August 1997 – May 1998

My parents had their heart set on me attending Wheaton College. When I wasn’t accepted to Wheaton, I was heartbroken, even though I felt strongly that I wasn’t ready for college. Why I didn’t fall back on my acceptance at Iowa, I don’t know. In retrospect, I regret it – but then my life would be completely and unimaginably different, so those regrets are ultimately futile. My acceptance (or lack thereof) to Wheaton was deferred to the latest announcement date, putting it past the deadline for applying just about anywhere else. I resigned myself to a semester at Rock Valley while applying elsewhere, and filled out an application for Rockford College on a whim.

I was accepted almost immediately and, in the middle of July, received a full scholarship. The one condition was that I had to live on campus for my four years. Fine by me, especially as this news came during a particularly tumultuous time in my relationship with my parents. I exchanged letters with my new roommate, and in mid-August, I moved out of my parents’ house for good, though I’d return for a few weeks here and there over the next few years.

All RC freshman lived in McGaw Hall, inconveniently located at the far end of campus, literally over the river (creek) and through the woods. In my memory, McGaw was a giant high-rise; in reality, I think it was six floors, and I think Mayra and I lived on the third. I know we didn’t live on the second, as the girls that lived below us would complain about Mayra waking them up by coming home from class, putting on Barbie Girl, and dancing around our room.

Our room had two twin beds, two desks, two dressers, two closets with accordion doors, two windows, and two bulletin boards. Whenever we had deadlines, we would compulsively rearrange the furniture. Please note the requisite Beatles and Jim Morrison posters, the psychedelia lifted from my mom’s dorm room, the giant desktop computer, and the desk littered with coffee mugs. The temperature control in the building was terrible – in one room, friends would be freezing, while we kept our windows open through the winter and our floor was hot to the touch.

There was a kitchenette and a tiny laundry room on the floor. The extremely narrow shower stalls made shaving my legs nearly impossible – not that I was inclined to do so very often. We had keyed access to the building, though later in the year they switched to ID readers. This was problematic as I went through literally five IDs in the first few months through no fault of my own. There was an intercom by the exterior door, but friends often couldn’t get through because I was chatting on the RWorld BBS with friends or my boyfriend.

I have no idea how my dorm experience compared to others’. I made ramen in the kitchenette and drank a lot of Mountain Dew. I avoided the extremely terrible cafeteria food whenever possible. I made friends with my neighbors – Amanda lived next door, and Kelley down the hall – who would be my roommates in the coming years. My boyfriend spent the night, though in retrospect I have no idea how two of us not-small people fit in a twin bed. Mayra and I both stayed at McGaw until the very last day of move-out week for both Christmas and the end of the school year. It wasn’t always an ideal living situation, but I look back on that year with many, many fond memories.