Opinion column: Goodbye dorm life

By Therese Rogers

It occurs to me that this will be one of the last columns I write from good ol’ dorm room 471. After living in the Six-Pack for two years, I will be moving on to apartment life next semester. As much as I’m looking forward to making my own food, having my own room and living with three of my best friends, there are many, many things about this residence hall I’ve come to love and know I’ll miss.

Like the bathrooms. The whole community bathroom thing freaked me out a little at first, but I have definitely come to appreciate using a bathroom I don’t have to clean. Plus the community setup allows for shower sex jokes and other interesting situations. One example: lobster heads and dozens of water-filled condoms infiltrate showers and sinks from time to time – not that I have any idea how that happens.

Then there’s all the drama that evolves from living in such close proximity to about 100 other students. Everyone in my dorm and certainly within my group of friends seems to have dated everyone else or at least have obscure connections to everyone else. I can’t go to dinner without running into my ex-boyfriend, my boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend(s), my sister’s boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend, my roommate’s ex-love interests, my friend’s cousin’s ex-illicit lover’s dog, you get my drift.

And speaking of dinner, there’s the wonderful dorm food. While it’s convenient to eat pre-prepared meals, it’s frustrating to pay nine dollars to get into the dining hall before discovering that dinner consists of something greasy and/or noodle-y again, so it’s peanut butter and jelly for the third time this week. Our dining hall has been the site of many hilarious escapades, though, such as an embarrassing incident involving a hot dog, knives, flying meat and a group of perverted boys at Fat Don’s, and kindergarten-like dares to drink a bowl of ranch dressing.

What I’ll miss more than anything else is my dorm-mates themselves. I’ve made all my best friends here. My current roommate in particular lived down the hall from me last year and we initially bonded over discussions about the high-school boyfriends we had at the time. We were there for each other as the changes in our lives led to dissolution of those relationships, as we wrestled with feelings of loss and attempted new relationships, and as we changed our majors and our outlooks on life in the process. Both of us are entirely different people than we were when we first met, but we have changed together and forged a lasting friendship in the process.

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Some close friends I’ve made more recently. Living one floor below me is a guy I’ve come to trust more than anyone else over the past semester. We can and do talk about everything, from relationship problems to Christian and agnostic questions, from feminist theory to political opinions and events. His thoughtful and caring advice has aided me on more than one occasion, and I’m not sure what I’d do if I ever lost his friendship.

Then there are the dorm friends I play cards with until 3 a.m., the dorm friends who order pizza and pokey sticks with me, the dorm friend – and fellow DI employee – who strip-juggles for me (don’t ask), the dorm friends who accompany me to Busey late night, and the dorm friends I watch horror movies with every Monday night.

Dorm life – the experience of breathing, eating and sleeping with a set group of people – makes possible this randomness and fun with friends and this closeness to best friends. I’d like to thank anyone who has made my dorm experience such a meaningful one throughout these past two years. I’ll miss the lobster heads you leave in the bathrooms, the strange mixtures of food and drink you concoct in the dining halls and most of all, living just down the hall from the best friends I could ask for.