The ceiling is still rumbling. Above me lives a compulsive furniture-mover, and either he has an unapologetically firm stride or he weighs a frick-ton.
Lying prostrate, I track his ponderous steps toward the desk or easy chair in question, then the slow, shuddering arc of something being dragged across the floorboards. Hesitant steps backward as he retreats to get a better view of the overall effect. He wheedles rhythmically for a moment before diving in again, stamping in admiration at his innate gift for furniture arrangement: Just a touch to the right … a little more … wait, bac– no, forward … YES. I AM A GOD. STAMP STAMP. In his elation, he knocks over (for the second time) that bucket full of things that roll, things the size and hardness of pool balls. The lamps and picture frames in my room tremble as he thunders after them, collecting. Apparently I live below BFG’s neurotic cousin, who finds Freudian release in strewing and harvesting his collection of proportionately giant-sized marbles.
Inches from my head, the pipes inside the wall rush to life. Someone flushed the toilet in the bathroom next door. I spend an introspective moment staring at the plaster, pondering the refuse that must be tumbling along behind it. Maybe it was one of the shower-singers. There are two, roommates who team-shower, each taking a respective cubicle and washing away, singing their favorite (usually different) songs simultaneously. Last night they struck up a — harmonized, mind you — rendition of Silent Night. I hummed along to the alto part, wondering about New Jersey’s regulations for wall thickness.
This is nighttime. Mornings: At 8 a.m., I will be jolted from sleep by metallic dumpster thunder and terse cries of Brown Hall parking lot garbage collectors. It is like setting your EarlyRiser Ocean Soundscape alarm-clock to the setting: Din of Battle. Or Imminent Destruction. Or This is What Hell Sounds Like.
I came by this single in Brown through a Darwinian cyber-glitch. My fellow room-drawer was locked out of the online room draw system for a full 24 hours. Left with no room, she went on the wait list. Yesterday I visited this friend. We spent our first happy moments arabesque-ing from one end of her single to the other; there was the space to sprint, leap and jog to a stop before hitting the door of her walk-in closet.
Bringing this friend back to visit my own abode and pulling open the door, I saw my single with fresh eyes: Ah. I live in a hallway.
Smallness is very fanciful and wonderful. Like the man in the shoe with his polygamous wives and 20 children or whatever. The most magical part of it all is the uniformity of my callers’ reactions. They hover politely at the doorway (debating whether or not they will fit the width of the room) and stand facing the only direction one can face in my room: forward.
“What a great … window,” they say. They all say this. Most likely because there is no wall space on either side of the window to compliment. Or because, due to rising claustrophobia, they are contemplating the window as a means of egress.
It is a great window; I have this sweet view of a tree trunk. His name is Ed. Yesterday we discussed Ed’s branch-do; we think he should take a few inches off the twigs, get rid of the split ends, give it some volume to balance out his slim figure. He has a crush on one of the pines in Prospect Garden, Eileen; a little trim would go a long way to impress her (evergreens: picky).
Ed and I fell to talking about my rooming situation. I confessed my malaise: a senior, yet living in a shoebox. Should I not rail against the sheer injustice of a faulty seniority system? Am I not a highly unfortunate orphaned waif, cruelly yet romantically victimized?
Ed shrugs his boughs noncommittally (his mind is elsewhere, imagining all the things he would do to Eileen’s root system). I turn away and look behind me: Everything fits snugly. The slanted afternoon light pinks the walls, softening everything with shifting light.
Quieted, I realize the number of friends’ singles into which I could wander adds up, in square footage, to far more than any single I could have on my own. Next door, someone flushes the toilet, and my wall sounds like it’s screaming baby-curses in Russian. I smile; I have space tucked away in bits all over campus, housing friends, all wildly different. My common room is wide.
Becca Foresman is a French and Italian major from San Diego, Calif. She can be reached at foresman@princeton.edu.
Read More
Why can’t lecturers win the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching?
Jerry ZhuLet’s acknowledge those who make “boutique teaching” possible, those who work tirelessly to make our rigorous curricula more accessible, and those who dedicate their time to advising and guiding us through all the challenges we face at this University. Lecturers should be eligible for the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Let’s acknowledge those who make “boutique teaching” possible, those who work tirelessly to make our rigorous curricula more accessible, and those who dedicate their time to advising and guiding us through all the challenges we face at this University. Lecturers should be eligible for the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Princeton’s administration of justice is Trumpian
Frances BroganThe disparity between the University’s approach to Giberson and its approach to pro-Palestinian protestors reflects a concerning trend of appeasing an increasingly emboldened right rather than resisting the threat it poses to academic freedom and the wellbeing of Princeton students.
Secular Opening Exercises? Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water
Frank StrasburgerThe secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
The secular makes no room for the spiritual. What Opening Exercises are meant to convey is the spirit of the institution so that it may be kept alive from generation to generation.
