A Diatribe on the College Dormitory

I've been housed in a dormitory for approximately eighty four hours now. It resides in Washington, D.C. I am currently at the university library, where I've been for approximately fourteen of the last thirty six hours.

I moved into my assigned room on Saturday. In early June, the assignments were made, I was notified, and I began communicating with my roommates. We talked on Facebook for approximately ten weeks. In this time, we did little other than theorize on what our room would look like, how we'd modify it, and on insignificant idiosyncrasies that we'd like the others to respect. It seems, however, that all of us assumed that we were similar in nature. Sadly, I am rarely this lucky.

My three roommates are livelier men than I. They drink from noon to one in the morning on weekdays, three in the morning on weekends. They walk out to the National Mall at night and smoke marijuana freely. I'm sure our founding fathers would be beaming at these exercises of freedom, regardless of the federal laws and mandates they may be breaking. At midnight, two of my roommates may pick up their acoustic guitars and attempt a duet of sorts. The third roommate, twelve hours into his college career, brought two guests in the room (all of whom were both drunk and high), and proceeded to drink more beer whilst shouting at one another.

To my three roommates, this is appropriate college behavior. They are all adults, living outside the influence of their parents and ought to sample everything the world has to offer, so as to create an informed opinion. Well, that's how I'd phrase it. They're much more likely to say something along the lines of, it feels good and we don't get in trouble for it. How I detest the lot of them.

That's not to say that I've done nothing to address the situation. No, I've written a contract between my roommates and I that explicitly stated my expectations. For two days, the copies were discarded. Only recently did one roommate show any knowledge of my actions when he stated "some of this needs to be drastically changed". After this, I went to my residential adviser, requesting that I be placed in a different dormitory. One where I'd be less likely to kill myself and those around me. I was told that the process could not be completed for three weeks, and that she had no power to expedite matters. Then I wrote a brief message to the residential oversight body to which I'm awaiting a reply. These actions do not include the many acts of revenge I've already planned for my enemies, sorry, roommates.

In eighty four hours, I've been self-evicted. I've forced myself out of the room so as to keep my sanity in the face of adversity. I've found a safe haven of silence in which I can brood. Sadly, my safe haven has neither beds nor showers and, at some point, I must return to the pit of despair that is my dormitory. I'll likely return to a room littered with red plastic cups, an assortment of Bud Lite and Pabst beer cans, and foul-smelling liquid upon the floor. That goes without mentioning the polluted air.

Somehow, I lucked into a clique in high school that circumvented the drug and alcohol scene. We peacefully enjoyed each-others company, ate, watched movies, and loved every moment of it. I never knew how naive I was. How ignorant of the world I'd been. And now I've nothing but hate for it. I've come to hate my room. I've come to hate my roommates. I've come to hate the people my roommates befriend (for they are of the dumbest lot). I've come to hate the system my school has in place to create these assignments. Oh, how I detest the world.