American University - Talon / Aucola Yearbook (Washington, DC)

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Crackerbox Palace: or. You Can Live in a Dorm and Survive to Enjoy It Sitting in the lounge late one night, you begin to look around you and ask yourself why the hell you are in this place and not off campus in a house with a private room. You think about that blaring stereo in the room next to yours, and you wonder if that madman next door ever goes to sleep be- fore two in the morning. And you think about the yelling and the strange noises emitting from the room down the hall. Then you think about how you waited last Thursday night until 1:00 a.m. for the drier to release your clothes. And even after all that time they still weren ' t dry. You re- member how you never did appreciate those 3:00 a.m. fire drills during exam week or the nightly bomb threats. Then you look at your own room, which reminds you of a cell block in a jail, and you won- der. What am I doing here? But. then the belief that there must be some good aspects of dorm life begins to emerge. You think about how — even though your roommate last year was an es- capee from the Bronx Zoo — this year ' s roommate is really all right. You talked late into the night last week about girlfriend boyfriend problems and how you have this

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shitty class with a shitty professor and his shitty book you have to read. You may even decide to get up in the middle of the night to play a couple of games of backgammon. And even though the members of your floor almost never watch what you want to watch on t.v. in the lounge, the times when you can share the celebration of a Yankees World Series victory or a Redskins victory over Dallas make you feel a little bit better, and you think maybe it isn ' t so bad not having a t.v. in your room. Friendships of this sort in a dorm can be strengthened merely through passing in the hallway late at night and returning those tired smiles that say, Yes, I ' m working on my paper due tomorrow morning, too. You begin to appreciate the little things in life when you live in a dorm. You realize how important your stereo is when it soothes the end of a day that began with the Registrar ' s telling you that you don ' t exist, and your professor ' s telling you a thirty page paper is due the following week, and ended with your R.A. ' s telling you what you already knew, that you are no longer required to leave the dorm when there is a bomb scare, even though you never did leave in the first place. You also appreciate incidental music; when you walk downstairs and listen to the man singing Pete Seeger songs to the ac- companiment of his banjo in the stairwell. you don ' t mind needing to use another floor ' s laundry room. Despite your nights out on the lounge sofa because your roommate has better uses for the room, you also have your nights with the room to yourself when your roommate goes home for the weekend or spends the night in another room on cam- pus with another roommate. The only thing you have to worry about is what you are going to say to her parents if they call in the morning. In a dorm you are taught your economic principle of allocating resources through competition in the market place. You com- pete for the laundry room, for the lounge burners, for a socket for your toaster oven, for the television, and even for the use of the hall phone. But you also learn how to begin and develop personal relationships. fag Noflh % Ml Vtj