Well, I suppose you could say that first semester wasn't exactly what I expected, but it wasn't half as bad as I feared.

Academic wise, I was planning on hitting the books, studying for hours on end, and having no social life. In reality, this semester was no better than high school when it came to classes. General Education courses are nothing more than the same b.s. you put up with in high school. Out of the five classes I had this semester, four were general education torture.

Sociology, which was skipped half the time, was spent dying a slow death to the tune of a mumbled Hungarian accent making some comment or another about polygamy, or the A-mish.

Philosophy, the two hour and 45 minute class that discussed the thoughts of dead gay Greek men, was used as a study period, a reading period, or a writing period. My dormmate used one class period to read Adolus Huxley's 259 page classic Brave New World. She said it was an excellent book.

French, of which I took a year of in high school, had that certain, je ne se quoi, that made you writhe in despair every time you entered. Although I was entertained by the antics of Marie-Laure and Mirielle (try to pronounce that one- my professor said it's HARD to do... as I sit in the back and cry...), I learned not one new thing that I hadn't already known. It wasn't just because I took French one over either; honestly, I learned MORE in high school than that class. My teacher said I have an excellent accent though. Sal Chameau.

College Composition 2 was a joy. Not only do I have to make up my term paper over break, but I spent an entire semester in that class, only to get an Incomplete on my transcript because my professor and I had a 'lack of communication on both sides'. Man, I could say a lot about that.

My one class that did not fall entirely under the joyous category of General Education was Computing Environments, aka Honors Math with no equations. To be completely honest, I did learn in that class, and it was semi-interesting. I actually met some people in there that weren't entirely terrible; the three guys I talked to were pretty cool. The only qualm I have with that class was the timing. Every period we'd be in there 15, 20 minutes over. But on test days, when we had exams impossible to finish in the time alloted, we were booted out right on time.

All in all, academic wise I was quite disappointed. I had thought that maybe, just maybe college would be different from high school in that it would be a CHALLENGE. Hopefully next semester, where three of my six classes are major requirements, I will be challenged. I increased my schedule to six classes so maybe that will give me more to do. Please...anything... I FEEL MY BRAIN CELLS DECAYING!

Aside from academics, college life has proved interesting. A major part of the whole college experience is dorm life. Now, if you haven't read my dorm life section, I strongly suggest you do before you attend school, especially if you're a soon-to-be college freshman living away from home.

I enjoy dorm life; the late nights, the sleeping in, the zany adventures, the ER runs... however, the suitemates are a different story. In the beginning I thought, 'Great! I only have to share my bathroom with three other people, one of which I've known since childhood!'. Nope. Not good. Oh, my dormmate was fine; it was the other two that proved scarier than Roseanne on a good day. Nymphomaniacs, boyfriends knew no bounds; neither did their personal habits which included leaving massive amounts of hair in the sink, toilet, and on the shower walls. Oh, and then blaming us for it. Yes, yes I'm blonde. Can't you tell by that deep red dye I just threw in the trash? Not to mention my dormmate's blonde. All Koreans are blonde. Duh. If you've ever heard the song 'Whores in the House' you'd know what we went through this semester. For those of you who haven't, the lyrics are printed below.

Aside from an array of strange insects in our room, a continuous swarm of fruitflies in our dorm, and a heater whose vents opened directly to the gates of hell, dorming-it wasn't too bad. I especially enjoyed the cable. If you need Comedy Central's lineup, just email me. Man do I miss 'Kids in the Hall'...and Jon Stewart... and 'Strangers With Candy'... pardon me while I cry.

Having assumed that my social life would be nil this semester, I was quite suprised when I woke up one day to realize that I had a ton of friends. Many quality time trips to the Big K and Wendy's have been made this semester, and gosh darnit if I'm not nostalgic about those. Ah, sweet 99 cent menu... and with the college discount, Biggie Fries are only 94 cents. Sweet, sweet Wendy's. Although Glassboro doesn't provide much in the way of nightlife, there were plenty of frat parties I got to hear about and mock second hand, and Blockbuster was always there with its five day rentals if you dared cross Delcea Drive. And yes, the Arabic Dollar was always there for comfort in your time of need. Between all that and two clubs (the only two I'm remotely interested in... although I'm joining a few more next semester) I've had a pretty active social life for being a hermit for the past 17 years.

All in all, college is pretty cool. Even if the classes let you down, there's still plenty of time to socialize, hang out in the computer lab, watch a movie, or bug your friend with a car to take you somewhere. It's actually a pretty fun experience, and I'm looking forward to next semester. But, before I leave you for winter break, here are the top ten lessons I've learned this first semester:

Philosophy midterms (in November with six weeks left in the semester) are a thrill. Especially when you haven't paid attention since the first day of class. Expecting the 150 question test as the professor had said it would be, I was instead surprised by a 30 question multiple choice/matching test with five short answer questions, two about movies we had seen in class. The multiple choice was the best though; Out of the five possible answers, a through e, two were stated as such: "More than one of the above" and "All of the above". Therefore, even an idiot could not get an F. Higher edumacation rocks.

