The Golden Shovel

Quality time can be spent when just 'hangin' out'

By Benjamin Acker

Passing Trojan Hall and Pardee Tower on my way to work Monday, I smiled, quickly thinking of my times there. As a resident advisor in those buildings, I met a number of great people. I presented educational, cultural and social programming for residents, working with faculty and outside resources alike. I shut down noisy parties, I helped vomiting, wasted people find their way to the toilet, I wrote a few folks up. I even dated a few gals once or twice over there, and that's always a bonus.
But perhaps my greatest memories from two years of overseeing a floor housing 40-plus gentlemen were the late-night conversations about absolutely nothing of value, and the general and complete waste of time that is involved with such procrastinatory "hangin' out."
While both floors were invaluable experiences, I would have to say that the gentlemen who lived on the first floor of Trojan Hall in (year deliberately deleted to protect the innocent) excelled at the art of wasting time and talking about intelligent-sounding drivel.
Case in point: Late one night, after I had made my last "on duty" rounds through the building, I returned to the floor, where every door was open, lights ablaze in every room. The hall was occupied by three guys -- two were kicking a soccer ball back and forth while the third "ollied" over it with a skateboard.
Wondering why all these guys were awake this late, I walked the length of the hall. Inside the rooms, small groups of people were huddled around computers, deep in concentration. After further investigation, I learned that the entire floor had managed to network their computers, and they were all involved in some kind of "kill or be killed" game -- and they had only been there about two weeks at the time.
As weeks became months, I sometimes joined these guys in their late-night conversations and time-wasters. Usually, these "Meetings of the Minds" were comprised of 10 to 20 guys sitting around in a room with "Reservoir Dogs" blaring on the TV, the stereo inexplicably competing with the television while someone was checking e-mail on the computer. The rest of us sat and discussed. The floor was a landfill of popcorn, pizza boxes and other assorted trash.
Topics included everything imaginable -- movies, good beer, old pets we loved, old girlfriends we hated. Despite the frequency of idiotic topics, there were a few gems to be learned.
My favorite? "True love means finding someone with the same interests and different demons -- it's always cool to talk about your hobbies with someone that understands your jargon, but it always sucks to have your own weaknesses personified in the woman you wake up with."
And whether you live in the res halls, or commute from Pasadena, those are words to live by.