I know, I haven’t posted at all in a while… that’s mainly because for most of the past week, I’ve either been too busy or too tired to make a coherent post. Schoolwork tends to get rather overwhelming at this time of year, it always seems…

Anyway, though, this past Thursday was Mercer’s revamped housing selection process, which ended up being absolutely chaotic in a number of ways. First of all, one of the apartment buildings is being torn down entirely because it was condemned by the government; let’s just say that those of us who have been in the building in question can understand why that was the case. So that cuts down considerably on the amount of housing available to students.

So how did they do the housing process this year? Rising sophomores got first pick, as they had to live on campus; afterward came seniors (the class I’m heading into), and then last of all were the juniors. Many of us think the way this was arranged was unfair. There are quite a few juniors, including a number of my friends, who have absolutely no way to live off campus because (a) their on-campus housing is being paid for by scholarships and (b) they don’t have cars, and the campus’ surroundings are not exactly a pleasant place to walk. Two of my friends, Sarah and Stephanie, only managed to get a room because they knew an RA, as RAs get to choose whom they share their bathroom with.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to have a fairly low number in the housing lottery, so I got to go fairly early on. However, I had no clue whom I was going to room with. I had a group of four friends who were going to share an apartment, but that didn’t quite work out; for one, I knew that a couple of those friends tend to be fairly loud and extroverted, and I couldn’t put up with that for more than a few hours, and for another, the apartments can only hold four people anyway, so it was a moot point. However, one of the aforementioned friends had a roommate, originally from Taiwan, who had nobody to live with next year; he tends to be a rather quiet sort of person, so I ended up working out a deal with him, and the two of us will be sharing a 2-bedroom apartment next year. Worked out better than I expected, really.

So, that was the insanity that was this year’s housing selection in a nutshell. I should just be glad that I won’t have to put up with it again for another year; I was nearly about to go into an emotional breakdown when I couldn’t figure out whom I wanted to room with…