4/10/2021 To Central we go!

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OPINION  |  COLUMNS

To Central we go!
By Drew Everson
March 27, 2009 | 12:00am PST

As I observed my roommate fail miserably at making Jell-O Monday night, I realized there are lifestyle di culties to living
in a dorm room. My roommate likes to cook, but unfortunately there is no oven or stove in the room. Rather than doing
the intelligent thing, walking downstairs to the quite conveniently located kitchen, he boils water in the microwave and
cooks whatever he can. Pasta and oatmeal turn out pretty well. Jell-O does not.

But the problems do not stop there.

Productivity takes a huge hit while living in a dorm. This is a two-fold problem. First, the library is a really long walk. Even
from my dorm in Craven, reaching the library is a feat. Which means rather than going to the library and working, I sit in
my dorm room and watch every video on the Onion News Network and every article on MSN.com. For example, "Parrot
gets award for warning about choking tot" was a heartwarming story.

The second part of this productivity conundrum is the proximity of friends. When I do nally work up that motivation to
leave my room, instead of leaving my dorm, crossing the quad and heading to the library, I walk into a friend's room and
sit down. Three hours later, I realize I have watched two of the worst movies I have ever seen (like "Black Sheep" or
"Demolition Man"). I then walk down the hall to leave the dorm, only to wander into another friend's room and watch an
episode of "From Gs to Gents". And after watching these disasters, my IQ has decreased 25 points and I lose motivation
to actually trudge to the library.

Another annoying part of dorm life is shower shoes. Not because I forget to wear them or don't have them or that they're
that bad, but because mine are broken. I broke one of them and xed it with duct tape, but then the duct tape came o .
Now I'm out of duct tape from repairing everything else in my room. And my car is broken so I can't drive to buy more
duct tape. Thus, I have to hop on one foot to the shower, put my shower shoe down in the shower and pivot on the
broken shower shoe. Which means I never travel in my daydreams of being a Duke basketball player...

Vending machines are an added displeasure. Diet soft drinks always run out rst, so people like me who are watching
their gures are forced to opt for a drink full of carbs. Then we decide our diet is already out the door so we buy a pack of
candy too. Then I nish my snack and remember I don't even like lemonade and realize that those Starbursts were a little
much. Now I'm stuck on a sugar high at 1 a.m., bouncing o the walls before crashing and forgetting to remove my
contacts or brush my teeth.

Cleaning can also be a pain. First, one must nd someone with a vacuum. That is far more di cult than one would think.
Then, one must use the vacuum, which barely works because an eighth of West Campus residents use that same
borrowed vacuum. Then one nishes and returns the vacuum only to discover it did absolutely nothing.

Who am I kidding? I don't clean.

Although all of these events-from terrible movies to broken shower shoes-occurred within a three-day period, they
actually weren't annoying at all. I'm just trying to convince myself that Central is going to be awesome. So all my fellow
rising juniors who are forced to live on Central (after enduring the in-person annoyance that was Room Picks '09), keep
reminding yourselves of the minor issues that come with dorm living. Now let's get excited about living on Central!

Drew Everson is a Trinity sophomore. His column runs every other Friday.

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