By Ruth Adams
Special to Relocation.com -- Adelphi University
Editor's Note: Relocation.com wanted to learn more about the experience of college, so we want to the source: students. Here are their experiences.
I am a list-maker. Without Post-its and little check mark boxes, my life would be in complete disarray. It's not that I'm a completely disorganized slob, but I feel better at the end of a day when I see everything crossed off one of my many lists. Any of my daily "To Do" lists would be impressively organized, but I thought nothing was more glorious than the list I composed for my dorm.
To the New York collegiate, nothing is more heavenly than Target in late July/early August. At this wonderful department store, I merrily skipped down the isles selecting the cheap microwave my roommates and I had previously agreed I would buy, as long as they brought the TV and the refrigerator. An area rug? Of course!
Would my dorm have wastepaper baskets? Get one anyway, a cute blue one with the word "TRASHY" painted on it. How many towels would I need before resorting to skipping showers because I was too lazy to do laundry that week? Five, I think, in purple.
Ah yes, it was wonderful to see items on my long, long list being crossed out as the amount of crap in bulls-eye plastic bags filled my room and closets at home. Finally, we packed everything in neat cardboard boxes and drove the half hour to the place I would lay my head for the rest of the year.
Imagine my dismay when, having reached the third floor loaded down with clothes and dust-busters and lamps, I entered a closet sized room crammed with a bunk bed, a loft bed, three desks, three dressers, and two armoires. They had the nerve to call this space a "converted triple". My mother saw the room, dropped off the boxes, and left.
One of my new roommate's brother and father piled one dresser on top of the other, and maneuvered one of the desks so it could be used as a step-ladder to access the loft bed. The TV towered over our heads on one of the armoires. The beds wobbled, and the mattresses were composed of plastic and what I can only assume were metal Slinkies.
It was then that the three of us freshman girls realized that all our lists mattered not one whit as long as our names were under the heading of "Converted Triples."