We're taking bets that Fox became a Family... YEAR FIVE - PART ONE - RDs & Stuff

Here is Year Five. Sorry this is taking a while, but there is a lot to say. Especially because people get mad if you forget stuff. I know i will still forget things. If you remember any stories and want to include them please post in the comments section.

Building: Fox Hall
Dean of Student Life: Larry Siegel
Dir. of Res. Life: Annie Ciaraldi
Dir. of Res. Operations: Greg Wilder
Asst. Dir. of Res. Life: Derek Costa

RDs - B: Bonnie Maitland - C: Beth Willis - D: Erin Crouse E: Barbara Gray - L: Annie Ruvolo Sh: Sara Strahaul - Sm: Nick Piscitello

We got three new RDs and I moved to the Tower... Fox Hall. I had no hot water for at least two weeks in Fox. Which was a lot of fun. We had three new RD's moving in. Each of them are extremely qualified, which was something we haven't had here in quite a while.

Bonnie and I began our path to an actual friendship. :) Bonnie had a rough couple of weeks before Opening, but she pulled out doing better than ever. Beth and Barbara came back with Nick added to the mix. I think he was a little frustrated being in Smith, but it was the right place for him and he did a great job.

Annie is the boisterous young one of the new RDs, who has a ton of Jersey/NY attitude. She doesn't seem to ever be at a loss for words and is willing to battle when she needs to. She is also has a story for everything and it is sometimes fun to go toe to toe to see if you can top her. She usually wins, but that is alright because it definitely interesting to here her stories. Too bad she is a Yankees Fan. Erin is the quiet one of the group. She probably has the best demeanor of anyone that I have ever met. Probably comes from being from Vermont. She is the marathoner who showed more courage than I have ever seen this fall by running a marathon with a stress fracture. It is great to know that Donahue was going to be in a great place. Sara is the leader of the group. She has perhaps the most talented of all three. She made South a 1,000 times better just by bring stability and to be good at her job made it 1,000,000 times better. She has a ton of strength and taught us all about the evils of breast cancer. Support her this summer. All three definitely made UML Res. Life better than we ever thought it could be. They stick together very well and helped to make a ton of changes. I know they will continue.

Our first week of training we did a lot of playing in our Sark book. It was kind of goofy. We also learned that we could not have an alcoholic beverage with a 21 yr. old or older student in our apartment anymore. I am not sure how much of a problem this was before. To be honest I thought this was the Greg Madrid rule. Everyone has always been afraid about how close I get to my students or my going out and drinking. It never really happened that much and I did an excellent job being professional. I don't think I ever got out of hand. I did have one odd night talking to Matan when I got drunk the Thursday before Thankgiving 2002 and told him that I would leave Lowell some day. He thought I meant at the end of the semester and told that to Derek. So even when I was leaving and watched the game with a bunch of my staff I could pop open a beer and have a drink. Even having a drink with a student RD would be the wrong thing to do. Kind of sad and a stupid rule if you ask me.

We also could not date our RAs or students. This is a very interesting policy since the rest of the University does not have to follow this policy. It is also interesting because there is a lot fo married couple from UML Res. Life including an RD and ARD. Though it seems to make sense especially considering all of the drama following one of my last posts. Many times love just happens whether you are the boss or not. If you are always honest about it you should not have any problems in your job. I guess we got to the point where we needed to make a rule about love. :(

GW moved in to Fox for a brief time with the family until his new house was ready. It was cool getting to spend time with Eliza. She is perhaps the best behaved baby I have ever met. Boy is she tall. It was also great to hang with GW on a more than work basis. He is definitely the person my age that I admire most.

Training kind of sucked overall for the staff. We just weren't on our game like we had been in the past. We did do a lot of great things, but we also had a ton of problems. There just wasn't the organization that we needed. The RAs could tell, but I think they got everything they needed. Plus a bunch of them got to experience the height of Fox. :)

To be continued soon...