The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is On Fire

Well, unfortunately I am having a grand week (sarcasm) here in Ohio. My former** advisor came back from spending 5 weeks at the university, and I was stressed in general. I hadn't had much of my work done, so I figured he'd be angry with me.

Tonight, the fire alarm went off at 11:00 PM. It kept sounding intermittenly for the next 45 minutes. The fire escape instructions on the door say that unless you have a fire in your room or smell smoke, stay in your room. So, I was in my room, angry with people outside my door because they were being loud, and then they started knocking on my door. I wasn't going to answer the door to a group of men, so I stayed in my room, attempting to call the front desk to find out what was going on. No answer there, unfortunately. Then I heard a woman running down the hallway yelling, "everyone out of your rooms!"

Okay, okay. I grabbed my book and room key, and left my room while talking with B on my cell. To the right of my room, the hallway was flooded. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, two women were coming out from the first floor. One said that everyone needed to leave because the roof may collapse. Wowsers. I walked around the entire building, looking for Laan and Malu*, my friends who are also staying here, but I didn't see them. I went to my car since my cell phone was about to go dead and locked my doors while talking to B. I spotted Laan and Malu, so I hung up with B and went to talk with them.

One of the managers came out and decided to let us know what happened. Apparently someone had tampered with the sprinkler system, so it went off and flooded one third of the building. Unfortunately, I am located in that one third. Laan and Malu both said I could stay the night with them, so I went back to my room and gathered some essentials (phone charger, book, toothbrush, wallet...sadly forgetting my crochet) and tried to leave my room, but I couldn't open my door! The firemen had roped off the hallway, using my door handle for an anchor for the tape! Well, I got out of the room, stretching the tape and complaining. Just my luck, the two women were coming down the hall and heard me. "Do you need to get back in your room?" "No, I'm good," I replied. So, I trooped down to Laan's room where Malu also was.

Malu and I took a video of the hallway; I acted as narrator. I tried to get back in my room then, but they had locked all the rooms that were near the flooding.

I don't have any clothes for tomorrow, and I'm sure they wouldn't want me to show up on base in my workout clothes, with my hair a mess, no makeup, and flip flops!! I really didn't mean to leave clothes in my room, but the lady said that they were planning to have all the mess cleaned up tomorrow. I guess we'll see when I get to go back in my room...

I'm just thankful for my wonderful friends that are willing to put up with me!!

* again, names changed...
** I say "former" because, well, due to the previous blogs, he's not really my advisor any more.