Rant of the Day: Hotels and Housekeeping…

So you’re staying at a hotel for 3 nights. You’re sleeping in the same bed for 3 nights. Just like you sleep in your own bed at home every night. With this information at hand, I ask you this: do you change your bed sheets EVERY DAY at home? Do you go through the hassle of taking off the sheets, washing them, and putting them back on EVERY DAY? If you answered no, then I ask you this next series of questions: WHY do you expect your sheets to be changed and bed to be made up every day when you’re traveling? Are you extra sweaty while on vacation? Do you have multiple people sleeping in the bed while you’re gone during the day and don’t want their cooties on you while you sleep? Do you have someone to make your bed for you at home? Did you break your arms before you came to stay with us and can no longer pull sheets up to the head of the bed? And why is it that the people who want all the service/extras/upgrades/free breakfast are the people that book dirt cheap online deals?! YOU PAID $70 FOR THIS ROOM…YOU WANT BETTER, YOU PAY MORE.

Why has it become the norm to pay nothing and ask for everything? I see our housekeepers working tirelessly to get rooms clean when we’re sold out and over booked so that a bunch of rude travelers can come cause a fuss and give me a hard time that their queen bed doesn’t face the river and no they don’t want to pay the standard upgrade charge because they booked their room an hour ago and they deserve to stay in the suite for 80 bucks. These housekeepers come in day after day to clean beds and bathrooms that other people have slept in and used (most likely for minimum wadge or barely above) and you have the audacity to ask me why you aren’t getting the supreme-ultimate-over-the-top-VIP treatment.

Rude.

Trying to itch around a mosquito bite the size of my thumb, on top of a sunburn that has left my top half almost paralyzed with pain = joy of life!

The past few days of work have been insane. Of course with the nice weather the golf course is going to be busy and with summer setting in, the hotel is receiving more travelers meaning more check-ins for me each night. However the past couple of nights have given me some down time to catch up on my growing magazine collection which I’d sadly neglected while school was in session.

After reading two issues of Dwell and two issues of Atomic Ranch, I then moved on to my latest issue of Elle Decoration (the Elle Decor of the United Kingdom and something I will GLADLY spend $11.99 on any day of the week). The drastic different in styling, photography, magazine set up, length and type of article/pictorial made me realize that I really want to be involved in this kind of business someday. I think interior decoration magazines are wonderfully beautiful and should be read by any and all interested in the way their home is designed. 

Also I noticed that the difference that stuck out to me in both Dwell and Atomic Ranch is that I like the IDEA of Mid-Century Modern minimalism, but in actuality the photos always seem to feel like something is missing. The house never looks lived in. Everything is staged which can be beautiful, but it looks empty because there’s no furniture! No accessories or decoration to indicate who the heck you are that’s living there! Make your home feel lived in. Make it about YOU and what you DO in your home. Make it individual. Incorporate that sleek teak shelving unit, but put something rad and funky on it that says that you even like where you live. Hang a piece of art that makes you smile EVERY DAY or a little quirky accessory or print that gives a boring table or couch some punch and attitude. This space is where you LIVE.

As the winter weather finally subsides into the crappy spring that should have happened about 2 months ago, spring quarter finally comes to an end this week. Putting together my Drafting final document packet and my Materials & Sources final boards it makes me more and more jealous that I’m not able to take over a place of my own and design in the real world. Not necessarily putting down floors or counter tops, but just being able to make an entire living space my own. I want to move out so badly. I want to bring my own apartment to life. I want to spread into my own space, letting my fingers touch every surface and breathe life into every corner. 

Want, want, want. But such is life.

While watching an old episode of Glee tonight I saw that one of the male lead characters had a poster up in his room from the Dashboard Confessional/Thrice/Get Up Kids tour back in 2004 (?). Though I applaud the production designer for putting up an awesome poster to an awesome tour, I’d like to point out that this character is supposed to be 16…and that I actually went to that show in Portland when I was 16. That was almost 8 years ago. Am I supposed to believe that this kid went to a Dashboard show at the age of 8? Fat chance. But nice try.

A drawing of mine was chosen by my teacher to go in front of the review board for a chance to be on the student exhibition wall for next quarter. Me. MY drawing on the wall. With all the other amazing art! And my group’s Sustainable Design boards for Foundations of Interior Design were chosen to archive and possibly hang in the ID hallway too.

Crazy stuff kids, crazy stuff.

This week starts the last week of classes and then next week….finals. I remember at Western we’d always call it Dead Week because everyone was busy studying for finals, reading in the library and writing huge papers at the last minute. But this phrase rings too true to me over this next week because I really do think that by the end of this all I’m going to be dead.

Working 14.5 hours two days in a row, early class the next day, working on a final presentation for 4 hours the day after that (if not longer) and then working 28 hours the three days before I do my final presentation for my Interior Design class just makes me think I’m going to die after all of this.

Then it’s supposed to be “spring break” but that is just going to be me working two jobs and having a couple days to relax and not do anything. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t do anything for an entire day. Maybe sometime in mid December?

After that is spring quarter…12 credits, two jobs, only partial days off from work/school.

Hate.My.Life.

I should make a decision about working…but I’m going to see how it goes over the first couple weeks of classes. School is most important. But if I can’t pay for school then I’m ya know, kinda a little bit screwed. Silly art school that costs a stupid amount of money even with loans and a grant and stupid gas prices being so high and stupid not living in Portland and stupid two jobs and stupid me trying to plan my life months in advance.

stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid