It was not the Tylenol commercial, where 20 workers are drilling on my head; it was me trying to sleep in my dorm room with 20 workers drilling and working right outside my window.
The construction of South Hall, soon to be the newest residence hall on campus, is driving me and most people in my residence hall crazy. For the past few months I have lived on campus, my sleep has usually been disturbed starting at 7 a.m. when the workers grab their hammers and drills and start banging.
This definitely might enhance the Rice Hall students’ performance, especially those students who have 8 a.m. classes they usually miss. Thanks to the construction just across the street you cannot sleep and skip classes. Indeed your sleep will be very disturbed. The problem is that sometimes I do not have class in the morning, and neither do many others residents at Rice, but we all have to suffer just because we really cannot stop the workers outside.
But all that suffering is incomparable to what our destiny was hiding for us the past couple of weeks. It all happened one day, when the workers conquered the street in front of us, the street which always has been there to separate us. Huge metal fences stretched from the construction site to Rice Hall and blocked the street we once used to walk on freely.
The next morning, I woke up due to the construction’s noise, but this time the noise was louder than ever. It sounded like a giant Caterpillar was excavating dirt right in front of my window, and, indeed, the workers were digging a tunnel from Rice Hall to South Hall. Only problem is I have to hear it every morning at 7.
I have to hear smashing and bounding and slamming. Now that the workers are working just an inch away from the walls of Rice, everyone has been affected by the construction. All the students living in the front rooms suffer the most from the noise. I have spoken to many students and we do not know what to do about it. Earplugs? But what if there was a fire alarm and I wore my earplugs? God forbid we have a real fire. God forbid we have a fire drill and I do not hear the alarm. I do not want to go to the fire class again.
Rice is definitely not the fanciest residence hall on campus, but I was not complaining until work on the upcoming residences of South Hall was begun. As the new residence hall grew taller and taller and the construction site started getting bigger and bigger, the noise became louder and the disruption greater. I have a big room for the loud sounds to echo higher and louder.
On Jan. 19, at 6:20 in the morning, a loud drilling noise was buzzing outside. I woke up, scared. My roommate too was awakened and frightened. The noise was so loud it woke up everyone I know in Rice who lives in the front side. It also woke up several people living on the other side who were disturbed by the loud noise. The drilling noise was the loudest sound ever made by the construction workers, and fortunately the timing was perfect.
And it’s not just me. It seems like everyone here is disturbed by the loud noises.
“It’s a ridiculously long alarm clock of loud noises that starts way too early in the morning. It’s also pretty distracting when I’m trying to do homework,” Rice resident Chase Robinson said. “But I guess the construction is something that’s got to be done to make MSU better for its future students.”
That Tuesday was memorable in each of Rice’s residents’ lives. So what can we do but hope the workers do their jobs perfectly and get finished with their work before their deadline so we can get some decent sleep at Rice.
Abdallah Abu Ghazaleh is a freshman majoring in electrical engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].