This is Life When You Live in a Dorm

Everything in my life seems to be working against me sleeping. This afternoon I was taking a much-needed nap after shafting sleep for homework last night. It was raining outside, which made my nap a really good one but was also the source of many problems. I woke up to my lovely RA banging on the door because Nashville was under a tornado warning. I got up, went to the first floor of my building and groggily waited out the warning. Unfortunately, the weather was still bad so I was waiting for it to happen again. We were initially under a tornado watch from that point until 2am.

Before going to bed, I decided to check the weather and see the likelihood of being awakened again for tornadoes. The best news I'd heard all day was that things had calmed down and Nashville was probably just going to see some rain for the rest of the night. But a little over an hour after I had fallen asleep (just enough time to be sleeping really well), the fire alarm started going off. For the second time today, I got out of my bed, grabbed a jacket, my phone, and my keys and headed downstairs. We waited it out in the parking garage. The alarm went off, and everybody went back inside. On the 3rd of 5 floors, the alarm began to go off again. At this point I wanted to cry. We turned around and headed back down the stairs we had just come up.

Perhaps scarier than the brief thought that the building was actually on fire, was the campus security officer "patrolling" on his bike while we were in the parking garage. I understand that campus security would want to be around, but I'm not sure what they were accomplishing by having him ride back and forth as we all listened to the deafening fire alarm. I was in a mood, and social media has consumed my life, so I took a couple of pictures of the guy on the bike. I also have a short video of our frustration. They're not high quality, but I'd like someone else to share at least a little of the aggravation. So here you go.

And now I'm off to bed. Hopefully this time I won't wake up until my alarm goes off, which is going to be all too early. And hopefully I'll also be able to remember that there were a lot worse things happening with the weather in Nashville tonight than me having to get out of bed. There was a lot of damage and a lot of flooding. When I've slept I should appreciate my good fortune.