The Bittersweet Return of Dorm Life

I remember being a freshman at Loyola, living with a roommate in Hammerman, one of Loyola’s four dormitory-style housing. When you’re living with thirty girls in one hall, you become insta-friends and you develop an oddly close bond you can’t fully explain. Freshman year was filled with excitement and new experiences and was one of the most fun and best years of my life. I made lifelong best friends, ate a hot pocket just about every day, showered with flip flops on, never once used the kitchen on the first floor, slept in a bunk bed, was sexiled, snuck alcohol into our room in backpacks and water bottles, was woken up at two in the morning several times by fire drills and found it nearly impossible to study since there was always something to do and someone to talk to.

Although I reflect on my days as a “Hammerman Hunny” with nostalgia, I’ve always said that since I’ve upgraded to a more normal, apartment lifestyle, I could never go back to living like that. That is, of course, until I wheeled my two suitcases into my coffin of a new home in the Monash dorm, Howitt Hall.

My cage came equipped with putty brick walls that looked so cold and bare, a two-by-four ground space carpeted by a lovely speckled carpet embellished with stains, a decent sized closet, a nice desk, your standard twin size bed, and a big window overlooking the most scenic dumpster in the parking lot. I shuddered as I looked at my twenty-year-old wool comforter that looked like a lice breeding ground. There are nineteen of us on every floor; several are international students, some are RAs and senior residents, and the rest are freshmen. Being 21-years-old this has been especially odd to me that one of my neighbors is only 17, and that I’m actually older than my RA. By the first night in Howitt, I learned that my next-door-neighbor, Sammy, is a freshman from England who luckily got placed in a huge senior resident room. This obviously translated to mean it would be the pregame room for every freshman in our entire building. Immediately I knew I would not be getting much sleep or studying accomplished.

Sammy’s room has settled down since we first moved in, but I’ve become good friends with Sammy and several of the Australian freshmen. Australian freshmen don’t seem like the freshmen to which we’ve grown accustomed, though. The typical American freshman is almost always pretty wild and lives up their new sense of freedom to the fullest. They often embarrass themselves pretty regularly by not knowing where they are, acting foolish when they go out, drinking like the world supply of alcohol is running out, and just being pretty obnoxious since they’re used to being a top dog senior in high school. That might all sound a bit harsh, but I can say these things because I am not an exception by any means. I often cringe by my immature behavior and actions that came along with learning how to be a college student. Maybe it’s due to the Australian drinking age being 18, so the kids here are already used to being able to go to bars. Or perhaps it’s the fact that many Australians go to boarding school for high school. Either way, it never even crosses my mind that the Australians I spend a lot of my time with are three-year-younger freshmen and often I find myself thinking that a lot of them are much more mature and responsible than I am.

One main difference I’ve found about Australian freshmen dorm life is everyone makes super fancy meals. They all form cooking groups in which a different person cooks for everyone in the group one night of the week. I walk in to the kitchen to toast my bread to make a PB&J, which they find repulsive, and they’re literally cooking lamb. I don’t think I cooked anything that wasn’t frozen and microwave ready when I was a freshman and I know I’m not the minority in this aspect.

One thing I love about staying in the halls is the sense of community and pride. Every Sunday night Howitt has “supper” which means everyone comes downstairs at 9:00pm for different kinds of dessert and ice cream. Wednesday nights everyone comes downstairs at 8:00pm for hot chocolate, coffee and tea. The halls will also host several events such as dinners, barbeques, themed parties and boat cruises for that hall only. At Loyola they isolate the freshmen and hold freshmen only events, whereas at Monash it’s more a sense of inner-hall isolation. The halls compete daily against each other in just about every sport you can think of. Netball is especially big. I still haven’t really figured this sport out yet but it looks like basketball with a big cone instead of a net and everyone files out of the halls to either be a spectator or to play and represent their hall.

Of course with the positives of being thrown back into dorm life also comes the negatives. It is quite possible that the walls of Howitt are actually constructed out of paper and air which means you hear every conversation, argument, alarm, and phone ringing within a fifty foot radius. The boy next door to me blares jazz music at all hours of the day and practices his clarinet regularly. One night someone knocked on Sammy’s door every five minutes between the hours of 2:00am-3:30am. Not only was I extremely freaked out, I also was subjected to the nightly interruptions I was once accustomed to as a freshman. In addition, every floor has a washer and dryer, however, your clothes need to be run through the dryer at least three times, meaning that doing your laundry is an all day event. And if one more person takes my damp clothes out of the dryer we're going to have some hall drama. Dorms universally always have the handful of horrible human beings that are food thieves that will scavenge in the communal fridge, and Howitt is no exception to this. I also don’t think I’ll ever become accustomed to a boy walking out of the shower in a towel while I’m brushing my teeth in our co-ed bathroom.

Another thing you learn pretty quickly living in dorms is to always lock your door at night. One late night my friend Casey and I were sitting in the study trying to finish up some work when a girl, we later found out to be named Pauline, came down and told us a naked drunk girl had just climbed into bed with her. When Casey and I went upstairs to try to help the situation this naked out of control wildebeest wrapped in Pauline’s comforter popped out and came barreling down the hall at us before disappearing with impressive speed up the stairs. Another girl had a drunk boy come into her room solely to relieve himself on her radiator. And yet another boy woke up to a drunk boy standing over him. Oh, the exciting tales of dorm life.

All in all I have become quite fond of my little closet of a room. As long as I keep it clean and in order, it’s really all the space I’d ever need. Although there are tiny annoyances, interruptions and distractions, they usually just add to the experience and make good stories. It has helped me to make friends and branch out, feel the sense of community and belonging that I need being so far from home and it really brings me back to the days of being young, stupid and free.