Some Resolution

(Above you see a group of girls assembled in the Party Room to watch the A&E Pride and Prejudice (i.e. the 6 hour one).)

This semester has heralded some pretty major changes in the Party Room. Last semester Winn 323 was the hang-out room on my hall, with no other room on the hall available for socializing when Alli and I decided to shut our doors. In fact, we both went home one weekend, and our friends were reduced to hanging out in the kitchen and study lounge. This was the main reason we had so many troubles with people never leaving. However, this semester my friend group has discovered another room in which to spend their time. Now the Party Room is used mainly at night, after dinner. Alex and Chinnawat's room is used during most days (since Alli and I both work MWF afternoons), when the boys want to play their computer games, and when Alli and I decide to go to bed at the unmentionably early hour of 2. When even Alex's room is unavailable, there's always the possibility of Sarah not feeling much like sleep and inviting the group to her room.

With this new development, Alli and I find that we kind of like having an empty room sometimes. Occasionally it can be relaxing to simply be quiet and bond as roommates. Of course this doesn't mean that we never have people in our room; indeed, it is quite rare for either of us to be in the room without the door open and at least two other people in the room. However, it is nice to have smaller groups in our room, or even no one at all. We get desperately lonely if we go too long without anyone in the room, but we do appreciate the occasional respite from huge amounts of people constantly in our room. Yet we are still the Party Room, and love being the party people.

Viva la Party Room!

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Another Negative

Hello, all! Today I thought I would talk a little more about the perils of having massive amounts of people always present in my room. When people enter a room, they generally bring all of the various items necessary for their lives with them. However, there seems to be a rule that whenever people leave a room they must forget half of those items. For example, one of my very good friends is so very affected by this lethean illness that this is the result after a week or two.
That's pretty intense. I mean, you would think that she wanted to sleep on pillows (she didn't have any left on her bed) and use her phone and maybe have a whole pair of shoes and perhaps also use her accounting syllabus and notebook. Whenever I clean my room it looks like I've just kicked my roommate out, as there are always multiple boxes overflowing with items outside my door, waiting for my friend to pick them up and take them home.

I have had instances of people leaving full Coates containers of food on my dresser or floor, and found underwear that was not mine or my roommate's on my closet floor. One thing that is consistently left is water bottles or coke bottles. There is one boy in particular who will bring in 2 or 3 liter bottles of water every night, drink them, then leave them on the floor. Hmm. He knows who he is.

There is not much that can be done about this terrible malady upon my room. I have tried time and time again to get my friends to realize how rude it is to leave their things in my room, but the thing is, they don't do it purposefully or maliciously, they simply forget. So I've taken to reminding them each night as leave to remember to gather up everything that they brought with them. I feel a bit like a nagging mama, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

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Perk Number One: Fun Fun Fun

I've spent the past two posts complaining about the excess people living in my room, but there is a reason these people gained entry to my room in the first place. My roommate Alli and I are people persons utterly and completely. We get lonely and scared when no one is in our room. It is just when our friends feel a little too comfortable that we get irritated.

I love to cuddle, and luckily for me, there are always at least 2 people willing to cuddle with me in my room as I do my homework. With this in mind, I thought I would share a few pictures typical of an average night in Winn 323.

I had to put up a cuddling picture first, of course. I'd like to point out that I am not the size of a whale, as a matter of fact. Those are my friend's legs on top of me. You can see that she was clearly originally studying Psych, but chocolate always come first. I think that this is a very good sentiment to have. Now I know that this is a blurry picture, but I thought that the model pose was just too good to waste. This picture isn't necessarily flattering to anyone in it, but I thought it was a nice representation of the sheer mass of people usually surrounding my bed. There are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 people total on or around it, including me. Oh whoa, he is actually doing work in this picture. That's just weird. Who really does work in Faith and Alli's room? My lovely roommate herself. And of course the disco ball, which I think shows the character of our room very well.

There you have it. Life in the party room can be difficult at times, but overall it is a very fun life, which I wouldn't trade with any other person in the dorms.

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Negative Number One

One of the most unfortunate aspects of living in the party room is the issue of sleeping. For some inexplicable reason, my friends do not understand the concept of leaving my room late at night when I want to sleep. For instance, I will ask everyone to leave at, say, 1 a.m., yet no one will make any indication that they are leaving. Hmm. So, I will ask again. Nope, nothing happens. Now my roommate, Alli, gets in on the action. "Hey guys, Faith has asked you to leave. We want to go to bed now." Instead of leaving, people start complaining that they don't want to leave; that their rooms are boring, etc. Excuse me, but I want to go to sleep! Eventually, about an hour after I originally started kicking them out, my friends leave.

Ugh. How can this bad situation be fixed? Last semester my roommate and I weren't sure of the answer to this, and, as a result, got much less sleep than is necessary to function properly. We were a cranky pair of girls. But this semester Alli and I decided to be, as we term it, "hardcore". This means that we will not stop at anything when it comes to making people leave, even if that means physically dragging them out of the room. We've had some people get angry at us for not being "consistent", but, it worked. Being hardcore is no fun, as it means being seen as the boring mom-types. However, our friends have started leaving when we kick them out. Some people even leave immediately. Whoa!

Thus, a word of advice to those with clingy, late-leaving friends: hardcore is the only way to go. Don't try being nice, it doesn't work. Sometimes people need a firm hand.

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A Description of the Party Room

Look at the picture up there. There are one, two, three, four, five people in it, and none of those people are me or my roommate. Also, none of the objects on the floor are mine or my rooommate's. Let's look at what's happening in this lively room. The lone boy is watching The Big Lebowski, and the girls are surfing the internet or studying. But what are all of the cooking supplies doing on my brand new Ikea rug? That would be a friend (not pictured) making pancakes and chocolate cupcakes on my floor. As for the, um, decorations by the disco ball, let me just say that it is better not to know. My room is constantly inhabited by at least 2 people besides my roommate and I, and it is very normal to have up to 8 people (and their various accoutrements) in here for hours and hours at a time.

How did this happen to me? How are all of these people and their things in my room, now and forever and always? Simply because my roommate Alli and I are both outgoing, people-loving persons. When we were naive freshmen at the beginning of the year, we designated our room as the "hang-out room", little knowing that we were signing up to live polygamously with our entire hall instead monogamously with each other. A time rarely comes when Alli and I are alone together in our room. Yet this is not necessarily a bad thing - it only becomes a problem when these lovely people become a little too comfortable in my room, and start to believe that they truly do live in Winn 323 instead of their own rooms. This blog will describe how to live peaceably with more people than you bargained for, and the various hijinks and adventures along the way.

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