Not Burning the House Down: Adventures from a first apartment

Week 2: Preparing for the parent's (or parents') first visit

So you get the email with about 48 hours advance. Mom's passing through town and she's going to stop by. When are your classes so she can work around them? What are you making for dinner?

How about asking: "How many assignments do you have to finish this week dear?" or "How many nervous breakdowns are you averaging every day?" or "Can I bring your sanity with me, hon?"

So, if you are like me (and I understand that these aren't very student-like qualities), it's time to clean the apartment, go grocery shopping, look up a couple of recipes and hide evidence that the significant other is living with you as a really illegal sublet (as he's not really paying rent to anyone), all while taking care of 5 courses.

Here are some multi-tasking hints that may come in handy:

• Have that significant other read your readings for your arts elective out loud while you are doing dishes. Chances are, if you can afford your apartment, there isn't room for two people in the kitchen at the same time, enough to make it a time-saving effort. You can still learn about Freudian symbolism in football while wiping away all that grease.
• Duress. Target 'YOU' chooses and discards an assignment. That's right, sacrifice one for the sake of your other work and your sanity. Preferably choose one from a course where only n-1 assignments count.
• Go ahead, spoil yourself, ORDER IN. You don't have time to cook. You can literally buy time by ordering something in. I don't recomend ordering in from Swiss Chalet though - it's usualy cold, and if you're really unlucky, feathered.
• Continue your lack of social life. Yeah, it sucks when your only social event is a mathNEWS production night and you don't even get printed, but you need to keep up with these things called classes.
• Don't sleep. Sleep is for the weak. And the tired.

Good luck... As long as you haven't burned the apartment down, they should be impressed.

Just wish me luck after-the-fact. Tuesday is fast approaching now, and long gone by the time this is read again.

Half-pint
who had slightly more than 48 hours advance warning