As I hinted at in my previous post, dorms are supposed to be filled with students. The students came in late September/early October for the start of the semester, and while the vast majority of people here keep to themselves and are respectful, we've had some difficulty with some residents. This usually happens on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights, from approximately 9 o'clock at night until approximately 4 in the morning. Why Wednesday night, you ask? Well, every Wednesday night is Student Night at bars, and students get major discounts on drinks. Also, the student housing association throws parties for students on select Wednesday nights. Two or three of these parties have been held at our complex, and there's been others elsewhere around town. Friday and Saturday nights should be pretty obvious.
There are no resident assistants (RAs) who live in our complex, as I discussed here. When students party loudly and late into the night, we have a few choices.
1. Ignore it.
2. Ask them nicely to be quiet.
3. Suffer when they continue to make noise.
4. Exasperatedly yell at them at 3 AM in your best teacher voice.
5. Complain at the reception desk on the next weekday, and be told to write an e-mail to the housing coordinators explaining the situation, as if that will magically restore the sleep we've missed.
Briefly, here's the low down on some parties that have been particularly annoying.
First: Last fall, a group of rowdy Americans who live in our complex partied in the courtyard until roughly 5 AM on a Sunday morning. They threw beer bottles and pretzel bags into our fountain. They laughed and laughed. They yelled. Worse yet? Sunday was a religious holiday, and many Austrians are quite religious. I was seriously disgusted with their behavior (and seriously sleep-deprived), so I left them an ominous note telling them how poorly they were representing our country. All Americans can help improve our reputation abroad by conducting themselves with self-respect, and I needed to communicate that to them. It was actually pretty hilarious when I saw them go outside the next day, find the note, and then contritely look up into all the windows as if they were being watched. I guess I was watching them (creeper, I know), but I wanted to make sure they cleaned up their mess so the cleaning staff didn't have to. Anyway, no more outside parties occurred after that.
Second: At the end of last semester, a group of students (American and British) partied in the common room one floor below our room. Ben asked them nicely to be quiet around 11 PM, and I threw on a robe and asked them to stop laughing so loudly in my best shrill teacher voice at 3:30 (I remember because I started my tirade with, "Hey, it's 3:30."). When Ben went to work at 5:30, they were still awake and still drinking. I was so frustrated.
Third: This Wednesday, a group of Austrians were partying in the common room right outside our door. Quiet hours are from 10 until 8, and it was 11 o'clock. Ben was exhausted, but he got dressed, and said to them in his teacher voice: "I have to be up in 5 hours. I need quiet." I was shocked, shocked! that he stated the situation so bluntly and in English, and I thought that they would continue to make noise. But, within a few minutes, their little party had disbanded, and we had peace and quiet. The next morning, the main perpetrator rang our doorbell and presented me with a Twix bar and an apology for the previous night, and he did so in English.
Now, as someone who has studied statistics, I can't use a sample size of three to make any generalizations about which culture is more respectful, but a Twix and an apology? That's pretty good.
So, what have I learned about myself by living in a dorm after I've graduated?
The college lifestyle and the college schedule do not reflect who I am anymore. I need and value sleep, and I need and value my liver. Essentially, I've become less cool, and I'm über-okay with that. I readily acknowledge that we're in a different situation than most of the other resident in terms of being married and being finished with school, and I can't fault them for being in a different stage of life. I can fault them, however, on not being respectful. When people work together and live together, they need to be considerate, and that should be learned at an earlier, pre-college age.
But, my biggest realization from living in a dorm in my mid-twenties is that I can be happy with less. When we moved here, I brought a large suitcase, a carry-on, and a small shoulder bag. That's it. And I've been fine. I'm working with a wardrobe that's probably a quarter of what I own, and I clothe myself every day, no problem. We do not have any kitchen appliances - no microwave, coffee maker, blender, etc. We feed ourselves every day, no problem. I haven't driven a car in over six months, and I get around, no problem. This is not to say that I don't remember how convenient it is to have more clothes, a microwave, and a car, or that I don't want to use these things when I come home. But, I feel like I've gained a new perspective, and that's the reason people travel, isn't it? To make the unfamiliar familiar. To expand their horizons. To learn how other people live. And in doing so, you change how you live too.
