The only thing better than sharing a dorm room with a pain-in-the-butt is sharing a bathroom with an entire floor of them. Luckily, at Lyon, they have a really good pain-in-the-butt screening process. As well as really secure dorms and cool RAs.
So it is officially my last semester at Lyon College. While I am not 100 % sure I want to leave everyone I’ve meet here behind, I am ready for a change. The biggest change that I want to happen is living somewhere besides a dorm. Dorms serve their purpose but they get a little old after a while. I’ve figured out that the trick is to stay out of them for as long as possible. Spend all your time elsewhere. Another change that I am looking foward to is having my own parking space. The parking area for Young House leaves something to be desired. If you get lucky you can get a spot in the lower lot which isn’t far from the dorms but the not so lucky have to park in what is called the Way-Out-There Lot (also known as the WOT Lot). I am ready for my own parking spot that is close to my house/apartment/wherever I live. I am ready for a house but I don’t have the money for a house. I am going to grad school next year so I doubt the whole house thing will happen anytime soon anyways…
Every time I move, I’m amazed by the amount of stuff that can fit into such a tiny space. Things tend to accumulate over the school year and when it’s time to move out, there’s about three times as much stuff as when the year began.
Today I had the priveledge of performing a “key audit” for all the dorm rooms, which is part of my responsibilities as a summer RA. Basically, once I organized the keys, I had to try every key in every lock to make sure that they actually worked. Sounds like fun, huh? Really, it was kind of a pain in the butt, but it’s something that has to be done! I think I’ve gained a new appreciation for keys….
What the heck is a house system? The house system really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense here at Lyon until you get here. Basically the “houses” are set up based on class. Of course there the beginning in the Freshman “quad” called Spraggins House. For many, you haven’t met a whole lot of people that are going to be in your class, so the roommate situation can be sort of a worry. Luckily, my roomie graduated with me from high school and we had been friends since junior high, but let’s be honest, we don’t all get that lucky. Sometimes, even after all of Student Life’s attempts to pair people with similar interest and habits, you end up with a roommate that isn’t exactly your style because let’s face it, it’s hard to match people up on just a piece of paper. That’s kinda the beauty of coming and living at a new place. You do actually grow from this and learn a few things. 1) You gotta accomadate from time to time. From this I mean, getting use to your roommates bad habits. For instance, I’m somewhat of a clean freak, but even though we’re good friends my roomie tends to just throw stuff around. All it takes to solve this problem though is a little communication and compromise - Big things to learn for the real world. 2) You’re not stuck with them for all four years. That’s right, you’re gonna get out and meet new people that you get along better with. Maybe that means that you go hang out with your new friend and their cooler roommate. Who knows, but what’s garunteed is that you can find someone else that you fit better with and room with them the next year, or if you’re really that picky - go for a single. It all works out in the end though and my roommate and I have made it through three years and ready to live it up for our final year.
Freshman dorms. That phrase alone is usually enough to send you running and screaming in the other direction. Do visions of dimly lit rooms and the dreaded community bathrooms come to mind? Well, if it makes you feel any better, the dorms at Lyon really aren’t that bad. The four freshman dorms (Love, Bryan, Blandford and Spragins) compose “The Quad”, so you’re located within a few seconds of your fellow classmates. Yeah, the rooms may seem small at first, but you’d be amazed at all the things that can be crammed into closets and drawers. And community bathrooms are, in my opinion, a blessing rather than a curse. If you share a bathroom with suitemates, you are responsible for keeping that bathroom clean. Blandford, Love, and Bryan all contain community bathrooms which are cleaned by the housekeeping staff at least twice a day!
Chances are, sooner or later, you’ll hear rumors of Fred, the ghost of Spragins Hall. I really don’t know when the story of Fred began or if there is even a grain of truth to the tale, but I still find it rather amusing. Apparently Fred haunts a few selected rooms in Spragins. He’s been known to leave messages on computers and randomly turn TVs on and off. Fred is probably best known for the ‘protective’ watch that he keeps over the girls in Spragins Hall. He is not fond of pictures or posters of other guys that college girls often have plastered about their dorm room. Most residents find it difficult to get these items to remain hanging on the walls because Fred becomes jealous and knocks them down. Since I’ve never actually lived in Spragins, my knowledge of Fred is limited to hearsay around campus. I’m sure past and present residents can tell even better tales than this. But still, it gets you thinking….is this just another crazy college ghost story?? Guess you’ll just have to find out for yourself!
