Dorm life does offer benefits
Eric Long
Fitter, Happier ...
I am trapped but my prison is self-imposed.
Come next year I will be staring out into the world through the bars of my golden cell and I'm ready for it.
While most of my friends will move to the exotic locales sprinkled around South Bend / Mishawhatever by the off-campus housing fairy, all grown up and ready to take on the world, I'll see things from my single in Zahm Hall.
And I say that's fine — fine indeed.
I have studied both sides of the issue and I have determined that the only rational choice one can make is to remain on campus. I hope I can convince you of this in about 800 words. And maybe along the way we can share a smile or two.
Okay, first of all, isn't it kind of a hassle to park your car around here? I mean, I've gotten three tickets in the past month (somebody has to pay the salary of the ND security guards ... I mean police). Then every time I try to get on campus, I hear the tired old refrain: "Let me check your trunk, let me look under floor mats, let me perform a body cavity search."
What the hell am I going to do to the precious campus? I'm obviously a student, I'm not scary looking — okay I take that one back. Seriously though, just because I look like that Bin Laden dude doesn't mean I'll blow up the dome. But this is a tangent.
A longer distance to the classroom means it will take longer to get to class. Imagine you wake up late. Now instead of putting shoes on for a nice stroll across the quad, God's good air and what not, you have to get in your car, roll down the window before you light a cigarette, find a good radio station, obey traffic signals, park — or deal with one of the guard booth people and then maybe you have to put more gas in your car so you can do it all again tomorrow.
Oh, you say this one's easy to solve: stop going to class. Well that's a great attitude — pretty soon you'll be home with Mom and Dad. How's that for freedom? Why not drop out of school, move to Montana and live with some of your stoner friends — it's cheaper than going here.
No, you want the education; you crave it with every fiber of your being. Eventually you want to move out of the house, don't you? Stay on campus and graduate!
Another reason why no one should move off campus is because of food. Granted the dining halls aren't grade A cuisine but they do the job and they do the dishes and the cooking and the cleaning.
I know, some of you like to cook — we'll see how you like it when you have to do it at least once a day and the damn roommates won't do any dishes and something smells in here. No, give me my nature burger or flank steak.
Grocery shopping can be fun but not when you have to spend your money wisely. I would like to leave that to the University and my parents for as long as possible. All I want to buy is Dinty Moore Beef Stew, Funyons and soda, and the occasional avocado. I don't want to buy milk, eggs, bread and other less glamorous stuff.
And what are these off campus meal plans? Flex Eight-and-a-half? Leonard Part VI? Okay, the last one is a Cosby movie (it ain't "Ghost Dad," let me tell you) and not an actual meal plan, but it might as well be.
No, I don't think living on campus is great. While I am here, I have to obey all of the state's laws and then some: no girls after two, no kegs, no candles, no throwing food in the dining hall.
But I guess it's all worth it. This place rocks sometimes. For instance, when I get to go back to the dorm, or once a semester when the dining hall has chicken tenders, or when they turn Stonehenge on for the first time, or when I'm only staying on because I wanted to be an R.A.
No, it's because I'm too apathetic to move off. Yes, that's it. I'll be cool precisely because it's uncool to do what I'm doing. Yes, it'll be great.
No, I've tried to pull that nerd chic thing off my entire life, and it hasn't worked so far.
I guess there are still places open in Turtle Creek.
Eric Long's column appears every other Wednesday.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, March 21, 2001
