Schlep is a fun word to say.

• Posted on KK
• in work
• on March 1, 2011
• 4 Comments.

Dan and I have the same job. Which requires living on campus. We work at different universities (he is at Cal Maritime, I am still at UC Berkeley). The adjustment period has been interesting.

The “how did this happen?” story goes like this: one of his friends from college (Susan) went to grad school with a woman named Katie. Katie ended up working at Cal Maritime after graduation, which is about 30 minutes away from Berkeley. They had a job vacancy. Katie asked Susan if she knew anyone in the area with some experience, who could start right away. Susan suggested Dan, who was a hall supervisor when we were seniors at college. (We both were, awwwwwww). Dan went on campus for an interview, and was offered the job just a couple of days before RA training, which is the busiest time of year. Originally he was offered a short contract, just through October to get the year started. And then, the Dean of Students (his boss) asked him to stay for the rest of the academic year, so he will be in this job through May.

His working at another university in a live-in job has presented a few…challenges, because we knew that we didn’t want to live separately.  The biggest hurdle right away was transportation. Cal Maritime is in Vallejo, California, which is only about a 30-35 minute drive from our apartment in Berkeley, is immediately on the other side of a bridge. While the Bay Area has great public transit, the BART (aka Metro) can get us to the bridge, but not across. There is a bus that gets you over the bridge, but it costs $5 (the same as the car bridge toll) and isn’t practical for twice a day use. For the first couple of months, we rented and borrowed cars. Dan borrowed Katie’s car, we rented cars from Enterprise and we also rented my boss’s car, which he was trying to sell. After Dan’s contract was extended from October to May, we finally broke down and bought a car. We ended up buying a Ford Focus Fusion, and have had it since the end of November. We’re now trying to negotiate parking options in Berkeley that are more cost-effective than university parking permits, which are $100/month. Ouch.

Once Dan’s apartment was ready (which wasn’t the case for the first month or so), we had to figure out where to live. The live-in aspects of our jobs really require us to be present and available when we are on duty – which is four weeks per year for Kristin, and once every 5 weeks for Dan – and also to make sure we are present in the community, at events, in the dining hall, etc.  To state the obvious, it wouldn’t do for either one of us to be the one commuting all the time. Our current arrangement has Dan staying in Vallejo two set nights a week – when he has late night meetings and when I have late night meetings. Other evenings, he usually comes down to Berkeley. Some nights he has late evening programs he needs to attend, and on those evenings, I go up to Vallejo. When one of us is on duty, then the other commutes every night, due to our duty boundaries. [When we’re on duty, we need to be able to physically respond to an emergency within 15 minutes. Additionally, we can’t cross bridges, specifically in case of earthquake, the resulting damage and not being able to get back to campus.] Also, the cats spend a good amount of time in both apartments. So far, every week the rotation has been different – which can be both fun and tiring.

The other obstacle that we didn’t foresee is the amount of schlepping that our life now requires. Every time one of us commutes, or decides to go somewhere for the night, there is an amount of crap that you need to haul with you. Of course we both have basic overnight necessities in both places. But if you go every night for a week, and you take up food, or cat supplies/food/litter, or clothes, or whatever. There are times when it has looked like we’re going on a several week trip. We don’t want to buy duplicates of anything particularly expensive, so some things will just have to log some miles. Good thing the car has a big trunk.

As much as this sounds awful, there have definitely been some benefits to our unique arrangement. While Vallejo isn’t exactly a destination to visit, it offers me a place to get away from my campus without paying to get away anywhere. When Dan is on duty, I spend the entire weekend in Vallejo not doing much of anything, which is great for my mental sanity. Dan’s apartment also looks right out over the water (being a maritime academy and all), and gets a TON of sunlight (which the cats looooooove).  Plus, Vallejo is directly between Berkeley and Napa Valley – so from Dan’s campus, we can be wine tasting in about 30 minutes. Awesome!

Soooo yeah. Two apartments, same job, semi-nomads. No, we can never do things ‘normally.’

In other news, Dan has expanded his coursework as a TA for online classes at GWU. He has been consistently working with one professor during fall semesters, but this spring received an offer from a different professor to work with a different class. I have no idea exactly what the class is, but that is happening.

Also, Dan has taken up curling. Yes, curling with the sweeping and the yelling and the rules no one understands. During the Olympics, we both got into watching curling, and he decided he wanted to learn. He found a class nearby, finished the 5 week course and is now in a curling league. I mock him all the time about it, but I’m happy he’s enjoying it. Also, I’m secretly proud he took the initiative to basically start a new hobby. Soon I will go to one of his matches with friends and signs and embarrass him horribly. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Yawn. Come back tomorrow for more, k?