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Posts Tagged ‘dorm’

The First Quarter Report

Filed Under : College Life,Personal by Douglas Bell

Sep.19,2009

Wow, it’s been a little while since a good ol blog post on here, eh? I just finished my fourth week of classes, meaning that the semester is already 25% complete. I guess time flies over here. Which means, as usual, there’s not enough of it. Hence my lack of posting on here, as could be expected. So I guess the purpose of this post is to catch up and recap on the past four weeks of my college life. Not that any of this is new, especially if you’ve been following me on Twitter. But for the sake of blog continuity, here goes anyway.
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Tags : college, dorm, essays, impeachment, iPod touch, MacBook, Student Government

Now Therefore Be It Resolved

Filed Under : College Life by Douglas Bell

Aug.20,2009

One of the facts of life at a university is that you might have a great relationship with your roommates, or you might have a terrible one. For that, American University has this thing called the Roommate Agreement. And I’m sure that it’s very important, and in many cases, necessary. Fortunately, I don’t fall into that camp, as my roommate (his name is Marco Panessa, he’s from New York) and I have gotten along positively swimmingly.

Nevertheless, a Roommate Agreement is required to be filled out, signed by both of us, and turned in to our RA (Resident Assistant) upon completion, and then reviewed again within the next two weeks. (We thought about saying that we’d review it every 35 minutes, but that idea didn’t last too long.) And to make it weirder, that thing is quite cheesy, with tables for “pre-agreement planning,” three pages of “guided discussion to have with your roommate,” and then a list of pre-determined things for which you should establish a policy with your roommate, if you choose to. Of course the policy part is open-ended to you.

After laughing at the cheesiness of the process, we set out to “hash out” our Roommate Agreement, but found that we just couldn’t stay very serious doing it. And then when we got to the last two lines, where the policy for us to determine was a fill-in-the-blank, we just HAD to exploit that for all that it’s worth.

So here it is, after an hour of thoughtful writing and absolute cracking up to the point where we almost stopped breathing: our Roommate Agreement.
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Tags : American University, coffee, dorm, roommate, roommate agreement, zombies

The Obstacles of Moving House

Filed Under : College Life,Personal by Douglas Bell

Jul.21,2009

Today it is now T minus twenty-five days before I’m headed off to the East Coast for four months. Which, despite this week’s ~~intentional distraction~~ focus on OSCON in San Jose, is starting to become kind of a prevalent thought.

I mean, when you’re planning to live away from home for four straight months, and then (after a three week break) another four straight months, what exactly do you take with you and what do you leave behind? I’ve never been away from home for more than ten days at a time before, so this is kind of mind-numbing to think about. I was kind of hoping to get a bit of advice from the friendly people-who-put-stuff-in-the-mail at AU, but the most I’ve been getting from them recently is the opportunity to buy stuff.

Well, the obvious thing to bring is at least a week’s worth of clothes, since I’ll get to do my own laundry while I’m down there. (Whoopee.) Throw in bedding (something I wouldn’t have to worry about at a hotel), toiletries, and whatever to get through at least my first night over in Washington, and that’s quite a bit there. Not to mention that that’ll fill a suitcase pretty quickly. And I do have the option (when winter comes around, let’s call it the obligation) to do some shopping down there for other essentials I guess. Or, if I need to send anything over there that I can’t stuff into a suitcase when I take off on August 15th, I also have the option of shipping stuff over to Washington ahead of time. I guess I just don’t know what.

Anyone have ideas or experience in this department? What kinds of things do you or don’t you take with you for staying in a college dorm?

Tags : college, dorm, help, moving, packing