Dear Gardner and Kate,
I have a two-room double, which is great, but the walls are really thin so my roommate and her boyfriend are keeping me up at night. How should I deal with this problem?Sleepless in Streeter '15
Gardner: This is clearly a topic that was not covered by your seventh grade etiquette lessons and apparently also not mentioned during your first freshman floor meeting. Your response to this problem depends entirely on how passive-aggressive you are. You could simply approach your roommate and ask him or her to schedule time with the significant other when you're not in the room or keep it down when you are, thus solving the problem. You could also take the more common approach of complaining ceaselessly to your friends about it and making not so subtle "sounds like you had a good night" comments until your ill will gets back to your roommate through a third party.
Kate: As passive aggression is the most common response of Dartmouth students in areas from romance to a long KAF line to just about everything, I advise looking into the most aggressive form of passive aggression. Fight fire with fire and start bringing back partners of your own. Add various sound effects, props and implied desires to instigate a threesome at your own discretion. Soon, your roommate will only leave the boyfriend's room to grab a week's worth of clothing while avoiding eye contact. Alternatively, you could actually instigate a threesome.
Dear Gardner and Kate,
The library seems to be crowded all the time. How can I find a good study space?Jostlin' James '15
Gardner: Your question provides a great opportunity for me to introduce campus to my newest business venture, which I'll be launching during exams. I'm going to arrive at the library as soon as it opens and leave notebooks, books and pieces of paper begging "DO NOT MOVE I'M COMING BACK SOON" at every desirable spot in the library, thus legally claiming them as my own. For a nominal fee, you can have your choice of any of these spots for just an hour or an entire day. Instead of wasting your valuable time in the library looking for a spot, spend it doing things like checking blitz, mindlessly looking at Facebook pictures or even doing reading for your 10A. Preliminary names include Rockefeller Chairs, Big Green Seats and Lone Pine Lounging.
Kate: As someone who camps out at King Arthur Flour from 10 a.m to 2 a.m., I reject the tendency to impose judgements of being "facetime-y" on people who treat the library as their primary social space on weekends. Instead, identify a friend who spends all day "working" in the library and worm your way into his or her mind as a go-to study buddy. Thus, instead of spending an uncomfortable half-hour wandering through the library contemplating how awkward it would be to join a rando at a table in the periodicals, you can bump into your friend who has been holding table, if you will, since the library opened. The most knowledgeable library socializers know that the best places for "whispered" conversation and mid-volume YouTube videos are Baker lobby, Novack or a revolutionary takeover of the sixth floor of the stacks (FFB has become too mainstream). Show up at one of these locations for a carefully orchestrated yet seemingly casual run-in, pull up a chair and plug in your noise canceling headphones.
Just leave a table open for me at KAF I've already scheduled meetings there every Sunday for the rest of the term.
Dear Gardner and Kate,
I thought fall was the time of tree loving tourists to visit Dartmouth, but the weather is making me miserable. Is this going to continue?Freddie Freshman '16
Gardner: Welcome to Dartmouth, Freddie. Like you, I visited on a sunny spring day when Hanover was the nicest place in the world, then slowly had my Southern dreams of a perfect New England town trampled like the grass on Robo lawn during Trips. Hanover has seven distinct seasons: summer, leaf season, grey and cold without snow, first snow, grey and cold with gross, dirty snow, mud season and finally sundress season. You'll come to realize that while some seasons are less desirable than others, each has some bright spots. You seem to be depressed by grey and cold without snow, but it provides the best opportunity to wear flannels and even better, vests. If you're not into that, just hold out for a couple weeks and you'll be having snowball fights with your new best friends outside of McLane during first snow before you know it.
Kate: Tourists can frolic around Dartmouth for the weekend, having checked the 10-day forecast before packing up a lovely picnic lunch to eat with hot apple cider on the Green. The average student, however, is essentially trapped on a campus that is transforming from the beautiful utopia of Dimensions to an inescapable hell hole. As Thanksgiving approaches, the stress over breaking up with high school sweethearts will only be matched by the fear of frostbite as misery seeps into the icy corners of the Choates.
But you should totally get your freshman floor together for a colorful photo op disguised as an apple picking adventure! Just remember comments like "can't believe my school is so beautiful <3" can only stave off the inevitable winter for so long.
Dear Gardner and Kate,
If I take a statement that is inherently not funny or interesting at all, surround it with parentheses and place it after another statement to which it is related, does that turn it into funny, insightful commentary?Fellow Mirror Writers
Kate: The art of humor (humour?) is complex and difficult to unravel (much like the secret to love at Dartmouth, am I right?). While I personally am not opposed to the use of parentheticals, I understand the issue is contentious (#dartmouthproblems) (#tooreal), I hope that we can all proceed on the issue with understanding and civility (especially since I'm the only one of the advice duo that actually shows up to Mirror story assignment meetings [oh hey, Gardner]). But actually, some light parenthetical usage never killed a once-a-week newspaper supplement.
Gardner: Absolutely not. Like, ABSOLUTELY not.
