9/11/2006
I'll admit. I've been doing much worse than slacking on my blogging. I've been outright neglecting. However, in order to write about living, one must live first.Perhaps I've been doing a lot more living than writing lately.
What's going onnn, exactly' I've long since left Orientation in the dust and am now in the second week of the fall semester of my senior year. Oh heavens! I know. Scary. Nay, depressing.
Perhaps I should provide you with some sort of background information on my semester, so you'll have some basic knowledge of my whereabouts and such when I add new members to the rogue's gallery and whatnot. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have History of Western Political Thought; on Mondays and Wednesdays I also have African Politics; on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Colonial America, followed by History of Rock and Roll, followed by Racquetball. Monday through Friday I work in the Brock Center in the mornings as the Intramural Sports Supervisor.
So all of those mass e-mails you receive about intramural sports are actually from me, not Bill Blackmore, so please throw tomatoes at my car windows rather than his. Thanks.
This year I am also Vice Chair of the Judicial Board as well as continuing as president of my fraternity, Kappa Sigma. It feels good to say that, post-Orientation. Which by the way was a whole lot of fun, tropical storm attacks aside. I looked forward to breaking out the canoe, but the rainfall stopped a little short. I also recently threw my name in the hat to replace the vacant Interfraternity Council Vice President of Risk Management position, so we'll see how that goes. I think I heard the rest of the IFC/Panhellenic Board laughing about me the other day during their meeting while I was checking my mail, but that may have just been the wind. Inside the Campus Center. Howling.
Where's the usual wit and assorted hyperlinks, you ask' Well, I can't really say. Hiding perhaps' I don't really know. I used to be good at this. Now, I'm a has-been.I would like to report to you as much as possible about what may prove to be an incendiary year in Flippo 1. Perhaps updates three times a week' Only time will tell. I don't want to let down Holly and Brent and everyone else in the Welcome Center who believed in me after I lost to Christina Aguilera on Star Search and was down on my luck.
Ah, wait, she lost. And now she's a multiplatinum recording artist and I'm a broke college student blogging for a school website.
Such is life.
Posted by oliver_r | Permanent Link
8/19/2006
Have you been checking this site every day, wondering when Richie Oliver will blog again' Has it caused you to lose your appetite or to stop sleeping at night' Probably not. You don't care. I have accepted it. Regardless, for the few of you who are still reading: this. is. an. update.
I don't know when I'll be able to finish "Conquering the Midwest." Perhaps when I return to school. Perhaps sooner. Who knows or cares'
So it has been ten days since I last transmitted from here. Since then I've returned home for rest and relaxation, and things have been exactly that way. It's nice to get up every morning and run around the old neighborhood while getting chased by dogs, kids on motorized scooters, and older men with muskets. The last part was not true. The old men ride on the scooters and the kids chase me with muskets. It's a good thing they take so long to reload those things. Otherwise, things have moved along "normally."
One thing I am excited about (yes, excited) is that I recently sent out postcards to the members of Class of 2010 (the FUTURE) who are in my Orientation Group. Orientation Leaders are upperclassmen selected in the spring to guide new students the following fall. They must have been shorthanded when they thought I would be qualified. (Everyone ignore what I just said) Along with the other members of the Orientation Staff, I will corral these youthful personalities around the campus for a week before school starts so that they can get acclimated to the College. Fun fun fun. Really. It's fun. Really. I'm serious. Seriously fun really. Fun seriously really. Okay.
That's all there is to say, I believe. I move back on campus Thursday the 24th, and the new students arrive on the 30th.
Maybe I'll get mugged tomorrow. Or at least receive a call from a telemarketer at dinner.
Actually, tomorrow, I'd really like to meet a new interesting personality, along the lines of the watch repairman, or the scary girl on the Power Tower, or the innkeeper of the Nitro EconoLodge, someone like that, someone memorable that I can eventually libel vaguely through this blog.
The Man in Black never e-mailed me.
I realize this entry has become very stream-of-consciousness and I will stop now before I start discussing shoes.
Posted by oliver_r | Permanent Link
8/9/2006
It's roughly 10:30PM on Wednesday night, and I've been lying to you. "Conquering the Midwest Part V" will not be up on this day. I'm moving out.
Yes, Virginia, it's time for me to pack up and move out before I come back in two weeks to be an Orientation Leader. I can't wait for some young minds to mold!
I wish I could tell you more, but that's all I really have to tell. The highlight of my day was smelling the oatmeal in the business office. Not kidding at all. Until then, this has been a really terrible entry!
Posted by oliver_r | Permanent Link
8/8/2006
Once again, I'm taking a departure from my "Conquering the Midwest" storyline to spin a different yarn. By the way, independent polls that I have conducted amongst myself and no one else tell me that one day, "Conquering the Midwest" will give Harry Potter a run for its money. Heh heh heh. No it won't.
