A fair warning to you all: I am hoping, but cannot guarantee, that this post comes across as more than a wimpy, whiny rant.
But seriously? If the jerk who lives upstairs doesn't learn to turn his music down I am going to have to go up there and throttle him.
Except he's probably not a jerk. I have found that few, if any, of the graduate students I have met here are jerks. In fact, most of them are ridiculously interesting (my next-door neighbor studies the psychology of terrorism - I mean, whoa) and incredibly brilliant. I have actually met this music-playing upstairs neighbor on a couple of occasions - once in the dining hall, and once when I went up to ask him to turn the music down. Which he did. Very politely. He seems nice.
But still. It is uncanny how he always seems to play his music loudest (read: wall-vibrating-bass-loud) on the nights when I am determined to get to bed early. After I've already put on my pajamas. And really, really don't want to have to walk upstairs - in the cold, since this bizarro dorm has no internal stairways - and buzz his room from outside to yell into the intercom for him to please turn his music down because I am the loser who is going to bed at 9:30PM.
Instead, night after night, I stay up later than I should in the hopes that he will turn his music off. I attempt to train myself to fall asleep to the music, as if the thumping bass is a lullaby just for me. All the while my frustration - with him, with his taste in music, with myself, with my taste in unassertiveness and early bedtimes - is building... to what breaking point I have no idea.
But. But! I am almost a full term into an MBA program! I am learning things about myself and the way I behave in difficult situations. I am learning, in fact, that I don't speak up for myself enough! Which sometimes results in venting that can be a little over-the-top. Best to communicate before blowing up, right? I need to get over the fact that it is ridiculous that a) I am living in a dorm at all; and b) that I have to deal with a loud neighbor - I mean I was so over this in undergrad, and that was years ago! - and just address the situation directly.
... Or I could give it another few minutes. Just in case he turns the music down on his own.
Ack!
Jen
Please DO Stop the Music