Stephanie Valdez

905463418
English 1106

“The Man Cave”

I Researcher

As college neared over the summer of 2009, the big change from living in my
home with my parents to complete independence in a new place began to hit a soft spot in
my conscience. Like any other person, the idea of a big change settled uneasy in my
mind. Not only was I moving four and half hours away from home, but also that summer
I had been diagnosed with Adjustment Disorder. I had been clinically diagnosed with
something that basically told me I would have a hard time adjusting to the initial changes
of college. With this in mind, millions of questions began to race in my mind. How will
my roommate be? Will we get along? Will I be able to keep up with the workload? Will I
be able to manage school while living on my own while making new friends? Out of all
the questions that festered within me, the one that worried me the most was the
uncertainty of my ability to live on my own. No longer was mommy going to cook my
meals, fold my laundry, or remind me of the things I needed to get done. Daddy wasn’t
going to be there to fish out money every time I wanted to get my nails done or go out
with friends or every time I forgot to maintain my bank account.

Fortunately for me I had been given this freedom up to this point. I had been
given money, gifts, top education, and almost everything I could have ever asked for.
This never stopped me from appreciating my lifestyle however. My dad had come from
Mexico at the age of 16 with nothing but the shirt on his back. As cliché as that sounds, it
was the truth. He has nothing to offer this country but his hard work ethic. He stuck to his
morals, values, and passion to live up to the American dream and eventually was
successful in establishing a construction corporation. From his experiences, such as
crossing the border and knowing what it was like not to have a meal guaranteed the next
day, he developed a strong humble nature. A humble nature that he passed down to me. I
knew I had been given a life that most people are not born into. I was thankful for this
and always kept a levelheaded mind when receiving all the things my parents had to offer
me. I did this by appreciating their efforts in putting me in a private school and in return
being top of my class. I did this by working minimum wage jobs over the summer and
learning what it was like to work for my own money. I did this by going to work with my
father and observing the effort and stress that came along with his job. I did this by
helping my mom at home and establishing close relationships with most of family
members instead of going out with friends every chance I got. For all these reasons I
feared leaving home and distancing myself from what I had grown to know and be
comfortable with. Leaving my family behind and not having them a phone call away
made me stress out. The day came where I packed my belonging and left for school. It
was a quiet car ride and once arriving at Tech, a squad of people hurried to grab my
belonging and before I knew it, I was all moved in. My parents left, tears in eyes, and
watched me walk away to my dorm, to my future, my life as an independent student.
 Weeks passed after I first moved into my dorm and to my surprise everything
went by smoothly. The very first night, a few hours after my parents had left, a girl
named Jennifer walked into my room and introduced herself to me: “Hi, I’m Jen, I ride
horses” I quickly replied, “Hi, I’m Stephanie, I own horses- that I don’t know how to
ride”. (We have been best friends ever since and are planning to live together next year.)
Although my roommate and I didn’t seem to have the same ideas on a lot of things, we
were civil and made things work in our nine by nine room. I did the usual freshman thing
and went to random parties, went to every free meal event I could attend, and randomly
introduced myself to so many people. I found myself spending a lot of time with my best
friend Steven, who was a sophomore at Tech. He had given me a tour last year when I
had come to visit Tech and kept in touch ever since. We began to hang out and slowly
became very good friends. I spent so much time with him and his roommates that I had
also befriended them as well. I had basically put myself under their wing and direction
since they were all older than me by two or three years and had much experience on the
collegiate lifestyle.

Over the short amount of time that I had gotten to know them and see how they
functioned together, they’ve never ceased to amaze me how four men could function and
live together on their own. From how food costs were going to be split, to who loaded the
half empty dishwasher, the way they handled their daily businesses in their home
fascinated me. Most would assume that men, messy, disorganized, and not thoughtful in
nature, would proceed to carry over these virtues to college and in their own independent
lifestyles. Surprisingly, they had come up with their own methods of keeping up their
household that worked for them. I thought it would be a good idea to observe their home
in detail since next year I too will be off campus and having to deal with the same thing
in the fall of 2010. I had tackled the challenge of adjusting to life away from home and
soon after my first year I would be living on my own, not on a college campus, but in a
townhome of my very own. This meant I too would have to figure out dishes, take out the
trash, and responsible for cable, rent, electricity, and all other utilities.

But the truth was I didn’t have the slightest clue how it would all work out. Who
would put the utilities under their name? Who would be in charge of having rent on time?
Would it be a lot different in a townhouse rather than a house? What about the difference
between living with solely females in contrast to a house full of males? I hoped that
putting myself in their house and observing their ups, their downs, and their everyday
routines would give me an insight into what off campus living would be like. Implanting
myself in their lives and getting to know their thoughts and behaviors would be essential
to comprehending why they worked the way they did. I also decided that watching four
men in college living on their own would not only give me a glimpse into how living off
campus would be like, but also a chance to observe four very different people and to
learn their four unique personalities and how it effects their lives. For example how does
their age, their gender, their majors, and an endless amount of other factors could
potential effect how they get along and how they function as a household.
 I believed interesting part of observing of house made up of four men in college is
that men function a lot differently then woman do. Most women are passive and retain
their annoyances to themselves or express them to a second or third parties rather then
confronting the person who caused the disturbance. Men usually have no reservations to
vocalizing their problems or issues. This in turn, influences a lot of the way things are run
in the house. Firstly, the house is made up of four men: one sophomore and two seniors
all attending Virginia Tech and one additional Tech drop out. The sophomore, Steven, is
a humorous half white/half Asian who tends to be “out of it” most of the hours during the
day. The first senior, Ryan, has a live in girlfriend and his father is the owner of the
home. The second senior roommate, Mike, is the oldest of the bunch and the one with the
most practical contribution towards the house. Ryan and Mike have been living in the
home since their sophomore year of college and this is Steven’s first year living in the
house and off campus for that matter. The final roommate is Thomas, “Big Abe”, who
use to attend Virginia Tech but dropped out to work until he decided to return back to his
studies. The four of them are also all in the same ‘unofficial’ frat Delta Psi Sigma. Each
of the four men has their own distinct personalities and plans for the future but somehow
they must put their differences aside to create a unified and functioning household.

My job during my ethnographical journey is to find the variables that affect the
success of the household and more importantly the factors that make living together as
four males difficult. I kept in mind that I had been best friends with Steven long before I
met the other three roommates and had to keep an open mind about the situations and
observations so any bias would be thrown out the window during the field research at the
house. I also kept an open mind about the activities that occurred while observing the
roommates. For example, I may strongly against smoking cigarettes, but if one of the
roommates did indeed smoke cigarettes, I could not judge him for it. I believed the act of
keeping an open mind would be the hardest part of this project but was very important.
The only way the answers to all my mind’s questions would be answered would be to be
open to their thoughts, stay clear of any interferences, and to get every side of every
story.