new housing!
Finally! After first promising that we would move in by November of 2006, the graduate student housing at TREC is open for inhabitation. These buildings are a far cry from the trailers (referred to by staff as "our little legal liabilities") that I have lived in for the last year and a half. While the houses are intended for eight students to share, there are currently but four of us living here - and we have more than enough space between us.
Better still, this is a place that all of us can be proud to live in. They're brand new houses with all of the latest amenities, and I finally have my own amazing kitchen with a truly awesome ceramic-surface oven and a giant refrigerator. My mattress is brand new, and is not rotting with mildew - and neither are the walls! Above and beyond the trailers, I cannot emphasize how nice these places really are. When I leave here, I really do not expect to live in a place this nice again for years to come.
In the meantime, I really don't know what to do with myself - except to graduate and get out of here. While I will never be a fan of south Florida, I finally feel that I have someplace I could call home.