Last year as a freshman I had the wonderful honor of living in the Bean Complex.
I have come to think that the University’s hazing of new students is worse than any initiation week of a fraternity or sorority. As the name implies, I-week is only seven days. Living in Bean went on for nine months.
Besides the fact that the rooms are the equivalent of sardine cans (you and your roommate being the greasy fish), there was a certain psychological force at work, too. At some point during the year, the University decided to erect great steel gates at all of the openings to the Bean compound. I think the rationale was to keep bad things out, but more often than not it felt like we were being trapped inside.
Furthermore, there was the brand-new Living Learning Center. Only a couple hundred feet from my own beloved Bean, these beautiful towers (with elevators — imagine!) were a constant source of jealousy on my walks to class. Forget the rooms that were bright, well-lit and twice the size of my own. The very structures seemed to mock the dull brick and concrete blocks I called home. By the time April rolled around, I couldn’t wait to find an apartment I could rub in those structures’ faces. It was like trying to get the attention of an attractive girl by walking around with another. The sad prospect that I carefully guarded was that the attractive girl never even wanted me.
Nevertheless, a friend and I found a place. It was a two-bedroom flat not far from campus, and I was overjoyed. There was a kitchen (no more off-nights at Carson Dining), there was a washer and dryer (no more lost clothes) and my bedroom was easily twice the size of my entire dorm (no more sardines). LandLORD, ye will lead me to greener pastures.
I find it odd how expectations change. How what seems great can degenerate after you live with it for a while. In my economics class we would call this “diminishing marginal utility.” I call it becoming spoiled, and I think it always happens, despite our best intentions.
That’s not to say that my reasons for wanting to move out of my current apartment are completely unjustified. My apartment hangs out over the parking lot of our complex and one of our neighbors enjoys revving his car’s engine around midnight. It might not be such a big deal if it didn’t happen every night, and if there was some logical reasoning behind it. The dryer in our apartment is shoddy at best. One night, my roommate and I were awoken by our fire alarm. After desperately searching for the source of the smoke, we stared stupidly at the white metal contraption. Lint had caught fire somewhere deep within its recesses, and I had to fiddle around blindly with the dumb thing before I found a massive clump of wet smoking lint in one of the metal tubes connecting to the wall. My clothes smelled like ash for a week.
April has come and is about to be gone, and my roommate and I are going to be living in a larger apartment with three other people next year. I have this feeling of trepidation that when I look at the new place I will see all of its glory and not discover any of its faults until halfway through next year.
This notion of “temporary” housing is interesting. I have never gone back to Bean this year, and I don’t think I’ll ever step foot in my current apartment after this year. For all of my whining about Bean, I do have some fond memories.
There are the mushy, overarching ones, such as the fact that it was my first home in college. The sense of some sort of “togetherness” (often stifling, but still). Then there are smaller ones, such as the collective roar that erupted from the entire complex when Brandon Roy hit an impossible three-pointer to win a game over Houston last year. And while I can complain about the problems of my current apartment, so too, can I reminisce. Blazer games, a sort of violent Rock Band frenzy, and an all-nighter I pulled during finals last term, when my roommate was gone, and it was just myself and the apartment.
So as summer begins to infect with its yellow tentacles, I will set to work packing up the items in this place I called home for nine months, never to step foot inside again. There were times I hated it, but there were also times I’ll never forget, and that, I suppose, is what makes a place home.
So for incoming freshmen who may find themselves in Bean, don’t let the prison-like exterior fool you; there are good memories to be had. As for those of you moving off campus, enjoy every minute of it. Don’t dwell on possible negatives, even if you find your mind searching for them. It can always be worse.
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