begin rant

Well, I guess it is official: I am now trailer trash living at the University of Florida's Tropical Research and Education Center.

Ironically enough, the University has these trailers as FEMA leftovers from the last time an Andrew visited town. They maintain them because Homestead is an hour south of Miami, and even renting property in the ghetto is prohibitively expensive for graduate students. Of course, "maintained" is a term subject to qualitative observations, and it has been more than fifteen years and a few more hurricanes since these trailers were new. That, and apparently many graduate students do not take very good care of their living space. My share of the trailer is a 7x7x7 cube that I can almost turn around in. Thank god it holds the fishtank in a corner on top of a dilapidated dresser - but I miss my old kitchen (and my dishwasher!) already.