Every freshmen year at college is different and unique. Looking back to those days, I realize how bizarre my experience was and what eclectically weird hallmates I was surrounded by. After comparing stories with my friends from back home, I realize that I took my freshmen experience for granted because I thought that most students went through what I went through. I'm going to share with you some of the things we did and let me know if my experience was all that unique.
Our fourth floor Butterfield had lots of interesting characters and our lives that year would have made a great sitcom. There was my roommate who loved soap operas and liked to play Wonder Woman movie clips on his computer; a very emotional native Indian girl who had this '60s thing going and loved to film stuff; a cheerful girl from the South; a Californian girl with big frizzy hair and liked to use words like "buzz-off;" a Canadian girl who spoke in monotone voice and ate really slowly; a fun-loving guy from Florida; a bunch of rather lustful upperclassmen; and a girl from Brooklyn. You really can't ask for a better cast.
I guess we all started out normally, getting to know each other and hanging out together. We really didn't need UGA meetings because we were in each other's rooms constantly and got along great. Well, maybe too well.
One time, I was walking across the hall when I noticed bunch of people gathered around, debating apparently. I found out that these two guys were arguing who had the larger genitalia and it resulted in two girls volunteering to measure each guy since neither of them could trust the other. To my amazement, they actually went into a room and came out with measurements. There was another time these two were arguing again and it resulted in one of them dropping his pants in front of the whole floor. And yet again, when a few of the girls got bored, they actually hired of the guys to strip for money. And these are the mild sexual stories.
Often I was the victim of rather mean pranks. There were many times when my hallmates would take my clothes away when I was showering. If they weren't doing that, they brought their cameras and raised them above the shower curtains and began to take pictures. When they got bored with that, they poked through the shower curtain with ski poles and long sticks. There were times when I had to take down the shower curtain, wrap it around myself and walk to my room, leaving a nice puddle of water to mark my trail. I won't go into the time I woke up with greenish sparkling finger nails.
If you think that Butterfield people don't drink, you are sadly mistaken. Personally, I think its a safe haven for alcoholics and yes they drink rather well. One time we found a guy on the floor, apparently passed out from drinking too much. So we thought it'd be funny to pull his pants off and put it on backwards. I wonder what he thought when he woke up. I often thought that by the end of the freshmen year, our floor would become one large massive orgy. Looking back, I wasn't wrong.
Of course we had our bad times and too many times our pranks got out of control. One time, we figured out how to send blitzes under another name which resulted in some unfortunate incidents. I still remember one guy cursing at his teacher on the phone at the crack of dawn because he thought he was being kicked out of the class. Sometimes we got too involved in each other's lives and a lot of people ended up crying. We even had few fights. I still remember my roommate choking me with my pajama pants.
Overall, it was an enriching experience. I now know how to pronounce Louisville like a native, what clubs to go to if I'm ever in Miami and I know more about Erica Kane from All My Children than I ever cared to know. Nobody on the floor was the same, after that year of living together.
