May 1 7:23 am
#18 on my list of things I will miss about Berkeley: Norton Hall. I was advised by older friends to put Unit Three on the top of my dorm choice list because it was the most “social.” Social, it was. Close to campus, it was as well. Spacious, it was not. Unit Three was filled with awkward book-smart kids that were experimenting with alcohol for the first time by throwing up in our bathroom sink and psychotic R.A.s that told us they could “smell liquor” from outside of our doors. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to pass by the jail cell of a building that lies between Durant and Channing just below Telegraph without feeling an emotional tug in the pit of my stomach and the need to tell whoever I’m with, as if they cared, “THIS WAS MY DORM. I MEAN, LIKE, I LIVED HERE.” When I think about Unit Three, I think about stealing West Coast Pizza cheesy sticks from the hall meetings in the ground floor common room. I think about burning popcorn in our microwave to cover up the smell of cigarettes. I think about coed bathrooms with pamphlets on STDs and eating disorders taped all over the toilet stalls. I think about pulling my first all-nighter in our floor’s study room surrounded by floormates playing World of Warcraft. I remember pretending to hate signing in after five p.m. and before four a.m. but secretly feeling so adult, so college, so quintessentially FRESHMAN as I flashed my student ID and rolled my eyes. I think about lying on my back on the shaggy purple carpet my roommate Alex and I bought together the first day we moved in, staring up at the squared-off ceiling and thinking about how drastically my life was changing day by day, week by week. I remember microwaving M&Ms for dessert and fighting passive-aggressively over whose turn it was to take out the trash and struggling to turn the key in my mailbox downstairs and feeling so ridiculously free and independent even though I was living in a box barely bigger than my parent’s bathroom. I remember running up and down the dull carpeted third floor hallway and tiptoeing quietly past the girls in room 301, the ones that loved to rat us out. I remember replacing photos of my high school boyfriend and high school friends with new ones. I remember scoping out every secret place we could find, like the lofted area above the eighth floor, just below the roof, and the fire escape littered with liquor bottles. I remember staring out the window at the campanile and feeling like I would be in college forever.  Addendum: I also miss the church across from unit three. It was my favorite place to smoke pot in the middle of the night. I wish anything made me feel that badass anymore.

#18 on my list of things I will miss about Berkeley: Norton Hall.

I was advised by older friends to put Unit Three on the top of my dorm choice list because it was the most “social.” Social, it was. Close to campus, it was as well. Spacious, it was not. Unit Three was filled with awkward book-smart kids that were experimenting with alcohol for the first time by throwing up in our bathroom sink and psychotic R.A.s that told us they could “smell liquor” from outside of our doors. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to pass by the jail cell of a building that lies between Durant and Channing just below Telegraph without feeling an emotional tug in the pit of my stomach and the need to tell whoever I’m with, as if they cared, “THIS WAS MY DORM. I MEAN, LIKE, I LIVED HERE.”

When I think about Unit Three, I think about stealing West Coast Pizza cheesy sticks from the hall meetings in the ground floor common room. I think about burning popcorn in our microwave to cover up the smell of cigarettes. I think about coed bathrooms with pamphlets on STDs and eating disorders taped all over the toilet stalls. I think about pulling my first all-nighter in our floor’s study room surrounded by floormates playing World of Warcraft. I remember pretending to hate signing in after five p.m. and before four a.m. but secretly feeling so adult, so college, so quintessentially FRESHMAN as I flashed my student ID and rolled my eyes.

I think about lying on my back on the shaggy purple carpet my roommate Alex and I bought together the first day we moved in, staring up at the squared-off ceiling and thinking about how drastically my life was changing day by day, week by week. I remember microwaving M&Ms for dessert and fighting passive-aggressively over whose turn it was to take out the trash and struggling to turn the key in my mailbox downstairs and feeling so ridiculously free and independent even though I was living in a box barely bigger than my parent’s bathroom. I remember running up and down the dull carpeted third floor hallway and tiptoeing quietly past the girls in room 301, the ones that loved to rat us out. I remember replacing photos of my high school boyfriend and high school friends with new ones. I remember scoping out every secret place we could find, like the lofted area above the eighth floor, just below the roof, and the fire escape littered with liquor bottles. I remember staring out the window at the campanile and feeling like I would be in college forever. 

Addendum: I also miss the church across from unit three. It was my favorite place to smoke pot in the middle of the night. I wish anything made me feel that badass anymore.

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