The best part about Francais is not the character in the book with psychiatric complexes due to being an only child with divorced parents, it's the fact that my professour is an utter sale chameau. One girl constantly falls asleep in class. And yes, that's right, three months into the class the professor talks to her about it. You'd figure the girl would get in trouble but non, elle tells the teacher that she has 'a sleeping disorder'. Immeadiately responding with "OOOH!! You have narcolepsy!" the teacher doesn't even ask for proof, she just says "It's okay."

Yeah, college even has some of those. Today's selection was College Comp. 2 among other things. You know you're bound for a great class when your professor intros it with a ten minute lecture on how she doesn't think any of you belong there because it's a "hard" class. (Although, five minutes before her lecture my ears tingled with the sparkling, hung over voices of my fellow students making comments to the effect of "You know how college would be so great? Live here, party, and you just didn't have classes." (sadly, the grammar is even verbatim.) With quotes like that I couldn't help but agree with the woman.) So, after giving you the speech she settles in on your first essay. Ungraded mind you, this essay was to be based on a current event, local, national, or international, that had an impact on society. It was just your basic 'back to school assignment' given to judge our writing capabilities and make sure that even if the lecture didn't sink in and you still thought you should be in the class, she'd have proof to kick you out anyway. Well, the essay writing time came and went, along with the few days following. Finally, we were back in Comp. 2 again, anxiously awaiting the results.

You know it's bad when a teacher prefaces handing out papers with the statement "They were good, for the most part," and bearing a big grin.

I learned two things in College Comp 2 today. That a) Ted Kennedy died this summer, and b)President Clinton was shamed into resigning after the Monica Lewinsky trial.

Now, if you're staring at your screen laughing your face off right now, you're doing pretty much the same thing I did a few hours ago when I heard the news. Yes. To some people (college sophomores mind you) in a basic writing class...so basic it's REQUIRED by the school...Ted Kennedy is dead and our new president is.. Al Gore?

In College Comp. we learned that a good essay has a good ending paragraph that fully completes the statement made by the author. At this point I don't believe I could say anything more than..actually, no. I think the statement made (or statements made) speaks for itself.

Here's a little tidbit for you from Computing Environments; the unspoken motto of education is...are you ready? ... "Think."

According to the one girl in my college comp 2 class, the same girl who made the 'college without classes' quote, the words 'human' and 'humane' are one in the same. Aggh...

"Now I expect you to listen to the tape, so you memorize the answers! It's all a question of memorization!" Yes, according to my French Professor, learning french means listening to some audio tape for 20 minutes a day and memorizing the sounds the frogs are making through the speakers. So, even if you don't know what they're saying, you at least know how to say it!

Fun updates on Francais! We had our test Wednesday. Oh yes, I know, tests are usually challenging. However, this test consisted of listening to the tape we had already memorized, and answering the questions. Oh, but after you write down your answer, the woman on the tape tells you the answer, just in case you didn't get it correct, SO THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN GET IT WRONG! Now, I know some people that would love that, but personally, I find it just a tad insulting...then again, I have half a brain (unlike some professors, I mean, people I know..)

Philosophy is definately a GREAT gen. ed. choice. Especially if you have to catch up on your leisure reading, letter writing, or work for other classes. Two hours and forty five minutes can be summed up in my friend's quote from last class:

"Are we supposed to actually care about this?" I find it funny when students try to ponder what these philosophers so greatly screwed up. Zoned out reading The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (wouldn't my AP Lit teacher love to hear that I'm reading that) one question caught my attention. "If everything is IS, then what is IS?" Well, being the philosopher I am, and being the frustrated student I am, (a sometimes lethal combination), I loudly shouted from my corner of the room "IS is everything, DUH!" Well, my friend cracked up, and the girls in the row next to us gave us dirty looks. Apparently they wanted to know the answer too. I guess that's what five gallons of hairspray a day does to you...

Dorm Life

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Latest News (12/1/99): The mystical suitemates have done it again. Not only do they clog our sink, they leave us notes telling us "If you didn't throw hair in your sink, it wouldn't be clogged". Pure brainpower there. (The brainpower of a dustbuster pre-recharge.) These are the girls that leave hair everywhere; the floor, the toilet, the shower, the shower walls, the sinks, layered in their brushes on our side of the counter, but hell, it's our hair that's clogging our sink. Duh! How could we have been so stupid. These are also the people whom, upon our big blowup, left us the note that said "Don't leave anymore notes, just talk to us!" And what do they do? They leave us...a NOTE. So, in response, I took the gold garland garnishing (oh my) our mirror and turned it into a smiley face, flipped over their note and wrote on the back of it "Goldie says 'Happy Turkey Day!'" (this was pre-Thanksgiving).

