Deep Cleaning

It has begun. My room is in chaos; there are dirty dishes piled up our sink and clean dishes scattered all over our dining room table; there are trash piles near every door. We're beginning to settle in, and in the process, there's a lot to be done.

I started unpacking hardcore today! My massive black trunk, which has heretofore sat, undisturbed, at the foot of my bed, is unpacked now, the duct tape removed and the case placed atop my newly-dusted wardrobe. So, too, my biggest rolling bag is unpacked, its contents split between the wardrobe and under the bed, the Kaohsiung destination tag ripped off and the bag resting upright where the black case was before.

I also began in what will be a multi-day rearranging effort: my wardrobe, which was on the same wall as my bed, leaving ample wasted space on the wall my door is in, has been shifted around the corner so that it sits next to the light switch, with a nice-sized space beside it which I hope to fill with a clothes rack for more hanging space--I'm quickly discovering that, with my hanging organizer in place, my wardrobe does not have enough room for my hanging clothes. And in this climate, of all climates, I want to give my clothes room to breathe.

As for the rest of the room, I haven't decided yet, though I did move the bedside table over so it's actually beside my bed. Planner that I am, I will probably bust out the measuring tape and graph paper before I start shoving all the furniture around.

The actual cleaning part of settling in in this apartment is disturbing. You wipe any surface in this house with a wet rag, and it comes away black. Today, when I moved my wardrobe, I discovered a scattering of gray cocoon-looking things all over my wall (they were soon gone and the whole area RAID-ed), and an inch-deep layer of dust built up on the moldings. GROSS!

Then there's the roaches, of course, which I haven't mentioned yet in this blog, mostly because so far my experiences of them have been pretty innocuous--tiny little guys who usually pop up on the bathroom floor or somewhere in the kitchen. On our first day, Rachel killed a giant one, but I didn't see it; today, though, Brittany found a big one in her bathroom and let loose a blood-curdling scream that pierced the whole apartment. Luckily, the one thing our predecessors did leave behind for us was roach spray and roach traps.

But it's coming along. My room will look much better once I make it to Ikea to get some more organizational stuff--right now I've run into the problem of not having anywhere to put the stuff I unload from my bags--but for now it's nice to have a little more floor space and a few cleaner walls. Could also use some homey touches. The rest still needs serious work; one of the previous tenants ripped a bulletin board off the wall, taking parts of the wall with it, and the walls themselves are visibly dirty. I mentioned both problems to Fonda; I'm hoping the landlord will agree to repaint. It's pretty nasty.

And that's about all that's been happening around here today! We had waffles for brunch. We pulled a stereotypical American moment and had Pizza Hut and soda for dinner in front of the TV. Now we're sitting around the house blogging, listening to music, Facebooking, cleaning...whatever. Pretty chill. Back to teaching tomorrow!