Dear Fellow College Students,

Someone I knew used to say "that sounds like a you problem" whenever I let the cranky old person inside of me show. As harsh as it was when she said it, she was usually right, so now I check myself--or at least try to--before complaining about anything. The reason I'm telling you this seemingly unimportant information is so that you know that the following grievances have been thoroughly vetted in search of "me-problems". Okay, I should also clarify that while these things have happened at Mount Holyoke, I found these at my first college as well.

First of all, one of my BIGGEST pet peeves is when hair is left in the showers and sinks. Look, I get that some people have a lot of hair, I am one of those people, and I sympathize with people dealing with extreme shedding, however, I will not clean up YOUR hair nor should anyone other then you. It may sound pretty, but let's all be honest for a moment and just admit that no one likes cleaning their own hair out of drains and cleaning out other people's is even worse. I've learned to bring a paper towel or something into the shower stall with me and to collect the shed hair at the end of my shower; this is an unpleasant task, it is also common courtesy when sharing a bathroom.

Next is the two a.m. arrivals, this was definitely worse in previous dorms, however, it is still a problem. I understand wanting to go out and stay out late, I do it and wouldn't dream of asking you not to, but can you please be quieter? Some people need sleep and to get that sleep they need relative quiet. It is unrealistic to expect silence and most hours of the day I could careless, I just think that waking your dormmates up in the middle of the night scream-talking is inconsiderate. Right about now I'm sure that half of the reader who have made it this far are thinking that this is in fact a "me-problem" and that I do sound like a cranky old person, maybe I do. Maybe I'm being a Curmudgeon, but I think that if people don't share things like this that bother them then things won't improve. Speaking of which, I think we need to stop being so passive aggressive towards others we are living with, there is a nice and polite way of telling someone not to leave toiletries on the sink for hours etc.; sulking does not help nor does throwing out or take said toiletries (this is not from personal experience, I've been told by other college students that this has happened to them). Going off of that, if people want to leave their shower stuff in the bathroom on the shelves or whatever then others should respect that and not steal from other people's bags; that's just common decency and yet last year several people in my dorm had things stolen.

Finally, please just clean up after yourself in general. It is not fair to someone to have to clean out the floor microwave because your soup exploded. So this seems like a ridiculously long-winded rant--which truthfully I suppose it is--but again I think that it is really important that everyone is able to share their concerns--and complaints--so that they can be addressed. Overall, I don't mind dorm life, I just, like many people, have a few things that bother me which I know is part of living with others, but being considerate to your dormmates should be part of it too.

Thank you,

Maggie (possibly a closet-curmudgeon)