As I observed my roommate fail miserably at making Jell-O Monday night, I realized there are lifestyle difficulties to living in a dorm room. My roommate likes to cook, but unfortunately there is no oven or stove in the room. Rather than doing the intelligent thing, walking downstairs to the quite conveniently located kitchen, he boils water in the microwave and cooks whatever he can. Pasta and oatmeal turn out pretty well. Jell-O does not.
But the problems do not stop there.
Productivity takes a huge hit while living in a dorm. This is a two-fold problem. First, the library is a really long walk. Even from my dorm in Craven, reaching the library is a feat. Which means rather than going to the library and working, I sit in my dorm room and watch every video on the Onion News Network and every article on MSN.com. For example, "Parrot gets award for warning about choking tot" was a heartwarming story.
The second part of this productivity conundrum is the proximity of friends. When I do finally work up that motivation to leave my room, instead of leaving my dorm, crossing the quad and heading to the library, I walk into a friend's room and sit down. Three hours later, I realize I have watched two of the worst movies I have ever seen (like "Black Sheep" or "Demolition Man"). I then walk down the hall to leave the dorm, only to wander into another friend's room and watch an episode of "From Gs to Gents". And after watching these disasters, my IQ has decreased 25 points and I lose motivation to actually trudge to the library.
Another annoying part of dorm life is shower shoes. Not because I forget to wear them or don't have them or that they're that bad, but because mine are broken. I broke one of them and fixed it with duct tape, but then the duct tape came off. Now I'm out of duct tape from repairing everything else in my room. And my car is broken so I can't drive to buy more duct tape. Thus, I have to hop on one foot to the shower, put my shower shoe down in the shower and pivot on the broken shower shoe. Which means I never travel in my daydreams of being a Duke basketball player...
Vending machines are an added displeasure. Diet soft drinks always run out first, so people like me who are watching their figures are forced to opt for a drink full of carbs. Then we decide our diet is already out the door so we buy a pack of candy too. Then I finish my snack and remember I don't even like lemonade and realize that those Starbursts were a little much. Now I'm stuck on a sugar high at 1 a.m., bouncing off the walls before crashing and forgetting to remove my contacts or brush my teeth.
Cleaning can also be a pain. First, one must find someone with a vacuum. That is far more difficult than one would think. Then, one must use the vacuum, which barely works because an eighth of West Campus residents use that same borrowed vacuum. Then one finishes and returns the vacuum only to discover it did absolutely nothing.
Who am I kidding? I don't clean.
Although all of these events-from terrible movies to broken shower shoes-occurred within a three-day period, they actually weren't annoying at all. I'm just trying to convince myself that Central is going to be awesome. So all my fellow rising juniors who are forced to live on Central (after enduring the in-person annoyance that was Room Picks '09), keep reminding yourselves of the minor issues that come with dorm living. Now let's get excited about living on Central!
Drew Everson is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Friday.
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