This weekend is a perfect example of the extreme differences between the Universiteit van Amsterdam and LSU.
Friday night, the RAs in my dorm organized an April Fool’s party. The party had been planned and advertised for two weeks and drew a massive turnout. Beer and wine were sold at ridiculously cheap prices, and soon enough, everyone was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Music was blaring, the air was filled with smoke and the residents of all the dorms were getting ridiculous. After my friends Carl and Simon told every girl they knew that they could store their coats in my room, I was constantly leading a parade of girls to and from my room – since I had the key.
I thought back to all of the “parties” organized by those who worked in Herget when I lived there and began to feel sorry for all of the freshmen that can’t have a decent time in their dorm without getting hassled by the Man. Those thoughts soon faded away as I was just having too much fun to care.
The generally free attitude of the people in this city is really great. I was talking with an Italian friend of mine named Linda when one of the RAs pulled out her camera and told us to pose for a picture. We held our drinks and smiled for the camera, only to see her put it down and frown at us. Linda leaned into my side, and I put my arm around her as we both took long sips of our drinks; the RA smiled and took the picture.
Rather than making some kind of futile attempt to stop college students from drinking beer – our resident assistants seem to be much more concerned with actually assisting the residents of our dorm, that and taking the best possible party pictures for their Web site which competes with those of all of the other dorms at UVA for the title of the most fun dorm. You would never see an RA patrolling the halls late at night or working late at night at all for that matter. They’re college students, not baby sitters.
The party didn’t end until around 3 a.m. Actually that’s when the RAs ran out of alcohol and told the majority of people that they had to leave. I walked up a floor and joined some of my neighbors for some more drinks in one of the kitchens. It was somewhere around 4 a.m. when the RAs first stopped by to tell us that it was late and it was finally time for us to be quiet and let the other residents sleep. When the RAs came back later, we assumed that the night was over.
“It’s OK. We’ll go; we know it’s late,” I said to Laurens and Emelie, the RAs who paid the visit.
“Oh well, we were just going to join you guys for a few drinks,” Laurens replied, and the whole room burst into laughter.
To be honest with you, I’m not really sure when that night ended. All I know for sure is that it was miserable trying to get to sleep with the sun shining through my windows.
 
When does Will find time to study?
Contact him at [email protected]