Rockford College

Places I Have Lived: Olson Hall, Rockford College, Rockford, IL

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

August 1998 – January 1999

The summer on the farm ended in a flurry of activity.  The guys had about a week to find an apartment and move out; I on the other hand was moving back into the dorms.  My three friends and I had secured a suite in Olson Hall, a smaller and more centrally located dorm than freshman year’s McGaw.  Olson had two single sex floors, each of which had somewhere around 10-12 suites housing four students.  Kelley and I lucked out, however, as in the time between committing to our housing situation and the beginning of the school year, Mayra decided not to come back to RC, and Amanda accepted a job as an RA – leaving just the two of us in the suite.

There were pluses and minuses to this living situation – as, I’m sure, is the case for all dorms.  RC didn’t have a football team, so baseball and soccer players filled in the rowdy partying gap – and we lived directly above a suite full of ’em.  The window below our living room window was both kicked out and kicked in several times throughout the semester.  It was almost impossible to sleep after 25c wings night at the closest bar to campus.  We made up for it by dragging furniture around our rooms very early the next morning.

Most of my memories of life in Olson are pretty vague.  Kelley basically had the suite to herself.  I stayed in my room for about half of the first semester, but after a brief break-up and reconciliation, I moved in with my boyfriend and only returned to our suite for parties and to move out at the end of the year.  I remember getting my car stuck in a snow drift over Christmas break, and having to leave it there for a few days since no one was available to dig me out.  I also remember many games of Trivial Pursuit, including one where Kelley’s boyfriend didn’t know the answer to a question about Little Women (?), and I replied – from the shower – with “C’mon! It’s a classic American novel!”.  Cos that’s how I roll.

Advertisement

Places I Have Lived: McGaw Hall, Rockford College, Rockford, IL

~ brixton ~ 1 Comment

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.

My First Dorm 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.

Freshman Friends

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.