Fall 2011
“Room number?”
“525.”
How many times have I recited those three numbers? Endless. That’s because I’ve lived in the same dorm room on campus for as long as I’ve been here. Most people stay in a room for one year and move to a different one. Some people may stay in their rooms for two years. Not many stay in them for three. I’ve said “525,” at the front desk, written “525” when people ask me for my address, and have pushed “5” on the elevator counsel a million times. Tonight, I will spend my last night sleeping in and waking up in the good old 525. Now I’ll be moving on to bigger and better things. I will be moving into a house in the Village to spend my senior year with the greatest people I’ve become friends with during my time at SUNY Oswego. I will enjoy the luxuries of my own room, a full-sized bed, air conditioning, and the ability to cook my own food in my own kitchen and watch television in my own living room. So, why have I stayed in one room for three consecutive years?
Fall 2012
525 in Funnelle Hall is one of the hard, fought-after “L” rooms, the rooms that are not designed like the standard SUNY Oswego room. Their doorway walks into a little entrance way where the residents’ closets are, before turning to the left or right where the rest of the room is. Whether there is actually more space or not, no one really knows. But they seem that way and are usually the first rooms taken when housing selection happens in April. How I and another freshman got one three years ago is beyond me. Along with the space, 525 faces the south side of Campus Center with beautiful Lake Ontario glistening behind it. It is the best thing I could imagine looking at when waking up every morning and right before I go to bed every night. You get to see part of Oswego’s famous sunsets, get to see the storms coming when they are still miles away, and the snow fall down gently or blow so much you can’t see the Campus Center at all.
Fall 2013
I’ve had three roommates in the three years I’ve been here and each have brought their own special qualities to the room while I’ve been here. There has been movie nights, acoustic guitar jam sessions, pizza parties, a ball pit, monkey bars, standard beds, lofted beds, a futon, “go-down-to-dinner rendezvous,” a science experiment that involves a balloon (don’t ask), and best of all, small random get-togethers that started out in the hallway that moved here, that turned into half the floor coming to join. These resulted in staying up till 5 in the morning on a week night, us telling stories that in the telling, turned into stories themselves.
A lot of good memories have been made between these four walls. It’s going to be strange being somewhere else on the Oswego campus, but it is time to move forward. And it’s almost as if I’m not exactly going. My current roommate is staying in the room next year so I will be passing the 525 torch down to him, sort to speak. The last two times I’ve moved out of this room, I’ve laughed, knowing that I was coming right back in three months anyway so “saying goodbye” was nothing. Now it’s going to be different. This time I won’t be coming back. Time never stands still for very long and college is no exception, as it is just a small part of what my life will become. When I get my room inspected, hand in the 525 keys, sign the check-out sheet, and close the door, it will be much like closing the door of the last three years. But there are more things to see while I spend my final year at SUNY Oswego, more memories to made elsewhere, and I know, there are other doors waiting for me to open.
