Friday, October 01, 2004
Livin' in a Gamester's Paradise
Life is good when you're a fifth year senior. Especially when you've already finished your major. You're just taking an extra year to chill out in school, maybe get a minor. It's even better when you go to an expensive school and Mommy and Daddy will foot your bill, so you don't have to worry about getting a job. Welcome to the life of my roommate.
The first day we met, my roommate and I compared schedules. I was surprised when I learned about his busy schedule. "I'm taking 19 credits," he stated sternly, "so I'm going to be pretty busy." OK, I figured, a busy roommate is a good thing. "I have 8:30 a.m. classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and so I'll probably just be gone all day." Oh? All day?! What for? He told me he'd just be spending his evenings in the library since he never gets work done in the room.
I took that last statement as something pretty plain and cliche. I mean, don't we all say that our productivity is lower in our rooms, susceptible to phone calls, and lure of a nearby computer? I didn't realize how serious he was, and what to him, "never getting work done in the room" really meant. At any rate, I understood that I had a busy roommate, and that our separate schedules would give each of us some time to have the room to ourselves each day.
Though at first I thought it was only a temporary slump, by the end of the first week of classes my roommate had given up on school. I first came to grips with this on the night between Sept. 6th and Sept. 7th. When I restlessly left the room around 11:30 p.m. for a walk, my roommate looked at me like I was crazy. I lingered by the door for a second as we exchanged glances. He took off his headphones and commanded, "What are you doing?!" I explained. "Well, I have a class at 8:30a.m. tomorrow morning," he said, "so I'll be asleep when you come back. Don't bother me." I told him I'd try my best not to wake him up, and left. I was happy to know at least that I wouldn't have to put up with him when I got back.
When I returned to the room around 2 a.m. (the post was written in the library), all the lights in the room were on, and my roommate was nowhere in sight. I was a bit confused, but much more exhausted. I got into my PJs, turned off all the lights, except for his desk light and hopped into bed. Some 20 minutes later, by the time I had drifted into a light sleep, my roommate walked in and slammed the door behind him. My body twitched to the sound of the slam, and I woke up, but stayed quietly in my bed, pretending to be asleep.
"Fuck shit, fucking shit, hell no!" My roommate shouted into the silence of our dimly-lit room. He punched his wooden wardrobe, and continued with a chain of cuss words. I was scared. Was he drunk and belligerent? This guy was still a stranger to me, and I had no clue how to react. Worried that if I spoke up he'd release his anger on me, I stayed still in bed, and grabbed my pillow tight. Eventually he glanced towards my bed, and gasped in surprise when he saw me. With his tail now wagging between his legs in embarrassment, he sat down in front of his computer and clicked away for a while.
The next morning, my roommate's alarm clock went off at 7 a.m. Eerr. It woke me, but I grouchily shrugged it off and figured he'd be out of the room in a few minutes and I could indulge in the last few hours of my morning slumber. Instead, after the alarm rang for five minutes, my roommate got out of bed, and planted himself in front of his computer. He opened up one of his favorite games, and several minutes later he was shouting emphatically as he lost or won each scenario. When I woke up at 10 a.m. Mr. Thang was in the same position, doing the same thing. So much for "don't bother me because of my 8:30a.m. class tomorrow." Whatever.
Whatever's exactly what I told myself for the first few weeks. I couldn't explain why he was up so late playing on the computer, and why he woke up early in the morning to play on the computer, but whatever. It wasn't my business, and I wasn't going to crash his party, since he hadn't been bothering me very much.
After a week or two of coming back from class and seeing him in the exact same position every day (leaning over his computer), I figured out that the image he painted of himself as a studious, busy, library-working person couldn't be further from the truth. This was going to be the new reality: living with a computer addict. I've joked with people about spending too much time in front of the computer, but I've never realized how painfully sad and disruptive a computer addiction could be.
