Day 4: An Absolute Minefield of Dogshit

January 12, 2023

The UU minister John Robinson once told me this joke: The rain falls upon the just and the unjust alike. But mostly upon the just because the unjust have stolen the just’s umbrellas.

The rain also will fall on me every time I try to move something apparently. As I write this, I’m soaked to the bone and smell like literal dog poo. (Ladies.)

Backing up: As most of you know, I’m living in an Airbnb right now. The house I’m going to be living in for the rest of my time here is being renovated and won’t be ready until February 1st. My start date being January 9, there was a housing gap of about three weeks to fill and thus the Airbnb.

I packed all my stuff into a moving pod in San Francisco during the pouring rain. It hadn’t rained in California for like seven years until the week I needed to move.

I ended up with an extremely full car:

My dog riding high in the backseat of my stuffed car.

Once I reached Pittsburgh, I didn’t want to move everything from the car into my Airbnb because the apartment isn’t that big and it’s on the third floor, up many steep flights of steps. But I also didn’t necessarily want to leave all the stuff out in the car either. The car is parked on the street in a…let’s say just ok neighborhood, as I talked about on Day 2. Every morning I was waking up and the first thing I did was look out the apartment window to see if the car windows were smashed in and my stuff stolen. Which 100% would have been the case on the first night if I’d left it on the street in San Francisco. So I contacted the guy who owns the place I’m going to be staying at and he said I could drop some stuff off there.

So after an exciting day on campus (more on that in a minute), I drove over to the house. Because the house is on a hill and it’s easier to carry things downhill into the back of the house, I parked behind/above it in the alley. By this time, it’s dark and raining pretty hard. I start carrying things from the car through the backyard and I immediately realize the yard is an absolute minefield of dogshit. Ever try to carry things while carrying an umbrella? It doesn’t work very well, so soon I ditched it and subsequently got drenched, unsuccessfully hopping around piles of poo in the dark while hauling heavy boxes for an hour.

On the plus side: the house is looking great and I can’t wait to be there in three weeks. And at least now my car isn’t the target for late-night smash-n-grab fun.

But today was exciting because this afternoon I helped run an orientation workshop for the Master of Science in Product Management incoming class. The MSPM students have to take two HCII design classes, which I just fucking love. Being able to add some design understanding and thinking into PM education makes me so happy. Inception! Today we were giving them a taste of what being in design classes is going to be like, and why they should care about design at all. I made them laugh a few times which is a win. But I need to learn better how to teach them (and all my students) what they need (and want) to know. This is my task this semester.

I also got to spend a lot of time in the Tepper School of Business, a gorgeous ginormous building that didn’t exist when I was a student at CMU.

I’m dry now and the poop smell has vanished. Or else I’ve just become used to it.