Desperate for Housing?

As this year's housing lottery rolls around and we all begin freaking out over whether or not we'll get that coveted quad in Wheaton with our three best friends, we may take a minute to look over the adventure that was freshman housing.  I feel very blessed that my roommate and I only seldom take the passive-agressive bitchy route. Many friends of mine have had to deal with some weirdos and some meanies this year.  A few of the highlights:

My good friend spent her entire first semester of college living in fear of her room. The roommate was a spoiled little girl who was clearly not able to adjust to the living arrangements of college; within the first month she was demanding a room switch to somewhere less noisy.  True, we live in a real "freshman frat."  But no college dorm is going to be perfectly silent on a Saturday night.  This roommate seemed to think that my friend's schedule was ungodly- when she had to wake up for morning practice, get dressed in the dark, and leave the room five minutes later, the roommate made her displeasure perfectly clear.  Through passive-aggressivley muttered expletives, melodramatic sighs, and more, she made my friend afraid to even breathe in her room.  Fortunately, the area coordinators finally took enough of the roomie's complaints about North and moved her into a single for second semester.  A direct quote from the AC: "There's no way I'll let that girl live with anybody."

Another good friend, we'll call her C, seems blessed to have accrued some of the least social roommates in history.  As a boarding school freshman,  little 14-year-old C spent the year with a roommate who slept with all her clothes and shoes on.  On top of the covers.  So that in the morning, she could roll directly out of bed and hit the books.  You'd think her suffering in high school would pay off, but no.  Upon her arrival to Trinity, C found her new roommate just as...erm, interesting. This one spends every waking hour pouring over her books, and cannot seem to handle the fact that C has a social life.  If we enter the room she "politely" asks us to be quiet.  She has confronted C about letting other people into the room, leaving a water bottle on the wrong desk, and won't share the light from her desk lamp. Seriously.  C was just trying to be considerate by using the desk lamp after the roommate had gone to bed.  But no, she was kindly asked to turn it off and continue her work in the dark.  When C was really sick, the roommate yelled at us for coming into the room to take care of her.  Some people clearly have no perception of the people around them.

A friend from high school who goes to college in Alaska had this to say about her roommate: "Our beds touch at the ends, and when she brings her boyfriend home, I have to pretend I'm asleep.  But really it's like a roller coaster!"  Sexiling is a common problem, but not even bothering to sexile is even worse.  There are roommates who steal, from your leftover snacks to your identity.  Don't be afraid to take a stand against roommate troubles.  A favorite of mine from a strong-minded friend of mine:

That's one way to do it, I guess...

I guess we're all looking forward to sophomore year and choosing our housing-- just pray to god your best friends don't become your enemies.  And I guess we can all be thankful that we don't live with a Leighton Meester-like psycho stalker, a la The Roommate.