Alone Time? No Thank You!

In the begging of second semester, my roommates and I made a joint decision to remain living as a triple, in a room that was only meant to be a double. While the choice was partially made because I was the expanded occupant (the one who was supposed to move out), and neither of them wanted go in my place, it was also made due to the fact that we enjoyed living in our little room together. Although Krystina and I may have to share a closet, we still find that there is plenty of space for all three of us to live comfortably.

Today, while Beverly was in the library studying for her midterm and Krystina left to go home for her doctor’s appointment, I noticed something. My tiny, little dorm room can seem quite massive when I find myself alone in it. In fact, it was almost intimidating to sit on my bed, all by myself, and write this blog.

Maybe my feeling of isolation at the moment springs from the fact that I grew up in a big family. Perhaps my refusal to accept silence as peaceful and only view it as eerie is due to the fact that I once shared a room with three of my sisters. Or maybe it is because a family dinner at my house usually consists of fourteen individuals, all attempting to blurt out their stories at once.

However, I have a feeling that my detestation for seclusion does not solely derive from my family life. It is very unusual for a suite accommodating ten girls to be even remotely quiet. This is the first time all week I don’t hear someone’s music blasting in the bathroom, two girls bickering down the hall, or the laughter that usually fills my room. It is an unusual feeling, and while I realize that this may be my only chance I have to hear myself think, I find that, I don’t like it.

Ugh, Daka Food!

I believe that if there is one thing that all college students have in common at this time, it’s that they are sick of the food in their dining hall. It does matter how good the food may seem at the beginning of the year, by second semester they would give almost anything to walk into their cafeteria and find themselves in a not so familiar setting.

Here at Fitchburg the most commonly used name for the dining hall is Daka, although I have heard it referred to as Home’s, and Chachski’s on several occasions. With hotdogs, fries, sandwiches, hamburgers, and pizza always being an option, along with an array of more complex dishes being offered about once a week, you can’t really blame the school for our lack of excitement over the cuisine. They offer the common cooking daily to guarantee that there is always something offered that we like to eat, and they mix it up with the special meals less often so that we don’t find ourselves eating the same thing daily.

However, I still can’t help myself from utter in the words “I’m so sick of Daka food,” every time I find a piece of pizza on my plate. Also, Taco Day seemed a bit less special when I realized it was every Thursday. It makes you realize why Ramen is known as the food of college students; they would rather stay in their dorm and enjoy the same meal, then walk across campus for the same effect. I guess I should just be thankful that I always have Lemon Chicken Pasta and Chicken Catchatori Day to look forward to.

Best Friend Vs. New Friends

When choosing a college in my senior year of high school I made the decision to attend the same school as my best friend. While it may not have been the main reason I picked Fitchburg State, going to school with the bestie definitely had some appeal to it.

Having my best friend with me in my home away from home would undoubtedly make the transition to college life much easier. I would never have to worry about being a loner and not having any friends. There would always be someone around that had my back in any situation. Having a friend with me would make me more confident and more likely to make more friends. And I would never have to worry about being myself because I would already have someone with me who liked me for me. Not to mention who would make a better roommate than someone you already know everything about and loved?

Nevertheless, everything didn’t work out quite as planned. When we received our room assignments we were quite livid to find out that we were not each other’s roommates, instead we were next door neighbors. After coming to terms with this unexpected hiccup in our plans we decided to give our assigned roommates a chance. While mine turned out to be everything I had hoped for, hers was nothing short of a disappointment, and it soon became clear that she saw my new roommate as competition for her role as my best friend.

After having several discussions about the fact that no one could ever take her place as my best friend, I think that everything has worked out for the best. However, if our friendship wasn’t as strong as it is, going to school with my best friend could have very likely either prevented me from making any news friends, or ruined the best friendship I ever had.

Where's My Teddy?

It’s amazing how much college and preschool actually have in common. There’s the point that it’s the first time in your life that you’re away from your parents for a significant amount of time. It is also a process of preparing you for what’s next in your life. There’s also the fact that you constantly find yourself fighting with your new friends over their attempted use of your possessions.


However, the commonality I wish to explain in more detail is nap time. It regularly becomes unusually quite in my suite around 4:00 every afternoon. This is most likely due to the fact that we are done with classes for the day, and thanks to the late nights we have, we are exhausted. By this time most of us have set our alarms to 6:15 (dinner time) and passed out in our beds.


