The first time I stayed in a dorm was my sophomore year of high school. I went to a journalism camp (yes, I was a huge newspaper geek) at the University of Missouri. The dorm was everything I had hoped it would be with its community bathrooms, uncomfortable twin beds, and bats (not the baseball kind). I was still dreaming of winning Pulitzers and had no idea the role this type of building would play in my life.
Two years later, I moved away to college and into the Honors/Scholars dorm. I lived in a room by myself and shared the suite with my RA. It turned out that I was the only honors student on a floor of late admit students. It was a year to remember. Everyone on my floor was either drunk or naked most of the time and I think I remember two programs that my RA did. One was a scavenger hunt and the other involved making quesadillas.
Everything would change my sophomore year. I became an RA and learned all about planning programs, being on duty, working the desk, and of course the difference between a residence hall and a dormitory. I also learned that in residence life, we have the best stories. I’ll always remember:
My first alcohol bust. The room had a tent set up in it and a cooler full of beer. I’m still friends with the guy I busted.
Floor feuding. My first year as an RA my residents feuded with another floor in the building and kept playing pranks like putting trashcans of water against people’s doors. They had a particularly nasty vendetta against the RA on that floor and loved to break policies while she was on duty. She had recorded a CD and some of my residents got a hold of it, played it very loudly, and called in their own noise complaint so she would have to confront them. In the spring, there was a lice outbreak on that floor and I returned home to find that my residents had made posters with louse drawings and sayings like, “Bitches get itches.” I tried very hard not to laugh as I scolded my residents and confiscated the posters.
Those crazy boys. My second year as an RA I had a floor of almost all guys. They were great and I got to be very good friends with several of them. One night, I got a call that there was blood all over the building. A minute later, two guys knocked on my door and asked if I had a band-aid. I put two and two together and figured out that my resident (obviously drunk) was responsible for the blood in the hall. He helped me figure it out by getting it all over my bedroom and bathroom. He had punched a glass door on the second floor because he was upset about a girl.
My staffs. Every year I thought I had the best staff and every year it just got better. From a silly initiation ceremony we made up one year in the laundry room to all-nighters and RA parties, a lot of the people I was on staff with are still my best friends.
My first semester as Hall Director has just given me more great stories. From crazy residents to my first real fire, I already have a lot of hilarious (and scary) memories. I’m seriously considering pitching a reality TV show to MTV. It could be called “The Dorm” and feature the staff of a residence hall. We wouldn’t even need to fake the drama.
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