Bad Idea #19 - Really crappy study habits

Alright, my roommate and I are both students. We get GPAs and everything in our courses. My roommate has a B.A., which doesn't mean much except that I kinda expected him to know how to do well in school. I was wrong.

19. He has other people "tutor" him, or just basically do his homework while he pretends to understand each step.

That wouldn't in itself be a problem. That's ok, he's just good at covering up either his laziness or inability to learn (I suspect the truth is a bit of both). However, he comes home wondering why he has the worst grade in his class on tests, despite the fact that he's taking that exact test for the second time. That's right, he failed out of class before and started over, but he still can't really do much. He is on the cusp of getting his second "Lack of Ability" counseling statement. The LOA essentially is a document that says that the subject is too dumb to ever learn the course material effectively, and recommends that the subject do something else. Maybe pumping human waste from port-o-potties in Iraq. Or something.

Spontaneous blog post for a spontaneous bad idea.

My roommate wakes up early on Saturday (like 7AM) and then crashes hard in the late morning or early afternoon. Today he has decided to fall asleep on his couch in such a position that may very well make his neck hurt for a week. What's funny about this is that he didn't fall asleep doing something, because the television wasn't turned on, nor is there a book within arm's reach. What is in arm's reach, though, is his actual bed. That's right. My roommate chose to sleep uncomfortably on his couch, 4 feet away from his bed.

It could be worse, part 2

I just read this on craigslist:

Please don't use certain personal items of mine

While hilarious, it really does put everything back into perspective with my roommate. He doesn't do anything that comes remotely close to this. Of course, that would be terrible and I would not live with him anymore.

Bad Idea #16 - Figuratively cockblocking

My roommate went out with a group of friends this one weekend, and their group was mostly over 21. The problem is that one person in their group (incidentally, my roommate from several months ago) is under 21. They wanted to go to a club where someone was putting on a show, or something, and they decided that they would just try to get in by just walking through the door. The first few people in their group are waved in by the bouncer at the door, who only looks at the military ID's and doesn't check the DOB on the back. Unfortunately, my roommate decides for some inexplicable reason to say out loud and draw unnecessary negative attention:

15. "Actually, he's [pointing] not 21 yet. But it's ok. He's not going to drink."

Of course they are all forced to leave, and my roommate is lectured on why that was a bad idea. Thinking that he had learned from his mistake, they went out to a restaurant/bar later. When they order a bucket of beers, my roommate does the exact same thing - "Actually, he's under 21. But it's ok, because he's not going to drink." What a moron.

And I know I wasn't there. But this isn't a court of law, so hearsay goes. I will adapt and adjust this story if necessary, since I know pretty much all the people involved.

Bad Idea #15

In the Army, we generally know everyone else by last name. I know some of my friends by first name, but most of my acquaintances and coworkers I know mainly by their last name.

Back when we were in Basic Training, there was a whiteboard where we would write our names every time we got in trouble, and these people would get assigned a fireguard shift where they basically stay awake for an hour in the middle of the night, which sucked because nobody got enough sleep in Basic.

15. Writing your first name on the board when nobody in the platoon knows your first name.

When I was the one who had to wake him up for the shift, I realized that the next person on the fire guard list was someone with a Hispanic first name. I woke up every Hispanic person in my platoon (this being the U.S. Army, there were plenty of them) and the very last one I chose happened to be my future roommate. I guess technically he was my roommate then, too, in addition to the other 50 roommates I had.

That was my first interaction with this guy, and it left a very poor first impression. Later it was made worse when he would sing Tool songs in a tinny, squeaky, nasal voice towards the end of Basic Training.

And by the way, this week I will try to make like 5 posts, because my roommate has decided to feed me gold all month while I was too busy to really work on this site.