Livin’ La Vida Loco Parentis
On CTN tonight (staying home and watching Channel 16 Friday night is the new going out and partying), we were watching what we assume was the City Council debate about 828 Greene, and we almost choked on our coffee when Wendy Woods suggested that the apartment building have residential advisors to keep the kids in line and make the building “more welcoming” to the neighbors. In loco parentis, emphasis on the loco.
Jean Carlberg then stated the very, very obvious — that “there’s no evidence that students would welcome this” — and pointed out that students move out of the dorms to get away from this kind of regulation. And anyway, she said, the council can’t require this kind of thing.
Woods responded that lots of students move off-campus because there’s no space in on-campus housing and would actually prefer the dorms (presumably for that comforting sense of rules and boundaries, not because of the location or the lack of shady landlords), and suggested that council not try to regulate RAs for the building but instead make the landlord realize that it’s in his best interest to do so. She further suggested that naptime in the new building be set to 1:30 in the afternoon and that bathroom access be controlled by handing out passes in the shape of little ducks.
I didn’t move out of the dorms to get away from rules and regs–I moved to the North Campus co-op because I didn’t want to deal with a late-hours roommate any longer. RAs in apartment buildings is a ridiculous idea that 1. will never come to pass since landlords won’t pony up their salaries and 2. will have zero impact on student behavior. Dumb.
posted by Laura on January 21st, 2005 at 11:19 pmPresumably, there’s going to be more than students living there? If so, an RA would be a stupid idea.
posted by Kozzie on January 21st, 2005 at 11:51 pmI like how the RSS feed cuts off this post at, “we almost choked on our coffee when…” Oh, the suspense!
Kozzie, the developer has made very explicit that he intends this to be an all-student residence. (In fact, at some points he has said, “There is market demand for this from students who want to move out of the dorm,” and, at others, has assured the council that he “will only rent to grad students” in order to minimize any concerns over noise and trash. I’m not sure how many grad students there are trapped in the dorms…)
Of course, even if it’s all students, that doesn’t mean that an RA *isn’t* a stupid idea.
posted by Murph on January 22nd, 2005 at 9:17 amYou’re right. Not all students are barbarians that will trash a neighborhood once they set foot. Considering that they are nominally adults and will have a repair bill if that kind of stuff happens…well.
Part of the reason why the houses look so crappy is because the people that own them don’t care for them and why should some who is renting the place spring money for things like paint and repairing windows and what not.
posted by Kozzie on January 22nd, 2005 at 10:55 amBesides, learning to be self-reliant is part of the college experience–having a nanny peeking over one’s shoulder in one’s home when one is 20 years old is silly, egregious-college-mistakes-that-every-student-makes notwithstanding. The binge drinking and other potentially dangerous behavior is by and large happening not in apartment houses but in other campus institutions that I doubt would welcome a resident RA.
posted by Laura on January 22nd, 2005 at 11:23 amUtterly ridiculous. What’s next an animal companion ordinance. Oh wait, they tried that too. Those that can’t do get elected to council.
posted by yd on January 22nd, 2005 at 1:47 pmyd, so of course nobody should try to get elected to council — since getting elected to council, by definition, means that you aren’t actually somebody with good ideas or somebody who can implement those good ideas. No, the effective way to make the world a better place is not to get involved, but to sit on the outside flinging poop.
Oh, and wishing that the folks on the inside would start taking you seriously so that you could stop flinging poop at them.
Or, gee, here’s an idea. Maybe credit could be given where credit is due. Recognizing that, “One Councilmember floated the idea of having an RA in the complex,” is substantially different from “Council thought that there should be an RA in the complex,” is a good first step towards meaningful action.
(Though I’ll admit that flinging poop *is* awfully fun, and a lot less work than meaningful action…)
posted by Murph on January 22nd, 2005 at 2:27 pmWhenever I do a search and this website comes up as a search result, I think “these people are pathetic.” I personally know people who post to this web site, and they *are* pathetic. Get a life. Move out of Ann Arbor if you don’t like it. No one is forcing you to go to grad school here. And, by the way, it doesn’t take this long to graduate from grad school. It’s so much easier to complain and blame external things, but really, you are the problem.
posted by js on January 22nd, 2005 at 2:29 pmFor the record, the neighbors thought this was idiotic too. Woods, however, was responding to the builder’s plan to have such a “student monitor,” which has been consistent througout the process. The builder actually said in one of the Planning Commission meetings that he plans to have this “student monitor” inspect the bedrooms to make sure that no more than one person lives in each one. Bed checks, anyone?
posted by Julie on January 22nd, 2005 at 2:31 pmBased on IP information (and the general tone) I doubt that was posted by the real js.
