Rolling the dice

It had to come eventually: making decisions.

The day I was accepted into the Rome study abroad program, I knew two things immediately. The first was that I had to go and would be a fool to refuse, and so I didn't. The second was that I was very likely going to have to pull myself away from my house, since UChicago can't get its head on straight regarding undergraduate housing and study abroad. On the one hand, the college loves you to go abroad and tell everyone how great it was when you get back. On the other hand, the college loves to try to keep third- and fourth-years in the housing system, since the vast majority move off campus, since there IS no housing for everyone, try as UChicago might to say otherwise. So you would think that the college would jump at the chance to make it easy for students to both go abroad and stay comfortably in the housing system, regardless of when students choose to go abroad.

No, no, and no again.

When you return from abroad, the college guarantees you housing the same way that it guarantees housing for all who want it--but it does not let you choose. They can't let rooms sit empty for a quarter waiting for you, so you go where there is a space. As far as I can see now (unless someone drops out of school after autumn quarter next year), there will be no space for me in my house beginning winter quarter 2012. In my dorm, maybe, although that's a bit of a stretch. But more than likely not in my house.

It's conflicting because I really do love my house, in many ways. It's not just a dorm or a room to live; it's also many of my friends, two of my elder-sibling-I-never-had substitutes in my resident heads (house heads), my job for the past year in working for our resident masters (dorm heads), and a lot of happiness a thousand miles away from home. This means quite a bit to someone who grew up painfully shy and oftentimes (comfortably) alone, as only children so frequently are. It's basically my family out here, in many ways, and while relationships aren't strictly dependent on where you are, physically, in the world, there's a reason why the people you are closest with are often those who also live near you. Ease of access and frequency of contact give you both the impetus and the need to make relationships work.

It is entirely one thing to move out of housing because you're ready to move on, because you want to pay rent and cook meals for yourself and start pretending to be a real person. I could do that eventually, and I probably will by the time I'm a fourth-year. It's another thing, however, to realize that you don't really have a choice, that your choice is either a) go live and learn for seventy-some-odd days on another continent, or b) stay where you are and keep living with the people you love. How can anyone ever possibly pass up the opportunity to live for a bit in another country? And yet it is so hard, harder than I want it to be, to think of letting go of this vibrant community I've helped make for the past two years, to know that when I come back it won't be waiting for me. The price I pay for international studying is the community I've been a part of back here, domestically.

Of course I can and will visit this old home regardless of where I live next winter quarter and of course I can and will be changed, emotionally and socially, by spending seventy-some-odd days living in an apartment in Rome. In so many ways my house is changing anyway; our resident heads are finally leaving to go, beautifully and yet a bit painfully, be real people who own a house, and our RA is graduating and going to New Mexico to work. But many of the students, my compadres, the meat and bones of the housing community, from this year are staying, and it's just that much harder to swing by the lounge and play Mario Kart or watch stupid TV or bemoan homework when I live somewhere else, blocks away, instead of simply four floors above.

Tonight the randomized seniority list for room pick came out, and I got a great position. One I can't take, of course, because I am barred from participating in the spring lottery due to my not being physically on campus in the fall. (The sweet, sweet laughability of it all.) The first-years and my own yearmates besides are, as I type this, beginning the long process of scheming and trying to figure out what rooms they want to set their sights on. This is a month-long diplomatic (and sometimes just dramatic) affair that is both amusing and yet highly annoying, in that wearying way that over-eager and over-emotional drama can become. It's especially bitter this year because I feel forced out of it. At least three of my yearmates are also studying abroad and staying in housing. But because they are not going abroad fall quarter (because it didn't please them to go to Rome, for instance, or other fall programs), they will have no problems whatsoever living where they want to in the house. The one girl who is also going abroad fall will be okay because she has an arrangement with a girl going abroad winter and a girl going abroad spring, to rotate in and out of a double as each goes abroad.

It's an arrangement I would gladly have participated in, and yet it was not offered to me, something that does make me feel awful in a vague and impersonal way. I know it was simply chance, really, an instance of the other girl probably being around when this bright idea first occurred to the other two, while I simply wasn't in the room. And yet it does make me feel rather left out, not least because although I love my other fall-study-abroader in many ways, I simply feel like, in many ways, I would make a better roommate than she would; I'm far neater and quieter than she is, and the other two girls are also quite quiet and relatively neat. Mostly the entire proceeding just took me by surprise, caught me in a painful presumption that I had something with these other two girls that turned out not to be and left me to fend for myself. I'm not angry at any of them, particularly, just upset in general at being left out by what I can only hope and presume (although look at what presumption brought me!) was simply chance. If I had been in that room when that decision was made, if I had somehow seen it and made my own case, if only if only if only--well, life would be a bit easier for next year, that's all.