Two weeks into classes, my roommate had renounced going to class completely. It was like he fell madly in love... with his computer, and he was renouncing everything for the sake of their relationship. So, for the past few weeks, every single day I come home, I see my roommate in the same position: oogling over his computer, wearing earphones covering half the size of his head. And he doesn't budge from that very position until he goes to sleep around 2 a.m. every night. He doesn't even go out to eat. He buys takeout so he can eat dinner every night with his beloved. If his computer had a mouth, he'd probably be feeding it, too. Oh wait, how foolish of me to underestimate. He'd be making out with it.
If my roommate isn't playing one of the same three games (one being one of those cheesy games where all you see is a hand holding a gun, and you go around shooting people. Two being a pac-man style game that looks like it came straight out of the early 90s. Three being internet poker, mind you while simultaneously watching broadcasts of poker games on his computer), he's watching a movie... on his computer. Apparently the games are just there to help him pass the time while he waits for his downloads to complete. And boy, does this guy download. Every night there's a feature presentation (if not more). Since school has started he's probably gone through the last 5 years of Hollywood productions, in addition to a good couple seasons of Sex in the City.
I don't know if I've done a good job of painting a picture of how utterly unreal this situation is, but if I haven't, please use your imagination to fill in the gaps. This guy is at least two or three years older than me, and I'm obviously in no position how to tell him how to run his life. So as I keep my criticism to myself, I grow more and more frustrated seeing the same sad sight every day, and in my room of all places. We're complete opposites. The harder I work in school and the more I try to juggle that with holding a job to pay tuition, the more I watch him day by day get by doing absolutely nothing productive, and I feel like a big loser.
The other problem with this situation is that although we live in a double, I definitely need some me-time. Some time when I can be alone and nap, or read, or do homework, or turn up my music... It's not fair because he's obviously getting plenty of "him-time" when I'm in class or at work, several hours each day. The other thing is that this double was originally a single, so it's definitely not big enough for the both of us. As he spends close to 23 hours a day in that room, the more I feel like there's no room in it for me. Ugh. It's driving me nuts, I'm not sleeping.
POST-SCRIPT: Apologies to any frustrated visitors who have came to this site only to find a dry spell in my postings. I kind of crashed hard around the time my great Aunt died, for that reason, for the reason described above, and others. I just sort of shut down for a while, and while I can't say I'm doing any better now, I've started seeing a social worker at school here... We'll see.
The first day we met, my roommate and I compared schedules. I was surprised when I learned about his busy schedule. "I'm taking 19 credits," he stated sternly, "so I'm going to be pretty busy." OK, I figured, a busy roommate is a good thing. "I have 8:30 a.m. classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and so I'll probably just be gone all day." Oh? All day?! What for? He told me he'd just be spending his evenings in the library since he never gets work done in the room.
I took that last statement as something pretty plain and cliche. I mean, don't we all say that our productivity is lower in our rooms, susceptible to phone calls, and lure of a nearby computer? I didn't realize how serious he was, and what to him, "never getting work done in the room" really meant. At any rate, I understood that I had a busy roommate, and that our separate schedules would give each of us some time to have the room to ourselves each day.
Though at first I thought it was only a temporary slump, by the end of the first week of classes my roommate had given up on school. I first came to grips with this on the night between Sept. 6th and Sept. 7th. When I restlessly left the room around 11:30 p.m. for a walk, my roommate looked at me like I was crazy. I lingered by the door for a second as we exchanged glances. He took off his headphones and commanded, "What are you doing?!" I explained. "Well, I have a class at 8:30a.m. tomorrow morning," he said, "so I'll be asleep when you come back. Don't bother me." I told him I'd try my best not to wake him up, and left. I was happy to know at least that I wouldn't have to put up with him when I got back.
When I returned to the room around 2 a.m. (the post was written in the library), all the lights in the room were on, and my roommate was nowhere in sight. I was a bit confused, but much more exhausted. I got into my PJs, turned off all the lights, except for his desk light and hopped into bed. Some 20 minutes later, by the time I had drifted into a light sleep, my roommate walked in and slammed the door behind him. My body twitched to the sound of the slam, and I woke up, but stayed quietly in my bed, pretending to be asleep.
