I have no idea when I will have the chance to actually post this, but here goes. It’s 11:48 pm, I’m having some alone time in my room and it’s finally time that I chronicle some of the amazing, different, slightly scary things that have been happening since my mom and greg left Sunday at four thirty. Ok, first of all, I’m loving this, despite some brief feelings of weird homesickness, and “wow, this is like living in a hotel! When do I go home?”, and worrying about my mom and how lonely she’ll be without me. I left her a card telling her how much she’s done for me and that I love her. Typical of our relationship, though, she didn’t mention it when I talked to her on the phone.
I must say this: the absolute best decision I made was choosing the substance-free floor. THE BEST. EVVEEEEEER. This is like the coolest experience of my life. We signed a contract last night agreeing that not only will we not have illegal substances in the dorm (Campion), we will not come back to the dorm inebriated. Ie, if you get trashed, sleep elsewhere. Unfortunately some people seem to have arrived here against their wishes, which is odd considering the dean of student life said there was a huge waiting list to get sub-free. The two top floors of Campion Hall are sub-free. I don’t know how many people that actually amounts to, but it’s all soph and freshmen. Fourth floor, where I am with Wendy, 425 in the corner, is entirely freshman. Both floors are divided on the half into guy-girl. Wendy and I were determined to have THE coolest room, but we’ve been unfortunately upstaged by Katie and Lauren down the hall. Don’t know how they did it, but they have the coolest room ever. One of the ideas we’re pitching to our RA is having floor competitions, like for best room, neatest room, dirtiest, etc, and WE want that award. We’re working on it. Our beds are bunked against the window, our armoirs are by the front door, and our desks and bureaus do an L along the walls. Someone told me our room, being a corner, is wider than the others. We have a lot of floor space in the middle, which is nice! We’ve made it really comfy and colorful….the walls are covered, but they looked planned out and elegant, not hodgepodge. I used to my ties to decorate the bedposts. Greg’s pirate flag is hanging from the ceiling. I propped sara’s gift to me up on the microwave. Along with the michell prom doll, the significance of which I am tired of having to explain to everyone after they remark on me having a Barbie. I put greg’s tshirt, which he kindly donated to me slept-in, on huggy the bear. It makes a nice pillow. Wendy liked the top bunk, which is good because in our old bunk beds, I was on top but I had a ladder and a railing. Nothing here, and me afraid of heights! Eep!
Ok none of this explains why this is so cool, and why sub free is in particular so very cool. It’s so weird but at random moments one of us will just shake our head and go “oh my god this rocks!” and give everyone high fives. Ok, so there’s no partying in our dorm, not of the drinking variety, but tonight we had sixteen people in 415 watching meet the parents, reno 911 and family guy, eating popcorn and having fun. Last night there was a party in Regis next door, and no one there slept. Someone got arrested. Two freshies are on probation from ORIENTATION. How is that possible, I don’t know. Yeah so we don’t have to worry about stupid parties at 3am, although if you leave your door unlocked, as sean down the hall found out, crazy people walk in at 2am and don’t leave. Lock thy doors. We don’t have to smell vomit in the bathrooms, which other Ras have promised their students will begin this weekend. We might miss the walk of shame, but I’m sure a few people around here will have to do it. Sub-free halls and BRs are notoriously cleaner than any other. This still isn’t the main thing though—the very best thing is the people. The emphasis on our floors is community, and it’s so amazing. We really are a community, in a way that other dorms aren’t, because other dorms haven’t necessarily committed to the same lifestyle choices as we all have. People here are so friendly and so open, and I know one could say that’s just Fairfield, but no it’s not. There are plenty of snobby people, plenty of drunks. I’ve met them in my orientation group, where they discussed drinking habits and the cost of a taxi ride to the beach houses. So far three people have noted the same phenomenom I have: with a few exceptions, the coolest and nicest people I’ve met independently of the floor turn out to be living on Campion 3 or 4. it’s the strangest thing, but so comforting, especially when we all get together and people are so different but united in this aspect. We have one girl, Mo, who’s a recovering alcoholic. Everyone else has a lot of varied reasons for choosing this floor. I didn’t actually give it a lot of thought, beyond the fact that despite my having