Happiness is driving your nympho suitemates insane.

I am convinced that the local troupe of Mummers and Minstrels (WENN reference... one of my only sources of sanity in this place involves a little radio station where everything is just a tad nuttier than it is here; it gets me by)inhabits my hall. Next door the suitemates are having sexcapades nightly (we're pretty sure Thursdays are group sessions), the guys across the hall blast Comedy Central at one a.m., and the singer who serenades us with such sweet ballads as "Who da man, I AM I AM!" at two a.m. have convinced me I've either moved to a looney bin, or am in the extremities of the pinelands. The latest bit of joy was the fight going on across the hall last night at 12:30. All of a sudden, out of the screams of the 'Win Ben Stein's Money' audience came raucious shouts from the room, palliterations saying something to the effect of "YO BI-CH, you ate my KIT KATS!" which was repeated for approximately 20 minutes. Stay tuned... I'll either be updating this again shortly, or I'll be admitted to a psychiatric ward for the nutcase I'm slowly becoming....

In the midst of a laughing fit now that we have Comedy Central, my roomate and I decided to have a little fun with the bathroomates...at least the one that was there, and her guest. So, after we find that again, they have used up all the toilet paper, I promptly open the bathroom door and shout

"AHH! We're out of TOILET PAPER?!!! AHHAHAHAHAHA!!" Then, one went in to take a shower. So, we made a raucious amount of noise, then turned off all of the lights and the tv and were totally silent. We waited five minutes and then proceeded to laugh up a storm, and turn on the lights and tv again. Shortly after that whoever was taking a shower screamed.

The people above us have this nasty habit of banging on the floor rearranging (we're guessing) their room every day. So, in retaliation at 1 am we began banging on the ceiling with our broom. I'd call that friendly bonding, wouldn't you?

It's great when you aren't tired and stay up til 3 am talking. That is, until a drunk guy from down the hall calls you up on the phone and asks, "Hey, I was wonderin' if I could come and laugh and play with y'all..". Yeah. Sure. Just guess what we said.

************

Well, it has been confirmed. Not only is VD suitemate's boyfriend living in her room, but the sleepwalker has indefinately moved out during the week, only to return on the weekend. Last night they were in the bathroom for over two hours late at night, laughing and doing who knows what. And, this morning, the toilet was left unflushed again, making it SEVEN, that's right, SEVEN times in the past month. So how are we retaliating? By leaving a note, duh!

HOW TO USE THE TOILET
After doing whatever it is you have to do, pull the shiney metal lever located on the toilet. a flushing sound should ensue. if not, you did not flush correctly, so please try again until you get it right. if this is too hard for you to understand, please ask someone for instructions.

We left you a note asking nicely before. since then there have been three more incidents in which the toilet was not flushed. that makes a total of 7 times the toilet has not been flushed. it is very disgusting, and it disrespectful to the other people who have to use this bathroom.

Remember, Housekeeping DOES NOT clean up after us.

Thank you,

The Management

After all, isn't it enough that we have to deal with staring a a big bottle of 'Feminine Wash' and have to deal with their soaked bathmat when we get our shower?

Stay tuned for more fun antics....

Six thirty a.m. brings a lot of life to a dorm room, especially when a bathroom mate sleepwalks into your room through the bath, pulls down her pants, and sits down on the edge of your bed, startling you from a peacefully deep sleep. After you awake from the shock, she gets up and sits on your fan (still pants down mind you), which is even more bewildering, and you have barely enough time to squeak out her name before she mumbles something and goes back to the bath, never to mention one word of it to you...ever. Of course, ten minutes later when you're trying to get back to sleep (after having locked the bath door securely) you hear the shower go on and off...for fifteen minutes. You analyze the sound carefully...'it must be the fan' you think...but no, the soaked bathmat proves it. Fifty cents and a forty minute session in the laundry room later, you know you're lovin' dorm life, and you just can't wait til tonight...when you peacefully sleep again.

Sharing a bathroom is always fun, especially when you don't know the slightest thing about the people you're sharing it with. You know what they say about bathroom habits is true; you are what you wash with. (Scary for hobos isn't it?) Well, to keep this short, our bath is a mess, and it isn't our fault. After the mat I put down was ceremoniously soaked by the sleepwalker, I spent fifty cents and an hour of my time drying it because the girl compulsively showers while sleeping. But the best is when I went to use the sink and couldn't go in the bathroom...my roomate and I still can't identify that smell..the closest thing we got to it was rotten chinese food that was puked up. Who knows..maybe the sleepwalker does that in REM too... well, whatever it was, it was nasty. But we delt with it, you know, whatever, it's not like we could do much, but we survived without complaint. Only to wake up at 6:30 am to a neatly written note stuck on the bathroom mirror.

