August 2015 was the beginning of many things for me, and among them being away from home was pretty significant for me. I stayed at cougar village two in room 315-I remember this vividly because my suitemate ended up taking our sign when we moved out-in the right hand room with one of my best friends from high school. To say that staying at the dorms was a fantastic experience would be stretching the truth a bit, but in hindsight it was definitely an experience I needed to have in life.

Our tiny dorm room with a light blue wall was a small space with just enough room for a shrapnel of sanity to pierce the air. The room harbored two souls full of confusion and false bravery, and after my parents left me to go home the day I moved in, I felt like Tod the fox after Ms. Tweed abandoned him in the forest. That night was interesting as my roommate and I ventured around our campus, and took our very first trip to the glorious dining halls-a place where I would find comfort in froot loops for a very very long time-but as the night came to closing loneliness found its way into my bed and I realized for the first time in life that being alone was a chilling feeling. Later on I would figure out that loneliness was not the only reason for the chill in my bones, but that it was also the thermostat which was set at the temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit-a temperature unheard of in my house where the temperature was perpetually set at 78-80 degrees. The first couple weeks were a bit strange, but not unwelcome as we started classes, and made friends out of our suitemates, but soon frustration clogged our air vents and fear lulled us to sleep as tests, and brand new social interactions came around. However we eventually got over that, and soon we had a little family situation going on, just me, my roommate, our 3 loaves of molded bread in the mini fridge, and our companions: sleeplessness-on my part-and somnolence-on hers. So definitely not an ideal situation, but as I swept the cold cement floor of its layer of fallen hairs there was also a sense of adventure, an unknown tingling of independence, a shared space big enough for creative intelligence, and small enough to reach out and hold hands if we stretched a bit from our beds. Hindsight is a funny thing though because there is a good deal of rosy retrospection at play, and thus I can’t recall all the honest little details of my life at the dorms, but my experience was positive enough for me to remember the small adventures that I had such as:

• Wrapping ourselves in orange Halloween lights and dancing to Elvis.
• Taking the “trap house” sign off of room 313’s door and hanging it above our bathroom as a trophy-shout out to Christian, and halfhearted apologies to the lovely males in room 313.
• Wandering through staircase C-C for stomach Churning-singing along to a French horn rendition of “My Heart Will Go On”.
• Realizing that yes, it was indeed possible to finish a 14 page paper in the same amount of time it took for your roommate to finish “Star Wars” episodes I-III. The force was strong within us that day, the flood that trapped us in the dorms was stronger.

The memories that stuck with me are fond, the people I met and grew with are fonder, and a year flew by with hindrances here and there, but above it all, living in room 315 was an experience that challenged me and helped me improve as a person. Although I wouldn’t live in a dorm room again, I certainly appreciate the fact that it was a part of my life.