tried many types of alcohol, I do not like them, and I do not wish to imbibe them, nor do I wish to be forced to cohabitate with those who do so on a regular basis. Already last night a drunken lacrosse player was arrested after he injured a girl he was carrying. Last year eighteen ambulances were called in the first MONTH of school. Much drinking occurs here, but I’m comfortably insulated from that, and if I want to go to a party to party, I can. Freshmen are not supposed to go to the beach without a specific invitation, and Wendy scored us one from one of the improv guys, so we’ve got that option. Also, so far I’ve noticed that a majority of the people on the sub-free are on some sort of merit scholarship from the school. I know that five of the thirteen university fellow scholars, myself and roomie included, are here (I get my laptop tomorrow, complete with the Ethernet card, so michelle can be wireless and online! Whoot!) Chris is here! The pic of myself I put on our door under my name is the one heather gave me from the southwest, of me in that blue hoodie of hers, with chris right there in the background. He’s downstairs. Wendy and I have had so much fun just walking around introducing ourselves to everyone, knocking on doors, although most are left open (more common with girls than guys) and writing on those little boards “Visit 425! Love, Michelle and Wendy”. We’re in a corner and don’t want to be forgotten. Tonight when we were getting ready to go to the carnival, we were going to go with Lauren and Katie from down the hall, and we wound up with 22 girls and three guys, a huge herd moving as one across the campus. At one point we were a huge long line and I made a pirates of the Caribbean analogy! I made an engraved candleholder tonight with a pirate ship on it, and another with ship rock/ monument valley on it, in honor of the old southwest. I got a henna tattoo of a gorgeously plumed peacock, and two temporary tattoos, a snarling tiger on my back and barbed wire on the back of my neck. It was so frickin loud. I skipped the following dance to come back here and do the movie thing, and now wendy’s sketching and I’m writing and we’re discussing the glories of sub-free yet again! I’m making guy friends. The guys on these floors are so friendly. Actually the only standoffish ones are the ones who didn’t want to be here and are understandably upset about being contracted to be sober.
Ok more stuff about sub-free, and just so you know, this post has taken a while to be writing, in between doing other things. First of all, all the RA s here get a certain budget to plan activities and field trips and such; our four RA s get double that, simply because we’re sub-free. So we can have a lot more stuff to do and places to go. And, one of the very coolest things of all, something Harry Potter related because of course that is so cool. Yesterday the RA s made us fill out this weird survey with moral questions and personality questions like “mark year: first year, second year, third year. are you: cunning, hardworking, adventurous or organized? If you were a superhero, what would be your power?” Even the bathrooms were marked “: WOMEN’S Freshmen (1st Years). a friend of mine went and was chatting with our RA, Karen, who told her that this year they’ve decided to sort the sub free floors into Hogwarts Houses and do inter-house competitions like in HP!!! How frickin’ cool! Now more than ever I need my Ravenclaw scarf back. If I’m in Ravenclaw, that is; they didn’t mention this before so that they wouldn’t skew the survey for everyone trying to be Gryfffindors. Wendy likes HP, which is excellent. Some people have never read it here. The third floor rooms even had HP postcards attached to the doors!! One of the guys down there said I could have his when he takes his name down. Oh and I met my first person to have had a religious opposition from to HP. Her name’s Katie, I’ve mentioned her twice I think, and she’s really cool. I met her back at orientation and I never realized she was, to put it frankly, a jesus freak. Christian rock music (loves switchfoot, sara), youth ministry, religious rallies, prays over her food, told Wendy she wouldn’t walk next to her if she wore this trampy top to dinner, etc. Yet she’s not some reticent, pale little thing. She’s lively, outgoing, even boisterous. She never read the books, yet believed they advocated witchcraft. Until the pope officially accepted them, that is. Oi. Wendy and I refrained from arguing with her, but we privately agreed that that’s crap, and who would suddenly change their opinions of something because one old man in Rome suddenly says it’s ok? We’re both unaffiliated religiously. Lots of people here wearing crosses. Never saw that at northwest outside of campus ministry, really. ok that's all i have time for right now...i have to get dressed for my whole fifty minutes of class today. creative mind! whoot!!