Even on the weekend I can’t seem to sleep in. Here we are on a Saturday morning at 5 a.m. and my body just wakes up. I feel like I could sleep 3 more hours, but I have learned that I will just lie there and then be mad I didn’t get up and be productive.
What is worse is that for the last few months I wake up at 3:30 in the morning almost every day. I will wake up and not want to check the time on my iPhone because I just know it will say 3:30. Usually, I will lay there for an hour and doze back off eventually, but sometimes I know I won’t be able to fall back asleep and just get up.
The problem is that when I wake up it is like my mind and thoughts are automatically turned on which I cannot turn off. Like everything just starts processing in my head.
On these days that I rise at 3:30 I usually work from home on my computer, handling emails and doing some marketing things. There is always something to do either in my business or on my business. So this is how this Saturday morning has begun.
The other problem this creates is that I need to go to sleep earlier than my wife. It is almost as if she is on East coast time. While I am in bed by 10 most nights, I will frequently wake up at 1 a.m. and she will be reading her Kindle. So while I wake at say 5 a.m., I have to wait until about 8 when she wakes up.
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Daughter Doing Well
My Daughter, Aundrea who is 20 is going to UCLA. She is a Junior there and doing wonderful. She transferred there after 2 years at College of the Canyons in Valencia, so she is just in her first quarter of the year.
She is adapting to the fast school schedule as they are on a Quarter system. She just had her first mid-terms and got A’s on her exams. She was super stressed during the week of mid-terms so am glad she is living off campus (and not at our home) so we didn’t have to become the victims of her stress.
Not only did she do well on her exams, but she was recently invited to apply for and then accepted into the Honors Society for her major which is Anthropology. This is apparently a big deal as the people who are accepted into the Honors Society are considered to be early indicators of Graduate School acceptance.
This is amazing news because it is our hope that she continue her studies at UCLA for her Graduate and Doctorate education. You see, my daughter has a plan which includes getting her Doctorate and if she can do this all at UCLA that would be great.
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UCLA Student Housing Is Terrible
Back in August we started looking for housing. She did not want to live in the dorms as a Junior, so focused on off-campus housing. There is an area in Westwood called the Village where the majority of student housing is.
When checking out the area, we were disgusted by the trash, beer cans and just overall filth of the area which includes furniture, beds and anything else you could imagine strewn on the sidewalks and streets.
So in looking for housing, we set up a Saturday one day to visit several apartments. They were all within the same 10 or so square blocks so location was not really the issue as the location was crappy anywhere, so it just became about the amenities of the apartment and the costs.
After touring several properties, we were drawn to on specific complex. The leasing agent met us there and was super nice and explained all the ins and outs of the different apartments, including ones we had also visited.
She took the time to tell us how great their complex was. That is had an on-site manager who lived there who would keep things under control and who the residents could go to if they had a problem.
So we signed a lease agreement and paid our deposit and first months rent.
Then in September our Daughter moved in. As is typical, she is in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other girls as they each share a bedroom. This helps to keep the costs down as apartments, even crappy ones like this lease 2 bedroom apartments for between $4,000 and $4,500 per month.
Since our daughter has moved in, it has been hell. The on-site manager is not helpful and in fact, when our daughter went to her for something, she was later told by the leasing agency not to speak to her and that she has no authority to do anything or make any decisions. What? That is what we were told she was there for!
Then, my daughter calls us one day and says there are cockroaches everywhere. So we get on the phone and call the leasing company. It takes them 2 weeks to get an exterminator in there.
Then, we are informed that the air conditioning has not worked for 2 weeks. Again, we call and it takes several weeks to have someone come out to fix it.
We write checks to UCLA Student Housing. So if you are looking for housing at UCLA off-campus, I would avoid this place.
The leasing agent was amazing at selling this place to us, but as soon as they had our money, we slowly learned it was all a lie. In fact, my daughter told us yesterday that she ran into somebody who told her she used to live “in that shit-hole” last year.
So we are already looking for new housing for next year. We will not have out daughter stay or live in these types of conditions. I don’t know at what point it became okay to live in filth when going to college. I don’t think this is part of the college experience, but in speaking with other parents of children who went to college, this seems to be the norm.
I didn’t have the college experience as I joined the Marine Corps right out of high school. I did eventually go to school, but later in life and not the traditional college route like my daughter is doing.
Life certainly is a learning experience as our children grow and this is just one more experience.
If you are reading this and know if any NICE UCLA off-campus housing feel free to email me. We are definitely on the hunt for someplace else for next year.
