Amy Johnston
There is a reason that housing released the list of assignments on a Sunday. People tend to get a tad bit pissed off when they get doomed to live in the Kissam while the incoming freshmen frolic around the pristine commons. It is also extremely possible that the administration cloistered the class of 2012, "the smartest one yet ... again!," in the beacon of housing across campus. It makes it much harder to flick them all in the forehead on a regular basis for being conceived a year later when you have to take a Vandy Van to get there. In any event, for those of you who were randomly assigned to live in the land of mold and isolation (because you have obviously broken a mirror, spit on a Bible or slapped your grandmother in the recent past), there may still be hope. If people can escape from Alcatraz, you can escape from the Kisslammer.
- Start leaving your items in your friend's Branscomb casa. If you are stealthy enough, he or she may take months to realize that you are squatting there.
- Crack a book so you can join the honor scholar's program. There are little known study rooms in the dank basement of Branscomb that could prove perfect for you to set up a residence in (ditto for the music rooms).
- Pose as a tour guide for incoming students and convince a foreign exchange student that they won a contest that allowed them to be resituated in the exotic and luxury Kissam Quadrangle, and that you would, under duress, be willing to take their old Branscomb room off their hands.
- Get a girlfriend or boyfriend who lives in Branscomb.
- Get a doctor's note that claims you are allergic to mold ... and isolation.
- Pose as a homeless person and live off the fat of the land, hunting squirrels and passing out on park benches
- Set up a permanent residence in Stevenson library corral. If you hunch your shoulders and scowl enough, people will probably mistake you for a hard-working engineer.
- Move off campus but leave all of your things in Kissam. No RA will fault you for never lingering around the vicinity of your room when they come to search you out.
- Claim you think you hear ghosts of past Kissamers who warned you that if you did not move, they would take a page out of Jack Nicholson's book and interrupt your bathroom sessions with a hack saw.
- Gently stalk or harass someone in Branscomb with a room you've scoped out until they get frazzled and leave school in favor of a psychiatric institution ... instant opening in housing.
- Plant drugs on a Branscombian and anonymously e-mail their RA.
- Tell administration that though you appreciate the possibility of the extra action from the incidents of forcible fondlings going on, you were too busy taking juggling class or flute lessons in high school to have achieved your black belt, and would thus like to be moved away from the fondling danger zone.
- Get blackout every night and "pass out" spontaneously in one of your friend's rooms ... with your overnight bag conveniently at your side.
- Wait until a Branscomb friend of yours goes out of town for the weekend and move all your stuff into their room and haul their stuff to the land of the Dementors, then keep them so belligerently drunk for the rest of the semester that they don't notice the swap
- Get a Greek boyfriend or girlfriend who lives in the house. This will also ensure that you are present for every purse sale, chili cook-off and novelty tee shirt available on campus, obviously a lifelong goal.
Really, do not take these options lightly. It is essential that you remove yourself from Kissam. There is nothing sexy about a potential hookup sauntering up to you with a solo cup and saying, "Hey, good-looking. How about coming back to my place. I have cheese, crackers and all the spores you can inhale. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll let you sleep surrounded by a fog of mold on my single bed. Without a pesky room mate around, no one will hear us swap spit ... or hear you scream."
