There is No Such Thing as a Quiet Night in the Dorms

Original Posting: January 2011

My first night in the dorms could have been better in a lot of ways. Even though I was now moved in, I was still under pressures to find out what textbooks I needed, to get things for the dorm that I'd found out were necessary, and to make it to all of the orientation activities that I somehow felt were necessary but at the same time didn't feel were necessary. After all, it's not like I was penalized for not attending things except by lack of a stamp on a card that I could have turned in for prizes if I wanted to... I never did turn that thing in.

Anyway, so the first night, I had some racing thoughts. I had also just met my roommate, and I was hoping that I'd made a good enough first impression on her (we had just spent half an hour that evening taking pictures with each other, so we already had some good memories). However, things were still a bit shaky.

The mattress felt hard as a rock. Eventually I would get a memory foam mattress pad that would make things a zillion times better, but until then, I had to suffer with the standard brick-soft variety that colleges supply.

I also had not brought my earplugs with me. I had been told that quiet hours started at 11PM. I quickly learned that though this is the policy, it is very difficult to enforce if it is enforced at all. I learned I cannot count on the dorms being quiet until something like one o'clock in the morning. And even then...

It took me something like three hours to finally fall asleep...

There is not a single night in the dorm that I have not felt the need to wear ear plugs. Unfortunately, this has led to me sleeping through my alarm a couple times (much to the chagrin of my roommate, I'm sure), but I find that as long as I get at least a moderate amount of sleep, I wake up with it. Whether I actually get out of bed is completely another story...

And no, the dorms aren't even quiet during dead week and finals week. Or at least they aren't quiet enough. I likes me some perfect silence for studying...

Happy New Year, everyone!

♥Sarah