour early for my appointment. I got to talk with my adviser, and I will have an office on campus (for class work and things) and out at 'the farm' (for project work) which will be pretty sweet. I don't know how long I will hold onto the campus office, but it will be great for my first semester, since I will be taking three classes, which is pretty heavy for a grad student, but the rest of my semesters will be like 1 or 2. I'd rather get the heavy semester out of the way, so it's not so bad when I'm putting together my thesis. He has a thing going on much of the day Monday, so I don't have to come in until 2 or so, which I'm happy about since that means I will be able to talk with the exterminator. My meeting to set things up was not as productive as I had hoped. I did get a lot of paperwork done, but I have to wait for it to be processed before I can get an ID or parking pass, or U of Ark. email address or anything. It is alright though, I should be able to take care of much of that Monday.