East Halls War Journal: Vol. 2

That's right folks, we're back in the freshman utopia that is East Halls. Since the start of this semester, East has been rife with all sorts of maladies and mysteries: sudden power outages, 4 AM fire alarms, and the nocturnal activities of those stoner kids that live at the end of the hallway. You know who they are.

Minus the homework part, this is pretty accurate. 

To those of you who've been fortunate enough to live somewhere else, these stories from the far side of campus may seem hard to believe. Just the other day, while taking the bus home from class, I witnessed a girl ask her boyfriend if the large building ahead of us was the fabled "Creamery" that so many Penn Staters speak of in old folk tales. "I don't know," he responded. "I've never been to this part of campus before." 

Perhaps we should be proud that some students consider East Halls to be a mythical land of parties and construction, surrounded in a thick cloud of weed fumes. Though it's easy for us to list every flaw of the place (and trust me, there are so. many.), we've been given a living experience that's unlike any other here on campus.

For one, living in East gives you a great opportunity to meet a lot of new friends. Every freshman starts out with this big dream of becoming best friends with their roommate and being asked to give a speech at their future wedding; in reality, most of our roommates are our casual acquaintances at best, and our bitter enemies at worst. But in East, all the freshmen are quite literally packed together, forcing you to meet new people whether you like it or not. Such close quarters allowed me the chance to meet a lot of my friends last semester, and even some new ones this time around. Now, if only there was a way to keep the place clean...

You mean sheets of ice everywhere, right? 

Another upside about living in East is its close proximity to both the Creamery and the various sports complexes. (But nothing else. Seriously.) Want to go to Pegula to catch a hockey game? Done. Basketball or a concert at the BJC? Easy. And yes, Creamery coffee is that good. Not only does it wake me up just in time to walk into this class at 9;05, but it forces us coffee drinkers to roll out of bed early and factor in the time it takes to fill a cup up into our 30-minute walk to the other side of campus. West Halls, eat your heart out. 

All in all, living in East boils down to that quintessential college experience. Living in a 50-year-old dorm with architecture right out of the Cold War is a rite of passage for us freshmen, much as we love to complain about the cramped bathrooms, rampant theft, and mysterious odors that we're too afraid to leave our rooms to investigate. One day, we'll look back on our time in the dorms fondly, silently thanking God that we can only go up from there. 

 Don't tell me how to live!