Brent Hoard, Randolph-Macon's webmaster, asked me to do a "special," if you will, on bad first college roommate experiences. And I thought, well, why not' Then I thought to myself, "Slow your roll, homie. This could get ten kinds of ugly in no time." But then I thought, "Why not' You should show the people the dark side of freshman year dorm living. Not everything is sunshine and puppy dogs." At this point, you all think I have schizophrenia, which, I guess, is perfectly acceptable. I will soldier on...you can join me or leave me for Tucker Carlson. Leave me a few peanut butter cookies at the door if you do though.
Could I get some of those flashback ripples again'
Thanks. I lived on a nightmare of a hall my freshman year - it was as though I was no longer on earth but a completely separate part of time and space where if something could be done, it would be done. Sure, my roommate was hardly the cleanest dude, but just you wait. PARENTS QUIT READING NOW!
Frequently, I would be woken up by unidentified persons slamming their closed fists on my door, and every door, as they screamed down the hall. This was a regular occurence. Since I lived on the corner of the dorm, folks would constantly pound on my windows to let them into the building after hours. Truthfully, this was the light fare.
I had all sorts of sports equipment and tools thrown at my door, and I used to be able to pinpoint the difference between baseball and basketball dents in the door. Speaking of doors, on more than one occasion on my hall they were kicked in or ripped off of their hinges. I once came back to a likeness of my face carved into my door from my hallmates.
Perhaps we could get into the materials I discovered in the bathroom' I can recall tobacco spit, raw meat, cigarette ashes, trash cans (filled with great stuff), chairs, helmets, destroyed magazines, excessive amounts of bread, hair, blood, and of course, other assorted bodily fluids. And this is only what I can remember. Once, all of the doorknobs in the hall were covered in a substance that was a cross between tomato sauce and glue. Golly gosh, kids, doesn't R-MC sound like fun' And to think, that was the G-rated description.
Two friends of mine roomed together freshman year, and while they cannot stand each other now, they managed to coexist somehow three years ago. One of the roommates would always accuse the other roommate of stealing his Cokes. I still remember the basic premise of every story: "I always offer him a Coke, and he always says no. I'll come back in the room and he'll be hiding Coke cans behind his computer!" I wonder if the whole stink is about Coke.
Roommate horror stories are not indigenous to Randolph-Macon College. I can recall a few my friends told me from other schools.
I have a friend at Virginia Wesleyan whose freshman year roommate played the Maroon 5 debut seven times in a row day in and day out. Zero times is enough, really.
I had a friend at Christopher Newport who lived in a triple his freshman year. While it quickly became a double, his roommate that survived would spend half the day (literally) on the phone talking to his girlfriend in Oklahoma...that he had never met. My friend's roommate would constantly fall asleep on the phone while arguing to his Oklahoman squeeze about the names of their children, make out with the phone, and named a body pillow after his semi-imaginary girlfriend.
This guy also collected pizza boxes and wore hats to bed.
My friend's suitemate would also play video games until 3AM with the sound on and refused to leave when told. My friend transferred.
Another friend of mine at CNU lived in a suite full of guys, and they shared a common kitchen area. One night Greg (seventh official shout-out) came back really late and was pretty hungry. He found a half-eaten pizza in the fridge, with a note on it that read: "DON'T EAT THIS PIZZA OR I WILL KILL YOU from so-and-so." Greg was really hungry, so he ate a couple of pieces, and wrote on the box, "I took a couple of pieces. Come find me and I'll pay for a new pizza. Greg."
A few hours later, Greg was awakened by a vicious pounding on his door and death threats being spouted off at him. The gentleman with the refridgerated pizza was not pleased. While Greg remained in his room, the crazed pizza owner started to fight the other members of the suite who tried to calm him down. I remember all of this because Greg was telling me over Instant Messenger how he hadn't left his room in twenty-four hours, because he could still hear the guy outside, waiting for him. Some people really like pizza.
College is a strange place. What I wanted to get across in this entry is that when it comes to roommates, literally anything is possible. One always hopes for a solid roommate, but as Mick said so long ago, you can't always get what you want. Your roommate, or your hallmates, or your friend's roommate at another school, or your friend's hallmates at another school, can and will do the following:
- Shower on a less-than-weekly basis.
- Threaten your future children.
- Lock you out of the room after you've taken a shower.
- Turn all of your belongings upside down.
- Party constantly.
- Never, ever, ever listen to you.
- Talk to the TV.
- Be obsessed with a C-list movie/TV/music personality.
- And generally not act like a normal, decent human being.
However, college is about learning and adapting to other people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Sure, you don't have to like them, and you don't have to even try to like them, but there are other people out there besides you and your friends and family from home. Although judging from what I've written, you've probably developed an acute case of agoraphobia by now.
Life will go on, and at least you will have good stories to tell - everyone likes a good scary story now and again.
Look on the bright side..."Conquering the Midwest" returns tomorrow! OMG!
Be kind to one another. That's the best tagline I've come up with...go ahead and put me out to pasture.
Posted by oliver_r | Permanent Link