"Fuck shit, fucking shit, hell no!" My roommate shouted into the silence of our dimly-lit room. He punched his wooden wardrobe, and continued with a chain of cuss words. I was scared. Was he drunk and belligerent? This guy was still a stranger to me, and I had no clue how to react. Worried that if I spoke up he'd release his anger on me, I stayed still in bed, and grabbed my pillow tight. Eventually he glanced towards my bed, and gasped in surprise when he saw me. With his tail now wagging between his legs in embarrassment, he sat down in front of his computer and clicked away for a while.
The next morning, my roommate's alarm clock went off at 7 a.m. Eerr. It woke me, but I grouchily shrugged it off and figured he'd be out of the room in a few minutes and I could indulge in the last few hours of my morning slumber. Instead, after the alarm rang for five minutes, my roommate got out of bed, and planted himself in front of his computer. He opened up one of his favorite games, and several minutes later he was shouting emphatically as he lost or won each scenario. When I woke up at 10 a.m. Mr. Thang was in the same position, doing the same thing. So much for "don't bother me because of my 8:30a.m. class tomorrow." Whatever.
Whatever's exactly what I told myself for the first few weeks. I couldn't explain why he was up so late playing on the computer, and why he woke up early in the morning to play on the computer, but whatever. It wasn't my business, and I wasn't going to crash his party, since he hadn't been bothering me very much.
After a week or two of coming back from class and seeing him in the exact same position every day (leaning over his computer), I figured out that the image he painted of himself as a studious, busy, library-working person couldn't be further from the truth. This was going to be the new reality: living with a computer addict. I've joked with people about spending too much time in front of the computer, but I've never realized how painfully sad and disruptive a computer addiction could be.
Two weeks into classes, my roommate had renounced going to class completely. It was like he fell madly in love... with his computer, and he was renouncing everything for the sake of their relationship. So, for the past few weeks, every single day I come home, I see my roommate in the same position: oogling over his computer, wearing earphones covering half the size of his head. And he doesn't budge from that very position until he goes to sleep around 2 a.m. every night. He doesn't even go out to eat. He buys takeout so he can eat dinner every night with his beloved. If his computer had a mouth, he'd probably be feeding it, too. Oh wait, how foolish of me to underestimate. He'd be making out with it.
If my roommate isn't playing one of the same three games (one being one of those cheesy games where all you see is a hand holding a gun, and you go around shooting people. Two being a pac-man style game that looks like it came straight out of the early 90s. Three being internet poker, mind you while simultaneously watching broadcasts of poker games on his computer), he's watching a movie... on his computer. Apparently the games are just there to help him pass the time while he waits for his downloads to complete. And boy, does this guy download. Every night there's a feature presentation (if not more). Since school has started he's probably gone through the last 5 years of Hollywood productions, in addition to a good couple seasons of Sex in the City.
I don't know if I've done a good job of painting a picture of how utterly unreal this situation is, but if I haven't, please use your imagination to fill in the gaps. This guy is at least two or three years older than me, and I'm obviously in no position how to tell him how to run his life. So as I keep my criticism to myself, I grow more and more frustrated seeing the same sad sight every day, and in my room of all places. We're complete opposites. The harder I work in school and the more I try to juggle that with holding a job to pay tuition, the more I watch him day by day get by doing absolutely nothing productive, and I feel like a big loser.
The other problem with this situation is that although we live in a double, I definitely need some me-time. Some time when I can be alone and nap, or read, or do homework, or turn up my music... It's not fair because he's obviously getting plenty of "him-time" when I'm in class or at work, several hours each day. The other thing is that this double was originally a single, so it's definitely not big enough for the both of us. As he spends close to 23 hours a day in that room, the more I feel like there's no room in it for me. Ugh. It's driving me nuts, I'm not sleeping.
POST-SCRIPT: Apologies to any frustrated visitors who have came to this site only to find a dry spell in my postings. I kind of crashed hard around the time my great Aunt died, for that reason, for the reason described above, and others. I just sort of shut down for a while, and while I can't say I'm doing any better now, I've started seeing a social worker at school here... We'll see.