And yet right now, when everyone else has some sense of security and I do not (not yet, anyway), it's hard to see this as simply a complication; it feels a lot more like a serious blow, one that I keep coming back to with every end-of-the-year ritual, which will only come more and more frequently as the year rolls on towards its end. It feels personal, even though I know it likely isn't, and it puts me at the mercy of chance, moreso than other people, something inevitable in life that I still have to figure out how to take in stride. I guess that makes this all a somber and rather bitter lesson, at the moment--but a lesson nonetheless.

UDaR on dates and paperwork

The latest Rome news is in, and it's official paperwork, meeting dates, and program dates! Check it out at Una Donna a Roma, where anything and everything Rome-related goes in the six months left until my departure for Europe.

Additionally: UDaR update on family + Rome

Earlier this week I updated Una Donna a Roma, my Rome-focused blog, with some of the history of my family and Rome (my mother's side of the family is Irish and Italian). This was mostly to keep the blog from dying with lack of greater program specifics by trying to post once a week or so with things at least partially relevant to the eventually upcoming trans-continental experience. :) If you haven't seen it yet, check it out!

UDaR update on program specifics

A new post is up at Una Donna a Roma regarding the conversation I had today with a friend who did the Rome civ program this past fall; I learned quite a lot about the program, some of which I reproduced there.

Additionally, new sub-blog

To keep things focused a bit, I've started up a new blog specifically for Rome content; it can be found at Una Donna a Roma. I will continue to blog here throughout the process of getting ready for Rome, and even while I am in Rome, but UDaR will have the nitty-gritty details of the process, and when I am in Rome it will contain descriptions of trips, sights seen, cultural experiences had, and the like. This blog will remain a general depository for thoughts on the internet, college life in general, ASoIaF, and all that it usually is. UDaR will probably be slow for a bit until preparations really start gearing up next quarter, but I'll let you guys know here when a new post regarding the Rome process is up. Until then, enjoy yourselves. :)

Roma

Today I received word that I have officially been admitted to a study abroad program in Rome for fall quarter next year, meaning that I will be living in Rome for 10 weeks this fall with about 20 other current UofC college students. It's not really real until I pay my deposit ($550 woooo), start the visa process (thankfully the college handles that for us), and whatnot, but I'm sure it will hit me eventually that I'm going to one of the cradles of Western civilization for an extended visit. :)

I am really, really happy to go to Rome, even though it will require some changes in my usual living routine (besides the obvious change of being in a foreign country on another continent). I'm not sure that I know anyone who is also going with this particular trip, which isn't particularly frightening for me. It is weird in that we are living in apartments in Monteverdi, however, and I've never 1) lived in an apartment, and 2) shared living spaces with other people. I know, I know--a college student who doesn't share living space? I share bathrooms and common areas, but my room this year (and last year) has always been a single. I'm pretty sure the apartments in Rome are four-person with two double bedrooms, but I'm not entirely sure. Trusty earplugs will get me through just about everything, but it is kind of weird to think about sharing a sleeping room with someone (in a foreign country, on another continent) for ten weeks. It's also weird to think about taking care of my own meals all the time (food is not part of the deal, although housing is) and doing other domestic-ish adult-y things. I guess it's a bit like a crash course for real life.

The greater problem for me remains housing after I get back from Rome. The way UofC housing works, you sign on for a whole academic year at a time, but if you're going abroad for a quarter, things get messed up in that you aren't allowed to reserve a room ahead of time. You're guaranteed a space somewhere in housing if you want it, but since people going abroad fall do not reserve rooms in the spring lotteries, we're basically left up to the whims of chance when it comes to coming back to housing for winter quarter; wherever there's space, we go, and it's pretty hard to get back into your same house again, unless someone else leaves. Lots of people in my house are studying abroad next year, and two of my friends are actually studying abroad in winter and spring quarters, respectively. The tentative plan was basically to get a double, which the three of us would rotate in and out of as necessary, and which I would love, as it would let us all stay in our house next year. However, this never really came to fruition, and then the next thing I knew my two friends had indeed set up this plan--with another housemate who is going to India in the fall.

Obviously it was a little bizarre and kind of upsetting to be locked out of this rotating double plan, for another random housemate also going abroad fall, and obviously the fact that my housemate is also going abroad fall and also wants to stay in our house when she comes back (and actually has a working plan for doing it, something that I don't have) makes it that much less likely that I will be able to get back in next year unless someone from our house drops out of the college or something. I won't be homeless or anything of the sort no matter what happens, but I do love my house and housemates dearly and would be sad to be in a different house. Hopefully I can at least remain in the same dorm, even if in a different house.

There's nothing that can be done about that now, though. Eyes just have to stay on Rome. :)