Monday, February 3, 2014

I Took A Trip On The Starship Enterprise

So far, living in Enterprise again has been fairly uneventful. 

I've managed to keep a decently low profile. I haven't dyed my hair any outrageous colors, I don't play my music too loud, and I try to keep the television and angry Spanish homework screams to a level no one else will hear. On my first day, I played the guitar for a bit, but since realizing that you can easily hear the sound of a guitar from the hallway and bathrooms, I've not touched it. 

I think most people know me as a visitor. There are two people I interact with on my floor on a semi-regular basis. One of them is my neighbor - another senior here past the four year mark - who informed me that the previous resident of my single was someone named "Elizabeth" who vanished after a man came and tore her name off the door. The most likely explanation is that she dropped out or graduated, and the man was either her father or a representative of Reslife. I'm choosing to believe there was something mysterious and otherworldly about it, mostly to keep myself occupied while I'm trying to fall asleep at night. 

The other person I see regularly is my RA. She lives about three doors down from me, and is pretty outgoing and easy to talk to. We're both taking the second half of Advanced Screenwriting, so we're both going to have to find a way to successfully write ten pages a week while not losing our jobs. Her script, as she pitched it the other day, was really interesting. A sci-fi sister story I would totally take my sisters to. It's ending in particular excited me, though our professor told her to revise it. I hope it doesn't change too much, but then, it's not my script. Still, I would love to see it in theaters. I could easily see it as the new Hunger Games. 

The fire alarm has gone off no less than eight times since classes began last week. Enterprise always was famous for it's sensitive alarms. It's usually hairspray. 

The alarm itself is loud and blaring - the kind of sound you'd expect to herald the approach of a nuclear disaster. It will start suddenly, anxious and upset, and then build as you run around the room trying to remember where you put your shoes and coat. By the time you've thrown everything on over your pajamas and stumble out into the hallway with the rest of your annoyed and fairly zombie-like floor, the alarm will inevitably sound like the world's most intrusive and nagging parent. You know you need to leave the building, you're aware that though it's probably someone burning popcorn in their microwave, it could always be something worse. Yes, Mom, we get it. Please let us exit the building in peace. 

I should note that this is no way a comparison to my own mother. My mother's nagging does not sound like a fire alarm, and is generally triggered by something I've done (or, more typically haven't done) that was legitimately stupid. You get the idea. 

Once we've all filed out of the building in as close to an orderly fashion as we can managed at one in the morning, the courtyard between Enterprise and our neighboring hall, Vander Poel, is suddenly filled with the least energetic angry mob on the face of the earth. There's always someone who manages to find out whose room triggered the alarm, and when the person is discovered, it seems for a brief, exciting moment, that the entire building is going to sacrifice him or her to the housing gods. Then, of course, the moment goes by. We all realize that not only have we forgotten our torches and pitchforks, but we've all probably done something just as stupid. Being angry takes a lot of effort, and over-tired, freezing cold college students are not the sort to be bothered with effort past midnight, if it's not going to help raise their GPA. 

You are then left with several choices to pass the time: 

1.) Find someone you are remotely friendly with in your building and stand around commiserating. An attractive option because, of course, misery loves company, but also because it assures the rest of the building that you, indeed, have friends and are a relatively normal person. It's also a good way to make friends, since the person you wandered over to complain with will inevitably have their own friends who you will get to meet and possibly forge a lasting friendship with. Or you'll hate them. 

2.) Decide "fuck this" and walk across the street to Dutch Treats. Dutch Treats is our on-campus convenient store - convenient in that it's open 24 hours and doesn't stop serving sandwiches until four. Or possibly three. I'm not really sure. A fire alarm going off is a good opportunity to get groceries, and no one really minds if you stand in an aisle staring blankly at the microwave noodle bowls for a half an hour. Depending on the length of the evacuation, you could get there, buy some milk, say hi to the guy in the back who makes the sandwiches, and leave just in time to return to your room. 

3.) Call someone you know and complain to them. If you are lacking friends in the building, and don't want to spend the meal points getting things you don't really need at Dutch Treats, the "call a friend and bitch about your building" option is a good alternative. On the one hand, your friend will not be pleased that you woke them up at one in the morning to discuss something that doesn't really effect them, but on the other hand, if they're really your friend, they'll get over it in the morning and do the same thing to you should they be forced to evacuate their own building. 

4.) Force your significant other to either come and pick you up, or stand around with you. In last night's evacuation in particular, I heard many couples use the term "Valentines Day is coming up" and "Bring something warm." 

5.) If it's particularly freezing, Vander Poel will open it's doors to lost, cold, Enterprise students by announcing that it's lounge is free in the most secretive way possible, thus ensuring that no one will actually come. If you are one of the lucky people in the back of the mob to hear the announcement, you can hang out there, with the seven other people who heard, and check the window every five seconds to see if people are filing back in. 

Then, of course, there's the ever popular, 

6.) Stand around awkwardly by yourself, occasionally playing with your phone, wondering why fate has seen fit to force you outside in the middle of an evening's Hulu viewing, and didn't even have courtesy to warn you beforehand. 

As for me, I chose a skilled combination of options 2 and 6. I started in Dutch Treats, bought some milk for tea, and and then returned to the courtyard outside Enterprise to stand around checking Facebook on my phone. By the time I had come from Dutch, the social groups had already been established and it was too late to attempt to find one to crash. 

Eventually, they have to let you all back inside. There is a great migration towards the door that you will suddenly instinctively be aware of, even if you're not looking in the general direction of the mob, and everyone will file forward blindly. The crowd moves as one, like molasses, slowly oozing its way into the building towards the elevators. The elevators, of course, will not work properly, and the flow of student traffic will come to an abrupt and confusing halt while everyone waits for the elevators to cope with their issues. 

Luckily, I live on the first floor, so I just took the stairs. I put my milk in the refrigerator, turned my Roku back on, and returned to watching Rod Serling teach me about humanity through the use of elegant, science fiction parables. I could almost forget I had just been forced to stand around outside for no particular reason. 

So Enterprise is very much the same as it was when I last lived here, to the point where it's a little surreal. So much has happened since then. A part of me feels like if I take a stroll up to the eighth floor, I could find myself and let her know what's ahead. She'd probably just ask me why my hair looks so thin. 

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