Sorry these have been pretty random with long breaks in between--
Been a bit of a rough patch lately. The semester is supposed to be winding down, but instead the kids seem to be winding up -- their right hook, that is. Been seeing a lots of fights lately. I think in the last three weeks we've seen like around 10 fights -- damn spring weather. When it's rainy they behave.
The most recent -- tonight-- was a doozy. Happened in the parking lot outside of one of my halls and they ended up fighting on top of one of my grad student's cars and dented the heck out of it. We had to put the building on lock down, with two staff at the door checking ID for everyone who walked in, all guests had to sign in, and one person couldn't sign in more than three guests. Campus police also had an officer stationed there with the staff in case anyone gave them problems.
I was at a play at the community theater when it all broke out so after the play we went to campus to check on the staff and hang out a bit. Jess and I ended up buying them pizza and soda to thank them.
These fights (tonight's and the two last night) all stem from one we had three weeks ago were a gun was pulled on a student for a stupid video prank his fraternity did that mocked members of two other fraternities. So a dude associated with one of the fraternities being mocked pulled a gun on one of the guys in the video. This wasn't a toy gun either -- it was a 50 caliber desert eagle with hollow tipped bullets --- they weren't playin. Luckily he just pointed the gun, everyone scattered, and he jumped in a car and drove off. the police found the truck with his brother in it with the gun and arrested him. The brother turned himself in later. The associate director of our police department told me that the gun/bullets would have went right through the Kevlar vests that our police wear. Like I said, they weren't playin -- hence the police stationed in the building.
It's just been a bit crazy since then. Luckily we close a week from tomorrow (err today actually) -- Saturday May 8th!! Woot woot!!
I almost hit a breaking point this week -- as in I almost broke some people. So I took Wednesday off and had my RHA kids over for dinner. I made lasagna with sauce from scratch... I have to admit -- I make a DAMN good lasagna -- ask anyone who has had it. :)
That's the craziness in my life now -- we are counting down the days until closing so that thing will slow down a bit for us. :) Wish me luck for the rest of the semester!!
Interesting how everything can be solved with a gun, or a right hook or both. How can you as The Boss, keep the group's temperature down? Or is that an unanswerable question? Glad to hear you're safe.
ReplyDeleteThe police officer standing at the front desk and his car in the parking lot seemed to cool things down significantly!! As for anything we can do proactively? Not a lot, I can do -- there are some systematic changes the university needs to make -- hopefully they will start seeing that after all of this.
ReplyDeleteSadly, this wasn't the worst of my weekend.. I got called out for a suicide attempt that same night at 2am. What a life I lead!!