First Impressions of Dorm Life and the Defects of Furniture
Life in these halls of collegeic residence is eccentric enough to become an entirely new culture. Every day I marvel at the fact that reality TV or National Geographic have not taken advantage of our strange customs and habits. Yes, the number of different species housed under one roof is indeed astounding. From the jocund roommate who hardly cleans, but means well, to the nervous and shy resident who barely crosses threshold into the daylight, we all breathe the same stale dormitory air. Loud creatures inhabit 13 x 16 boxes with the meek, all communally sharing various commodities necessary to modern life. I look to the abandoned chemistry text, being crushed by the dumb leg of my two position chair. Such genius was involved in designing this furniture for dorm life! The careful engineer of these fabulous chairs simply did not account for students such as I, who might in a social moment over estimate the range of said chair’s tilting abilities and land herself square on her back on the multicolored rug of her dorm room floor.
Even the history of communicable diseases shared within these walls is an entire book in itself. Oh, the variety of illness and its victims! While quietly tapping away on my notebook I may observe the rushed (and overscheduled) music/biology double major toting her oboe as the athletic engineering major pleads with his somewhat socially inept roommate to open the locked door so he may retrieve his keys. I hear the loud exclamatory “FUCK!” in response to a failed video game attempt, a particularly trying calculus problem, or perhaps a broken item of décor. The periodic disruption of our feigned attempts at studying is simply a way of life. Then there is the world of whiteboards, where dry erase letters are scrawled in the hand of a generation deprived of fine handwriting by printed type. From the casual “hey lets get lunch” to the irritating and random note left by a resident who believes himself to be quite funny; notes of significance and insignificance litter our lives. The community board hung in our little nook of a common room, presumably placed there for some sort of academic use, is plastered with scores of old card games and the cheesiest pick-up lines we could think of. “You must be the square root of 2, because I feel irrational around you” shares a space with a mock chemistry problem, humorously quipping, “if H2O is inside a fire hydrant, what’s on the outside?” Such is our space of inhabitance, decorated with letters and words, defined by clinical, white walls, and littered with our personal possessions.
Comments
Posted by: Roger
Posted on: September 19, 2007 08:26 AM
Great stuff, especially for those of us who never had the chance to live in a dorm room.