Room 240About the room | Positives | Negatives
Many things can be addictive: food, a favorite song, chewing your nails, etc. But have you ever thought a place could be addictive? I didn’t, until I walked into room 240, located in the dormitory, “Kappa”, on the Western Washington University campus. This room is the residency of my good friends Bobby and Cole. Walking by their room you can’t help but get the feeling that something important is going on within. Even if there is no one inside, there is a sort of presence there. Whether it is the watching of a televised football game, wrestling matches, loud music, or dancing, something is always going on. As a freshman girl, who’s anxious to not miss out on any social activity in the dorms, their room is especially intriguing to me. Once a student walks in for the first time, they feel the urge to return again and again, anxious to see what new things are happening in there. The room alone is captivating in itself. The door already has a broken peephole and a lock that doesn’t work. All you have to do is jiggle the door handle three times and it will unlock. Once the door is open, you are hit with strong stench of laundry and Bobby’s essential cologne, which he liberally sprays everywhere. This place is a mess of tangled blankets on beds, Bobby’s clothes in piles strewn about the floor, different artwork from each tenant that utterly conflicts with each other, boxes of snack food, scratched-up skateboards, and cords connected to various technological devices that are strung everywhere. As you can probably tell by that description, this room is full of chaos; however, this chaos only intensifies as the room fills with people. Cole himself, as a 6’3” male, takes up a lot of physical space as it is, but that is by no means even comparable to the space Bobby occupies. He devours space not only by running, hopping, and spinning throughout the room, but also by demanding attention without even trying to and turning up the music ridiculously loud. Cole’s calmness brings an element of sanity to the room and contrasts quite well with Bobby’s intensity. This past night, as I sat atop Cole’s lofted bed I had the perfect spot to observe the room, a space that was filled with music pounding through colored water speakers and the boys’ screams as they watched a college football game. This commotion and atmosphere emanating from the room drew people in, and soon the room was filled with a throng of nine to ten individuals just hanging out, adding to and soaking up the energy floating about the room. Even though the room is very successful in its endeavor to harbor as many Western Washington University students that can possibly fit in one dorm room, there is a problem that gets in the way of this thriving atmosphere. As pointed out by Bobby and Cole many times, the issue is that their room is right next to the Resident Advisor’s room. Resident advisors live amongst the students and are responsible for enforcing all the rules for each dormitory. Although the RA next to Bobby and Cole is a rather nice individual, it requires that more rules must be followed than not. If the RA were not immediately located next to them, the music would be turned up ten times louder and played past quiet hours. There would also be loud skateboard tricks, longer, more intense wrestling matches between the two boys, and a lot more people in the room at all times. Room 240 of Ridgeway Kappa acts as both a sanctuary and hub for social activity. Despite their unfortunate location in the kappa dormitory, their room remains the center of excitement in this community. Bringing in all the excitement one can handle, starting the best hangout sessions, and just providing pure entertainment for whoever enters their space. |