My roommate and I lovingly refer to this 2-3 hour time frame as Coma Time. We put on our P.J. pants we had just taken off a few hours prior and hop into bed, immediately entering an unconscious state. After sleeping through dinner a few times we made sure never to do this without setting an alarm first. I think the only difference between college and preschool students is that we look forward to this point in our day while they dread it.

Stupid Saint Valentine!

You know what sucks worse than not having a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day? Having a boyfriend, but not being able to see him on the one day a year that everyone is celebrating their relationships. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve never looked at Valentine’s Day as an important holiday, it’s just little things like that that really make me wish that I wasn’t a hundred miles away from the one guy I have ever loved.

It was scary moving to a school an hour and a half away from the boy I had been with for over a year. Were we going to be able to handle the distance? Was it going to upset him when I made guy friends? Was I worth waiting four years for? Countless questions ran through my mind as I pack my bags in early September. We must have talked about it over a billion times, but it didn’t become real until I actually made the move.

It’s been about six months since I made the jump, and it seems that long distant relationships can actually work. The first month was the hardest, going from spending all of our free time together to talking on the phone the once a day, when I managed to get away from the madness that is college life. But we’ve worked past that, making sure to talk at least once a day, and dedicating weekends to each other (meaning the small amount of time between commuting, work, and family). I know now that nothing can hurt our relationship, but still, it would be nice to spend Valentine’s Day with him.

Girl's Night In

Every group of friends has it, that show that they get together once a week to watch. For some people it’s Lost or Heroes, for others it’s Project Runway or Desperate Housewives, for my crew it’s One Tree Hill.

I had never even seen the show before I came here. Most of the time I go home on the weekends to work and see my family and friends, but one weekend I decided to stay at the dorms. With nothing better to do, one of my suitemates pulled out her entire One Tree Hill seasons collection. I spent the next two days glued to the television, completely infatuated in the lives of these characters. At one point it was so bad that I even contemplated skipping meals so that I would have more One Tree Hill time.

Girl’s Night in is now every Tuesday night at 9:00 in room N406. We fit about six of us on two beds, each in our own self-proclaimed OTH seat. We stare intently at the televisions as our favorite characters take part in this week’s adventures, muting it during commercials to discuss the scene we just witnessed, screaming and pointing at the TV as if to say “turn the volume back on,” when our favorite commercial comes on, or the show returns. I think it’s good for all college students to have that one time span a week to guarantee some time off from homework and to relieve stress.

Duct Tape Truly Can Be Used for Anything

Around the dorms you often find yourself with a little bit of free time on your hands and a lot of unexpected energy. Lucky, as college students we know how to put that time and energy together to do something productive. The product of our spare time frequently results in a good old, well thought out prank.

Small pranks are the most common, for example, the short sheeting of your roommate’s bed, or the act of flipping everything upside down in the room of your obsessive compulsive friend. Even the occasional rubber spider can provide a good laugh as long as you are as lucky as I am to be associated with someone who is afraid of everything. Heck, a little syrup on a door knob can be enjoyable if you do it to the right person.

However, it’s the big pranks that produce the greatest enjoyment. My favorite would have to be the night two of my friends and I duct taped someone’s door shut. It was late and we just weren’t in the mood to go to bed. We then decided that it would be a good idea to stretched duct tape over one of our friend’s door way. The next morning when he woke up he opened his door, still groggy eyed, and walk straight into a wall of stickiness. Taking a step back, he realized that something was blocking his path and had to cut himself out of his room with a pair of scissors. Just hearing about how he was stuck to the wall of tape for a good two minutes made my week.

One Person’s Trash Heap is Another Person’s Dorm Room

After hitting the snooze button about three times this morning, I rolled out of bed and headed into the bathroom to complete another of my morning rituals, brushing my teeth. However, when I finally decided to open my groggy eyes I wasn’t very pleased with the scene before me. The sink I was about to attempt to use wasn’t its usual white porcelain self. Instead all I could see was the remained of my suite mate’s chili cheese chips, stuffed into the drain and smeared around the entire sink.

When I was done tapping my death threat to the culprit of this disgusting mess to the mirror of the bathroom, I took a good look at my home away from home. What I saw was, without exaggeration, grotesque. The desk of one of my former roommates sat in the middle of the hallway, covered with week old trash. Three more bags were piled up next to the closet that I remember cleaning out once before, despite the fact that nothing I own is in it. Finally, the common room was covered in the wrappers of what looked like an entire weekends worth of fast food runs.

While I love the girls I live with more than anything, some of them are, for lack of a better word, slobs. Hopefully at tonight’s suite meeting, thrown by one of my fellow fed-up roommates, I will become clear that this is in fact or home, and not a dump.