Senior Year: Suite K Part I

My freshman year of college was without a doubt the most socially difficult years of my life.  I had a new girlfriend at a different school, I didn't have a car, I missed my family, and I wasn't overly interested in getting into any of the mischievous that newly liberated freshmen are inclined to do.  I ate many meals alone, spent a lot of time in the library and immersed myself into my school work.

Kind of like Steven Glandsberg

The only thing that I looked forward to during the week was when I would be able to leave campus and go home or head to Bates to see Amy.  The only other place where I felt comfortable at all, was in the classroom, where I was recognized by my teachers and classmates for my academic achievements (but unfortunately, that does not earn you cool points in college).  I definitely looked a little bit into transferring, and if second semester had gone like the first, there is a good chance that I would have left St. Joe's.  Fortunately, however, things did not and I ended up making friendships that last to this day.

The Boys: Suite K

During the course of my sophomore and junior year I became was able to become significantly more social and really enjoy the excellent people at St. Joe's.  When I first started this blog, I was going to type an individual blurb about each of my roommates senior year, but I realized that not only would it take forever because I have so many good things to say but it was really the group as a whole that made senior year so special.  Eccluding myself, our suite consisted of (in alphabetical order): Ben, Ebb, Josh, Kevin, Kyle, Nick, and Rob (I will probably refer to him mostly as Taco).  Six out of the eight in our suite had lived together the year prior and the other two (Nick and Kevin) were most welcome additions.
Semester One:
First semester began early for me because I was starting my student teaching internship at Windham High School.  Since St. Joe's didn't start until after Labor Day, I had to come about a week early to make sure that my schedule aligned with the high school's.  Fortunately, fall sports were also starting that week, so I was not the only one on campus.  In fact, a number of my suite mates played on the golf or soccer team, so they also had to arrive on campus early.  As a true testament to the excitement levels for the upcoming school year, a couple of the guys ended their summer jobs a week early, just so that they could come and hang out with us at school.  In their defense, there are few places more beautiful than St. Joe's in late August!  One of the first things to get set up was our brand new flat screen tv.  Now normally, this wouldn't have a whole lot of significance, but this particular TV was going to be the grand prize for the winner of our newly formed fantasy football league!

The League: Suite K

Between the new tv, an awesome surround sound system (provided by Josh), and premium cable (paid for by bottle return money), we had a pretty phenomenal set-up.  Unfortunately, I did not win the TV (that honor went to Kyle), but we definitely made sure to get our money's worth while we all had access.
Student teaching was an amazing experience, but also required some self-sacrifice during the course of the school week.  The school started at 7:25, so I woke up at 6 every morning to make sure that I was dressed professionally and at least semi-nourished before getting to school.  This meant that I had to go to bed between 9:30 and 10 almost every night, to make sure that I wasn't useless as a teacher.  With seven other roommates, this is not the easiest thing to do.  There were many nights where I would wake up to go to the bathroom around 2:30 am and 2-3 of my other roommates (usually Kyle, Ben, or Taco) would be up in the common room playing video games or arguing about something trivial.  Ben and Taco were also really into wrestling, and would faithfully watch Monday Night Raw.  I am not against watching wrestling and in fact find it quite entertaining, but it was the things that went along with it that would rile me up.  I would try to go to sleep around 10 and as soon as I was nodding off, I would all of the sudden hear a loud clatter outside my bed room.  The guys would start laughing loudly and commotion ensued.  I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got out of bed to figure out what was going on outside of my bedroom.  As I opened the door, I saw Ben holding a metal sign, moving it in slow motion towards Taco's head.  As it gently hit Taco, he reared back slowly as though he were in a movie being punched.  I quickly realized that they were "slow motion wrestling."  This was the first time it happened, but it was certainly not the last.  Their slow motion wrestling became a common occurance and even evolved to the point that they challenged each other for a championship belt!  Most nights, however, they kept the noise level at bay and were respectful of my need to sleep.  Another extremely underrated thing that I love about the guys of Suite K, is their selflessness.  For example, during my internship, I did not have a car, and worked about 10 minutes away from school.  The guys (Taco and Josh in particular) would wake up early  or take time in the middle of their busy days to come to school to pick me up.  It was a little thing, but it made my life so much easier and I truly appreciated it.
In the fall of 2011, three things happened that improved Suite K's life (particularly mine) significantly: 1. The release of Fifa '12, 2. Jay-Z and Kanye's release of Watch the Throne, and 3. Coldplay's release of Xylo Myloto.  The first thing on this list was the most significant in terms of group entertainment, but the second two provided fantastic soundtracks for us to get our gaming on.  The guys spent countless hours playing FIFA in the common room and was often how we kicked off our weekends.  It was not rare for us to play tournaments to crown the king of the moment.  It also spurred the birth of "Ye Olde Rivalry," AKA the rivalry between Josh and Ebb (four year roommates and lifetime best friends).  Up until this point, Ebb had little interest in watching, talking about, or playing video games related to soccer, but thanks to this wonderful game, his eyes were awaken!  There was rarely an evening when you couldn't walk into Josh and Ebb's room to find them deeply immersed in their fourth game of the night (there was also a fair amount of yelling).
The fall of 2011 also saw the St. Joseph's mens soccer team win their second GNAC championship in four years.  This one was particularly exciting for us, because Nick, one of our roommates was on the team.  I remember watching the game with Amy and Isaiah and being so excited for Nick when they won!  Needless to say, he was stoked too.  It was awesome to go to a small DIII school that was really competitive in most of their sports.  It really built a strong camaraderie among the student body.

Halloween 2011

I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about Josh's girlfriend (now wife) Kim and her off-campus housemates Danielle and Casey.  They were definitely most definitely our most common visitors and welcomed guests.  On weekends at the beginning of the year, they hosted "family dinners," where they would invite the guys from Suite K over for a nice dinner prepared by them.  Even though it was not a super common occurance, it was always a treat.  It was at these family dinners that I showed my love for rice pilaf by eating a really absurd quantity of it.  These three had been around for the past few years (especially Kim), so during senior year they fit in really well with the guys of Suite K.  On one occasion, we watched Pearl Jam 20 (an amazing documentary about Pearl Jam) and then Danielle convinced us to watch Never Say Never (Justin Bieber's documentary).  Although we were skeptical, we definitely were not entirely unimpressed.
Sundays during the fall semester were dedicated to football.  We often had multiple TVs on at the same time, televising the different games or streaming NFL Sunday Ticket.  Streaming in the Suites was difficult though, because St. Joe's had pretty terrible wi-fi.  Watching football meant that we were eating one of two things: Dominoes or China Taste.  Dominoes was always a popular choice for their cheap pizza, but when we really wanted greasy and filling, we went with China Taste.  China Taste was a local Chinese restaurant known for their unreasonably large quantities and deep fried Chinese food.  Needless to say, it was delicious.  The most popular orders from Suite K were their General Tsao's or Orange chicken combos.  A single order from China Taste could fill me up for at least three separate sittings (great for a poor college kid).

I realize that there are so many things that I am missing about the first semester, but that is because I was living with such a great group of guys.  Eventually, I will get into the second semester and graduation, but will stop here for now.

Until next time!