"Just in case you didn't know, Housekeeping DOES NOT clean the bathrooms for us. So clean up after yourselves PLEASE. IE Moping up the floor when it's wet, throwing away paper around the toilet, etc. Thank you."

The paper had been lying next to the toilet since the first day we were there. I blame it on the sleepwalking trackstar who didn't have enough sense to report that the toilet was broken when she had moved in a week earlier. As for the wet floor, well, I leave that up to you to decide who soaked it. I've already presented my evidence. So, my dormmate and I decided to leave the note up on the mirror and not say a word. After all, you can't really trust people who blame you for their mistakes. And as for what I really think of my bathroom mates? Let me just reiterate what I emailed someone else earlier:

"Let's just hope that (Girl A)'s ever present boyfriend from down the hall gives her a V.D. and the trackstar sleepwalks into one of the boy's rooms down the hall with her pants down one night."

I'd find that quite enthralling in a completely maniacal way myself.

And the latest joys in the world of bathroom sharing? This morning my roomate awoke to find, again, that the toilet had not been flushed. Now we've pretty much pinpointed the sleepwalking trackstar as the problem, but you can't just tell her to her face she's a moron can you? No, you can leave notes on the mirror like they do! Mine was not as eloquent as theirs, but I think it got the point across.

"Please FLUSH the toilet. After all, how can I clean it
if you won't flush it?"

Now hangs right over their little neatfreak sign hung up by the other girl in the dorm who is sweeping every time you walk by....hmm, maybe she'll confuse the trackstar with dust and throw her out; that would save everyone a lot I think.

Toilet paper is a necessity; you know it, I know it; let's just put it this way,anyone that doesn't know it really needs therapy (and a darn good bath). Well, guess what! My suitemates need therapy and..yup..a darn good SPANKING! The toilet paper ran out as of Friday at 6:30 a.m., and they still had not replaced it by 1 p.m. that same day. After my luxurious weekend at home (air conditioning, a tub, toilet paper...) I come back to find that indeed, they had finally replaced the roll, along with this cute little poster with "witty" (used in quotes for obvious reasons) bathroom rules.

Maybe they're trying to make amends...

Well, not only do they not like toilet paper for some reason, they also avoid washing their hands at all costs. And using the light as well.. yup, you guessed it..they go in the dark. Don't ask. Oh, and if you knock~ don't expect an answer. Yesterday alone my roomate walked in on one of them three times just because they chose not to answer my roomate's knock. Oh, and one of the girls either had a sex change over the weekend or she's just gone and VD girl's newest fling has moved in. Stay tuned! You know you want to... (even though I don't...).

Although I'm pretty much using this section to editorialize about my suitemates, I digress. My entire floor is, I think, pretty interesting, so why not make a few comments on them as well?

Let's see. First off there's one guy, who came all the way here from down south, and continually locks himself out of his room. Have I mentioned how tiny the showers are? If I haven't, let's just say that when you go to wash your hair, you have to duck in order to move your arms high enough to wash it properly. Which is why I ponder how the 500 lb. girl down the hall can manage to get in there. Let alone, how does she sit down? Maybe that's why she's always on her knees doing her homework instead of at her desk. There's also the fun people down the hall who seem to enjoy shouting a lot and jump roping at 11 pm in the quiet dorm. But the gems are the guys across the hall from us. I've only seen them once; actually, I never did see them really, but their door was open. I just sort of avoided looking in...but my dormmate said that the place was a mess. Well, what do you expect when a "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU" sign graces their door along with a sign asking for people who play "Magic-The Gathering" to drop on in...And, thanks to the floor meeting today, I found the next R.L. Stine on my floor too. And a guy that has the largest collection of bootleg videos ever. Yes, my dorm floor is a blast, for sure.

Trying to sleep when you're sick is an impossibility in a dorm. Of course, the freaks that gave you a cold can't keep their mouths shut late at night, and insist on throwing impromptu parties in their rooms in between coughing phlegm on the bathroom mirror. Then of course there are the kids who run down the hall at 11:30 at night, when you've finally gotten to sleep, singing "I'm Mr. Excellent, I am, I am!!" as loud as they can. Oh, and don't forget the lovely fire drills held at 10:30 pm when it's 40 degrees outside. Note to anyone entering college and planning to dorm: if you get sick, GO HOME! Don't stick around because the classes are definitely not worth it.

Page created on December 20, 1999. Copyright Susan L. Minnick, 1999, all rights reserved. Problem? Email the Webmaster.