Dorms. They’re a big thing on campus. So when dorm selection week rolls around, let me tell you: it’s intense. I’m talking about backstabbing, cutthroat, run for the lottery number, knock out your fellow classmate intense. There is paranoid banter running down the lines of people as people clench their dorm slip, with sweaty palms, bulging veins, wondering if they are going to get a courtside view, how close to the bathroom they will be, and if the cool RA that they really only know because they looked them up on Facebook is going to be on their floor.
Perhaps when saying all this I am speaking for the masses, but regardless, relationships between friends are affected by this, your morning view is affected by this, and the lovely shower you hopefully choose to grace daily will be affected by this. So when I chose Horton I was careful to choose wisely; naturally when I found out a couple weeks later that the dorm should be finished, the word “should” resonated nicely.
It has come to my attention that the completion of Horton fifth is still up in the air (no pun intended). This doesn’t really bother me, seeing that I am on the second floor and will not be suffering from the drafty weather conditions Horton fourth will encounter with the absence of a roof. But the advantages for Horton fourth are numerous, to say the least. With a lack of a roof, the floor will be able to enjoy a panoramic sky view, the fresh Los Angeles air, early fall rains, and who knows? Someone’s prince might scale the roof-less walls of Horton during non-open hours and create a scandal worthy of the Chimes’ front page.
The repercussions other floors will feel will be more subtle, but entertaining nonetheless. On move-in day, residents of floors one, two, three, and four may be greeted with several uninvited guests from fifth floor who are residing temporary until the completion of fifth. Imagine Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s house if you will. If mom, dad, Charlie, and both sets of grandparents can fit into one room, think of what the expansive, spacious dorms rooms could do! Twin means two, right? So the whole twin bed situation shouldn’t be a problem.
And floor activities -- those should be fun. Of course it would be difficult to know who is on your floor if the floor doesn’t actually exist, but that can easily be fixed. I suggest the school provide tee shirts that say, “I live on fifth, sleep on fourth.” Or to avoid confusion entirely, one should go to the neighborhood Big 5 and purchase a plethora of tents, lanterns, and sleeping bags, and simply convert Horton fifth into a small, quant camping area adjacent to the power plant and parking lot.
In reality, I have confidence that Horton fifth will be completed by the fall. And besides, with a brand new five-story dorm, at least the ambiguous phrase, “should be completed” gives the materialistic, paranoid masses fodder to complain about.