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Leaving home, finding foam
August 14, 2008
Dorm room circa 2005. Are you seeing those pictures of Emmy Rossum above my bed?
I told you.
In ten days, I’ll be beginning my fifth year of college, which will undoubtedly result in me being referred to, at least once, as a super-senior. I imagine this term is on par with superhero. And super…iority.
And superfluous.
My career in higher education has been a jumble of decent professors, awkward relationships, and posters of flowery landscapes and sailors kissing girls because that’s all they ever had left in the bookstore aside from boobs in different tropical settings and Uncle Sam looming behind a beer pong table demanding SINK IT DRINK IT.
During my first ever week of classes, I was hoping to attain at least some type of friendship equivalent, as my roommate spoke Spanish, which is fine, except that when she said tengo hambre her eyes said stay the hell away from my Pringles. I checked the lineup of activities and noticed that the college was holding a foam dance party on the basketball courts, and by foam I mean the white suds that sit on top of a sink full of dirty dishes and not the squishy polyfoam they use in insulation which would’ve been infinitely more acceptable.
I’m wondering how the planners came up with that as a decent transition into college life. And I know what you’re thinking. I would love to dance around to music in foamy wetness. But if you’re imagining it, you’re either frolicking alone or with your friends, not with strange skinny boys in beaters and the girls you thought you left behind in high school.
For the record, after reading those event details, I promptly went online and then fell asleep, which adequately describes my first year and a half of college.
Coincidentally, my grades during that time were the highest they’ve ever been, and now I’m thinking that the college must have purposefully implemented awkward social functions in order to keep people like me shoved as far into the corner of a textbook-walled fort as was physically possible. And it worked. It’s too bad I transfered to a school that has less of those, because I could totally have a degree right now.
Categories: Daily
August 14th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Andrea and I went to a foam party or two in our day, we turned out alright. I wonder where those pictures are…
August 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
I am roffl’ing.
I don’t think I’d ever have the guts or desire to go to a foam dance party during the first week of school.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Have no fear, five years is fine. My first four years of school went from 8 AM classes 5 days a week and a full course load freshman year to 1 Tuesday night class and another class that only met 3 times (that I dropped) my fourth year in school. Coincidentally I lived over a bar third and fourth year and hung out with all the stoner/party folk I met at those initial awkward freshman gatherings. I then took a few years off for the Army and then had to finish school in the evenings. I graduated on the “decade plan”. I wish I had realized the purpose of those awkward freshman gatherings. I guess the gatherings still shaped my college experience just in a different direction.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Jennie - Yes, where are those?
Scottsweep - That’s comforting. I’m not unhappy with how things turned out. I do, however, kind of wish I’d lived above a bar.
August 14th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
My husband (boy, is it ever odd to say that) took six years to get his degree, all of which took place at the same school working on the same major. I suppose it was lucky for me that he kept failing compilers, as we only met his last year of college.
August 15th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Yeah five years is no sweat, it took me a year and a half or longer to get my Master’s degree when it should have only taken me two. The hardest part about college is persevering through the end until you get that piece of paper that should simply say “Done bitches!” And a foam party is generally always an interesting time regardless of how much it lives up to predetermined expectations. Really interesting to see how animalistic some people can become as soon as soap is introduced into the equation of a party atmosphere. It reminds me of the party scene from the second Matrix of all things.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I’ve been to ONE foam party and it was more or less exactly how you described it.
AWESOME.
Kidding - it was one of the Top 5 grossest things I have ever done.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:20 am
Foam party? Wow. Never went to one of those.
Seriously, don’t kick yourself too hard over being in school so long. A lot of people take 5 years — I think it gives them perspective, because it means they’ve had things in their lives other than college.
Also I’ve taken… 9? 10?… semesters of college classes and don’t even have an associate’s degree. So, yeah. You’re lightyears ahead of me ;)
August 15th, 2008 at 9:40 am
I’m thinking that foam parties were all the rage about 7 years ago. I tended bar at this cheesy point that hosted foam nights- and we had to clean up at the end of the evening.
Good luck this year!
August 15th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Oh yes, I’m very familiar with foam dance parties.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
woohoo! We call it a ‘Victory Lap’. I did five years… because finishing in 4 is like leaving the party early.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I’m starting my 6th year of college which I suppose makes me a super duper senior. I can just blame transferring and changing my major for that though.
My first roommate was the type of person that went to foam parties. Luckily, I became friends with my suitemates who didn’t.
August 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am
foam parties are so overdone. they need to start doing dances in other substances. Perhaps goose feathers or cotton balls or packing peanuts. Something that makes it seem less like taking a bubble bath with a bunch of greasy men.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
That’s a pretty clean dorm room.
Also, it took my bro 5 years to finish school and he’s smarter than me.
August 17th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Claim that you’re writing a book on the young adult experience in America and need another year of research.
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:18 am
That dorm room is a hot mess!