So it’s my first day in residence as a highly independent, self-sufficient university student, and after I get here, run around for five hours sorting out the Internet, bid farewell to the parental units, and put mucho sticky tack on my walls, I can tell you a bit about my first day…

I arrived at my room this morning to discover my roommate is a compulsive fluorescent post-it note user, and that everything which isn’t mine in the room-including shelves and windows-had been claimed. The same goes for the bathroom, living room, and kitchen, including each individual soup packet and granola bar. I’m not sure, but I think my roommate may be related to Martha Stewart. She’s a little different from my two other suitemates, however. One looks like Pink, and the other like Alicia Silverstone, and they make up for this somewhat innocent image by getting drunk, smoking like chimneys, and listening to blaring rap music for the rest of the day. Word.

After all the boxes had been emptied, I walked around the campus in an effort to get my parents to stop worrying about me being attacked (we’re from a small town). This backfired in a major way, as my mum started freaking out about the abundance of free condoms that were being given out by Frosh leaders. Little did they know, my suitemates had already begun what will become quite the renowned collection back at the room. I think they may want to start a clinic.

In the afternoon, I went to a residence floor meeting, where I learned from my new floormates several new ways to drink, smoke, throw knives, and generally cause a ruckus. Oh yeah, and that we shouldn’t do any of them. At six o’clock, Post-It Martha and I proceeded to the dining hall to eat, after which we decided to inquire about the minimal meal per week food plan. It turns out cafeteria food really is as bad as they say in the movies.

After much orientation day partying and loads of drunken students milling around (those were the Frosh leaders-I think they were setting an early example of how to get through eight months of school), I was chatting pleasantly with my roommate when a rather inebriated girl from down the hall stumbled into our room. She inquired as to the whereabouts of her roommate, before collapsing in the hall. Wondering if the residence orientation tomorrow would cover what to do with unconscious floormates, and unsure just how many different substances she had consumed, I was beginning to feel the kind of panic known only to university Frosh creeping into my blood-when she got up and walked out of the apartment completely normally.

I turned out the light wondering if I’d ever become accustomed to the lifestyle here, and tears sprang to my eyes as I thought of home and realized what a gaping hole there is in my life.

I have no telephone.

Samantha Roberts is a first-year Arts & Science student at Victoria College.