I'm sure that everybody, at one time or the other, been through the same kind of annoying experience. Yes, I'm talking about noisy neighbors. I thought I could have escaped pesky neighbors when I moved away from campus, but not quite. It seems like I traded one hyperactive "kid" for another. At my old apartment, it was my upstair neighbor, Steve, a 20-year old "kid" who never sits still, loves to wear heavy construction boots in the house and is "a bit hard on hearing," which requires him to turn his stereo volume to the max. Imagine having to live with double barrage of virtual stomping on my head: one from the heavy boots and the other from the stereo's bass. See, Steve never sleeps--he's one of those goth kids who is constantly depressed and emo--and plays his stereo at all times and have his equally melancholic goth friends come over at ungodly hours. Being a goth kid means that he's not the type who gets aggressive when confronted, but on the other hand, his skull is so thick even a mule would listen and heed to my plea before he does. I cannot remember how many times have I marched up the stairs, knocked on his door, and told him to take noise down a few notches. And he complied EVERY time--for only that particular moment, and back to his old routine the next day. Even a mule knows when to work if you pull the rein often and hard enough (or whatever you call the thing that goes through its nose). Thank God that Steve is now out of my life, but alas, I spoke too soon...
I now live about three miles away off campus, which requires me to ride the bus to campus every day--or a 25-minute bike ride. For the most part I do enjoy being away from all the hubbubs on campus and I now have my own fortress of solitude within the REAL world nonetheless. What I mean by real world is that life on campus does not at all resemble what it is like outside of it: my campus neighborhoods are overwhelmingly white, young undergraduates who for the most part love to party and get wasted from Thursday night through Sunday night. Yeah, this is the #1 party school (whatever that means) but some things are just a bit too much, you know. It gets even more ridiculous during football season when in every home game the party starts at 8am and doesn't end until well past midnight, and the party scatters out within a mile-radius from the stadium. It's pandemonium, I tell you. Well, I don't need to tell you if you already live here, especially those folks at the Regent apartment.
So, what is so REAL about my new living arrangement? For one, there's the diversity. My front neighbor is a black woman, my side neighbor is a Hmong family and my upstair neighbor is a Hispanic family. Speaking of the upstair Hispanic family, this is who I'm currently having a bit of an issue with, and this cannot be easily solved, at least the way I see it. First I have to say that they are a really nice bunch. Hardly speaks any English but we exchanged smiles and waving gestures a few times. At the risk of sounding selfish, the problem is that they have three small kids and this is a one-bedroom apartment. One is still a baby but the other two are at an age where they cannot sit still for even five seconds. They run around and jump up and down all the time, especially now when it's already cold and they can't really go out to play anymore. Seriously, it is driving me bonkers, with all the stress for trying to get work done.
How to tactfully deal with this problem? With Steve, I can just tell it straight to his face. But how do you try to explain to somebody who doesn't really speak English. "No (run) en casa. Mi estudiar!" My Spanish is virtually none-existent! I thought about maybe getting Ibrain (Suri's husband) to write a note in Spanish for me, so I can tell them nicely what's bothering me. The bigger problem is how NOT to look like a jerk when I tell them to keep their rambunctious children on a leash. I'm sure they have enough problems in life as it is without me complaining. Also, most parents hate it when people tell them how to raise their own kids. But then, they are really nice folks. The kids are really friendly when I see them playing in front of the building. Compare to Steve, who can sometimes come off as a jerk, which makes him so much easier to confront, what kind of negotiating techniques you'd use to deal with a loving immigrant family who is simply trying to eke out a living in a foreign land? It is a Catch-22 situation.
Maybe my problem all along is not with my upstair neighbors per se, but with the stupid-ass prefabricated American building design that is not sound-proof at all. Why can't they make buildings like in Malaysia using solid concrete and bricks, instead of this cheapo drywall you can punch through.
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