Relying on Shuttles Sucks

Getting around SCAD without a car means I either have to walk everywhere or rely on SCAD's free shuttle service, open to students. Each shuttle line has it's own color, and runs in a loop. The bus never comes the opposite direction, it just sticks to its route until it comes back to whatever stop you are looking for.

I discovered on my first day of classes that the red route is the most popular route; it goes by all of the Freshman courses, making it difficult for the upperclassmen to get on the shuttle. Therefore, multiple red buses run during the day. I ride the blue route to get to my classes, which are all in the same building. It's also one of the shortest routes, which makes it a fairly quick ride.

SCAD offers a mobile ap, called TransLoc (this ap actually services numerous universities; when you download the ap, you select your school and it shows the shuttles and routes available to you). TransLoc shows you where you are, where the buses are and what direction they are heading, and what time the next shuttle is expected to arrive at your stop. This would be such a useful tool, if only it was reliable. Unfortunately, it frequently will change expected arrival times, turning wait time at a stop into interminable lengths.

This is especially bad on weekends when riding the shopping shuttle, which takes students from Turner (a dorm) to O-House (my dorm) to Target to Best Buy to the Oglethorpe Mall back to Target (and then back to Turner for a loop). The entire route takes about one hour to go one direction. If you catch the shuttle at the first Target stop, you can expect to be on the bus for another hour until you get back to the dorms. So one 10 minute shopping trip requires you to wait for nearly an hour until a shuttle comes back around, and you can expect your entire trip to take you 3 hours. Not exactly efficient.

That's all for this week's blog post; I have homework and I'm watching Hell's Kitchen. Guess that's the extent of my multitasking for the evening.

Becoming a Southern Belle

Per Becky's suggestion, I am going to revamp this blog in accordance to my latest adventure, which involves a trip across the country to Savannah, Georgia in order to attend graduate school at the Savannah College of Art and Design. After many trials and tribulations (or so it seemed) to get some internet in my dorm room, I am now set up on a brand new computer, in an air conditioned room, in the heart of historic downtown Savannah (one of the oldest, most historic, and self-claimed most haunted cities in America).

Thus far, my time in Georgia has mostly involved complaining about the heat and asking the students who agree with me where they're from (usually places like Chicago, but one guy from New Mexico said the heat was bad for him because of the humidity; he's used to a dry heat. One guy was from Arkansas, but has been in Savannah long enough to be accustomed).

I've had a few minor culture shocks; I expected I might be the liberal whackjob from Pugetropolis, and I was appalled to learn that recycling doesn't matter much. What?! At PLU, we separated our recyclables; glass, plastic, paper, cardboard. Not to mention composting and all that fun jazz.

More shocking was learning that NONE of the grocery stores I am accustomed to exist in most of the US; including QFC, Safeway, Albertson's, and Fred Meyer. Every store I thought of, the other students said "nope, never heard of it". So where do people buy food around here? Kroger, I guess. I didn't know Kroger stores existed; that's the generic store brand at our grocery stores. Well, at least it's semi familiar.

So far, I've been surrounded primarily by undergraduates. No surprise there; I am living in a residence hall, afterall. But that's okay; this experience is so new to me, I almost feel as lost and freaked out as all the 18 year old freshmen. And as far as graduate students go, I am a bit of a baby, what with being fresh out of my undergrad program.

I'm learning that while many stores exist here in Savannah which would help keep me in comfort, they are not easy to get to. At all. Hopefully, I succeed eventually in learning the transit system. Everyone here rides bikes, but I'm broke and have no bike. Walking it is! Which is fine around downtown, just less so if I want to shop at Target.

Classes start tomorrow (or, in the case of my lovely schedule, Tuesday). Hopefully I'll start to brave the heat and explore this city shortly. Until then, expect numerous complaints about the ungodly heat (which the locals keep telling me is beautiful right now, because it's cooling off. I'm sorry, but 90 is not beautiful. Ever).