Suffolk University, Boston MA

I live on Boston Common, only a five minute walk through fairy-light covered trees separating me from the Capital Building with its magical golden dome. If one were to stand on the eleven floor of my dormitory you could see the frog pond far bellow with it’s ice skaters, the M.I.T power plant and even the long snaking line of the Charles River stretched out below you. As luck would have it however I live on the fifth floor, the view from my room not one of stately majesty but instead a dingy alley through which the occasional crack dealer runs, blue lights somewhere far behind. It doesn’t really matter that I seldom look out of the window though; my current living situation is usually interesting enough to keep me occupied for some time.

150 Tremont is a fascinating building to live in; it’s Victorian walls and horizontal flagpoles conceal a bizarre dichotomy of student life amid shabby furniture and halogen light bulbs, walking through the door is like peeling the bark from a dying tree and examining the insects scuttling below. Whether it’s eight in the evening or five in the morning I can lie on bed with my boots on and listen to the signs of life echoing around our utilitarian corridors, usually loud music and shouted curses. There are roughly four hundred of us here, each living in a separate reality with it’s own morals, social structure and time zone. Like the stray gas modules I was once forced to watch in school, we bounce off one another, ricocheting through life and occasionally combusting in fits of anger.

There is lumbering Bart who punched a policeman in the face during a night out in China Town and fled the scene. There is my roommate Raj who sits late at night on a chair in the communal bathroom, a curious expression on his face as listens to Citizen Cope on repeat and ruminates over continual cigarettes which he then stubs out in the sink. I could write about Taylor with her massive sunglasses and contempt for almost everything, bottle of vodka stuck in an expensive purse. There’s Tim, caught unscrewing a door and turning it into a table, Amanda who shattered a homeless mans jaw in a street fight, the third floor jocks with their wiffle bat games in the corridor and the sixth floor reprobates and their massive jars of condoms in the corner. Now I feel bad not including the stammering Macquaid with his notebook crammed full of disturbing drawings and various guests who seem to spend their waking hours throwing up in the toilet.

In Tremont there is exemplified everything one can find both shocking and exemplary about American culture. I have seen countless vile excesses of drugs and alcohol, spurred by a realization that no parent figure exists in the dorms. Along side this however, there exists a code where on the most part friend supports friend through the pitfalls of early adulthood without qualm or question. The school has another dorm that’s ridiculously nice, more of a hotel with its plush fittings and plate glass windows yet strangely not half as charming as 150.