To the Editor:
I remember that warm evening back in May. Walking through crowds of people over to Leede Arena, standing in line to present my ticket, finally getting close to the stage.
No, I'm not talking about the Maroon 5 concert. The event I speak of was much more highly anticipated.
I'm talking about room draw.
Last year, as a lowly freshman, I was quite nervous about getting housing in a College dormitory. With a draw number smack dab in the middle of the range for first-year students (4,224), I did not know whether I would qualify for on-campus housing.
However, plenty of my upperclassman friends assured me that even if I got waitlisted, I would hear from the Office of Residential Life in early August. ORL told me that with a number like mine, I could probably get any room I wanted.
They were both wrong. Somehow, I managed to fall through the cracks in the College's room draw system, along with 90 or so other students who, as of now, will be homeless in the fall.
And now, still on the waiting list less than a month before the Fall term begins, my life is in chaos. In the midst of finals, I find myself worrying about storage, moving and whether or not I will be reduced to sleeping in the common area of a freshman dorm.
In Blitz message that sought to encourage wait-listed students to apply for affinity housing, ORL mentioned that the Asian Studies House was not fully occupied. Having suffered through Japanese for three terms last year, I quickly applied.
I was very pleased that there was some alternative course of action that would make me feel less than hopeless. It was not to be, however.
The "Asian Studies" house is apparently only for speakers of Chinese. What a sad misnomer.