People post all kinds of crap on this site, and it almost never bothers me. But to whoever posted that: fuck you and your ignorance. You have absolutely no idea what getting a PhD involves, how long it takes and what it means.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 22nd, 2005 at 2:51 pmI second what AAiO says. Fuck you js. I hate people who say to me that if I don’t like Ann Arbor I should move. And do what? As if there are thousands of jobs for someone in the specialized field I am in. As if the thought hadn’t occurred to me before. “What? Oh my god. I it has NEVER occurred to me that I could just up and leave this podunk town and moving to a real city! Thanks a lot, I’ll do that tomorrow.” Idiot. And as someone who has their PhD, I have to say it is a LONG DRAWN OUT process - dissertations aren’t written in a week. Try getting one for yourself before being a douchebag and criticizing others for how long it takes to finish. JS - YOU are the problem. It is dumb people like you who surround me and make me detest every moment I have to exist in Tree Prison.
posted by Dr.Mandrake on January 22nd, 2005 at 3:15 pmAww. I have a fan.
posted by js on January 22nd, 2005 at 5:27 pm“Tree Prison?” (ha-ha)
Excellent. I sense a new logo contest coming on…
posted by OFW insurgent on January 22nd, 2005 at 5:41 pmI’ll third that…fuck you js. You’re an ignorant asswipe.
posted by sammy on January 22nd, 2005 at 6:03 pmjs, aren’t you mad about being impersonated by an aaio-hating js?
posted by c-loh on January 22nd, 2005 at 8:56 pm(Is it possible to impersonate initials?)
Plus, js, it seems that www.annarborisunderrated.com is not yet a claimed domain name. Why not start your own blog about how great this town is…for instance, how great all the landlords are, how cheap the rent is, how many wonderful D-list celebrities stop by, what a great magazine Found is, how the fish at Seafood Company beats Ploof in San Francisco, how the pasta at Palio is better than anything you can find in Little Italy, how much you like eating Jimmy John’s subs five times a week, how radical dude the crowd is at 8 Ball, how you feel so…swell…when you walk by the Cavern Club and see the women dancing there, how great it is they shut down that shitty bar Del Rio, how OZ isn’t a pretentious shithole with bouncers…for what?, how great it is that they don’t clutter downtown with convenience stores so that you need to walk two miles to find a tampon, how much fun it is to go out to your car and find two undergraduates having sex in the backseat (oops! guess you forgot to lock those doors!), how friendly everone in town is and how nice it is they don’t have funny Eastern accents, how the law school men are HOT and HUNG, how you like that snow, how people who complain about ann arbor sucking are whiny bitches, how it is strange that no one is coming to your site www.annarborisunderrated.com and leaving you any comment other than the fact that you are either on LSD, incredibly stupid, or a jackass, or all three!
posted by god on January 22nd, 2005 at 9:54 pmHey god, I like the crowd at the 8 Ball generally. I mean, it smells bad, but still.
posted by Brandon on January 23rd, 2005 at 2:29 pmI hung out with Uncle Grambo there once…otherwise it’s okay, I guess, but not really that exciting.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 23rd, 2005 at 2:52 pmNaw, it isn’t that exciting. But it’s pure diveyness is a nice change from the rest of the Ann Arbor bars (well, there are other cheap divey bars, but they are overflowing with obnoxious undergrads typically).
posted by Brandon on January 23rd, 2005 at 7:17 pmOh man. I totally miss overpriced and not that great food, an RA who did nothing (although the first one sent out a email about murmurs of boy/girl showers, which she investigated and found “two sets of footprints…”, and the second did get me drunk once), the roommates with boyfriends who lived in the room, the Japanese one who never went to bed before 4 a.m, the horrible bus service from Bursley on the weekends… seriously, why did I leave the dorms?
