Angela Adair said in Tuesday’s article that “People don’t feel like they’re living in a place that they can call home.”
I thought home was where you make it, not where someone else makes it for you. True, when we were babies, we didn’t have any say about what we wanted. That was our parents’ choice.
But as we aged, our personalities developed their own unique style and so did our living space. Mom didn’t let me repaint the walls in my room, but the pictures I chose to hang, the curtains that I picked out, the knick-knacks that adorned my shelves were a reflection of me. A house or room may have four walls, but what makes it a home are the people that occupy it and how they occupy it.
As a student I lived in Hightower and Duggar Halls. It wasn’t the room as much as it was the friends I made and the times we had in those rooms that made a difference. In my sophomore year we brought in a sectional couch. On Thursday nights we could seat up to 15 people comfortably for watching “ER.” Board games, computer games, birthday parties, movie night and curling up with a good book are what makes a home.
Sure, the apartment was nice when we moved, but those bigger refrigerators need more cleaning, there was carpet to vacuum, not to mention the difficulties we had deciding who got to clean the toilet and tub. We had to sit in traffic for 30 minutes each morning.
My roommate and I each had our own rooms, but at night we couldn’t have our late-night chats when we couldn’t sleep with our doors closed. When we moved from the dorm our senior year, my five close friends and I scattered. We were still close, but we weren’t a door-knock away from the others. In many ways, the apartment was more of a prison than the dorm.
Dorm life isn’t for everyone. You can’t run to “your” room when your roommate gets on your nerves. But for many people, it is a good transition between the home that we are use to-having mom or dad doing the cooking and worrying about paying the phone and electric bills-and carrying those responsibilities ourselves.
So you’re going to go crazy studying in your room. Why not try these options? The Starkville Cafe is open 24 hours. You could go to the fifth floor of the library or any desk in any corner of the other floors, an empty classroom at night, the cafeteria, The Union or-if the weather permits-under a tree on the Drill Field.
So you can’t paint the walls. Dress up the walls in other ways. I brought numerous pictures from home-sayings that made you think and others that made me laugh.
And so what if Housing moves you to another room? Your belongings go with you, don’t they? When Housing sends out the reminder card to come sign up for a room for next year, actually go and request your room.
Emilie Ward is a Data Management Assistant in the MS State University Foundation.