Dorm
living requires patience — deal
with it
Our
view
Before
heading into the dorm daze please heed
the following advice: life in a dorm
requires things far from the norm.
What exactly do we mean by this? Existence in the residence halls brings about
situations far different than seemingly normal things before and after it.
You will see and do things no apartment or house can offer.
No one can say exactly what those little occurrences will be, but rest assured
years from now you’ll reminisce about those dorm days.
Remember the slip-n-slide with shower curtains down the hallway? Remember when
hundreds of crickets were dumped in the hall at 4 a.m. and crept into the rooms?
Who can forget the dead squid left in the bathroom locker and that smell?
Trash cans on fire? Fire alarms every Thursday at 2:30 a.m?
Such memories may be popping into your mind years from now, though they may
be even more creative.
The fact of the matter is dorm living requires tremendous patience and understanding
of others especially when some boys below you play Halo 24-7, swearing included.
Be prepared for things that are beyond normal, if not outright insane.
People become very odd once you live with them. This is an indisputable fact.
Consider the scenario of a dorm: many students usually around the same age
get crammed together from different hometowns. Few people know each other already
but are forced to somehow coexist and maybe even become friends.
You’ll see the ins-and-outs of personal lives you wouldn’t get
by sitting next to him or her in history. Dorms are like a boot camp where
you and your newly-found neighbors will share the same adventure and stress
for nine months.
With dorms come neighbors and with neighbors come roommates. Roommates are
a different breed. Neighbors close their doors and they disappear, but roommates
are still there even after you close your own door.
To be asked to live with a complete strange can be a difficult task indeed.
However, this job can be made one step easier by going into the fire with a
good attitude. Don’t be all hot and bothered by every little outlandish
thing your roommate does. Just deal with it.
If something bothers you enough to the point of screaming, communicate with
that other person who is only three feet away. Set up boundaries and guidelines.
Your roommate can either be your worst enemy, a complacent close-by neighbor
or a lifelong friend. It’s never good to make enemies and a quiet companion
isn’t much fun.
That leaves the third option which is by far the best — view your roommate
with an open mind. So what if he looks and smells funny or she wears odd-colored
dresses on the first day?
Another thing — dorms are noisy places and this is the norm. Noise is
the nature of the beast. Deal with it. Luckily, many of the buildings have
thick walls that offer some sound-proof protection, but living in a communal-style
dorm means as a community you share the same noise.
Noise affecting your ability to study? A suggestion is to move elsewhere, like
the common area or dare we say, the library. Many of us get very little done
in our rooms with the distraction of friends and other trinkets, so going somewhere
else is the only way to get down to business.
So whether you’re an incoming freshman or transfer student, on-campus
living for a year can be the time of your life if you choose to head into its
fantastical fury with the right mindset.
In short, make the most of it. |