Oh, saving about a hundred bucks a month, including groceries. That would do it.
posted by Jen on January 23rd, 2005 at 9:42 pmI hear that about the 8Ball. I am an undergrad, but I don’t think of myself as obnoxious. It’s cheap, generally void of the frat/sorority kids, and you get to hear long runs of hardcore requests on the jutebox. Couldn’t ask for more. Well, I could, but I can’t afford more.
posted by Jen on January 23rd, 2005 at 9:44 pmJutebox. So that’s what the kids are playing nowadays.
posted by tom on January 24th, 2005 at 10:09 amTom,
posted by Brandon on January 24th, 2005 at 12:06 pmThis is Annarbour– we only use organic, biodegradable music-machines constructed by indigenous artisans here.
Translation:
posted by Kozzie on January 24th, 2005 at 4:26 pm“Our workers may be exploited but at least we are saving the quatamalan chickadee….”
I think most dorm RAs are less active than the type of RAs that are being proposed here. The one I have right now does nothing more than participate in loud Halo tournaments at odd hours of the night. Seriously. I’ve never seen him make even the smallest move towards ‘writing someone up’.
And the only reason I’m still in the dorms is because a) I got a single, b) the location is perfect for someone who has classes on both north and central campuses (directly in front of a bus stop– good luck finding off-campus housing like that), and c) I’m a lazy fuck.
posted by art student on January 24th, 2005 at 6:16 pmI’d be mad if, y’know, it seemed like it was really me or credible… Or if it was like me, but funnier. That’d annoy me. Aside from that, I’m enjoying the apopleptic rants from people who are fairly new to this site raging against my doppleganger.
posted by js on January 25th, 2005 at 2:14 pmNot to denigrate AAIO or anything, but I have better things to do than get all bent out of shape about blog comments, y’know?
Like going to Buffalo Wild Wings, which is the newest and yummiest sensation to hit State Street. Or Cold Stone Creamery, which makes ice cream so good it should be called “frozen sweet creamy cream.”
Dude, you forgot about HONEY BAKED HAM!
posted by OFW insurgent on January 25th, 2005 at 3:10 pmI once came home to my find my RA smoking pot with my roommate. Good times in Mary Markley.
Not that I’m defending js, but didn’t you all know that this place was gonna suck before you got here? At least just a tiny bit? I’m all for good-natured aa-bashing, but I don’t get the rage.
But perhaps I’m just feeling charitable because I’ve finally leaving for grad school soon.
posted by snickerdoodle on January 25th, 2005 at 5:33 pmYeah, I was not in a good mood Saturday. At least I can say I’ve weathered the storms of tORoNtO, ilya and that really pissed-off baby boomer from last summer whose name I can’t remember without getting too bent out of shape.
I thought that A2 would be a little like Champaign, in roughly the same price range and with slightly more things to do. Not exactly sky-high expectations. I guess it does have slightly more to do than Champaign…
posted by ann arbor is overrated on January 25th, 2005 at 5:53 pmYeah, talking to the Illinois grads in my program, I guess we’ve got Champaign pretty handily beat, whatever that’s worth. And East Lansing. And Evanston(?). Frankly, among Big Ten college towns we are probably near the top, other than Madison (and probably Columbus and Minneapolis due to sheer size? Though as for the neighborhoods right around the Us I have no idea). I know an new Iowa Citian and she seems to generally prefer Ann Arbor in terms of variety, but says that town has it’s bonuses, too.
As for that “frozen sweet creamy cream,” I got a gift certificate to Cold Stone for Xmas (thanks to my sister), and found it highly overrated. I never would have thought Great Eats in the Ann Arbor Streets would have led me astray.
posted by Brandon on January 26th, 2005 at 1:35 pmOh, don’t worry Brandon. It’s probably better when you’re hopped up on meth. I mean, that was the Great Eats general timbre.
posted by js on January 26th, 2005 at 3:31 pmHONEY BAKED HAM!
Someone needs to explain the economics of owning an ice cream shop in the frozen tundra to me…
As far as Ann Arbor goes… I’ve resorted to drinking, basically.
posted by snickerdoodle on January 26th, 2005 at 10:20 pmBecause it’s not frozen here all the time. The Summers are usually pretty damned hot with the added pleasure of humidity….
Besides that, ice cream is good any time of the year…:P
posted by Kozzie on January 27th, 2005 at 11:35 amSo, for that matter, is drinking.
posted by Dave on January 27th, 2005 at 12:13 pmWhy, that looks like comment spam!
posted by js on February 9th, 2005 at 8:28 am