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Mairin Burke
In August, my roommates were just neatly printed black letters on a sheet of white paper that came in the mail. Soon they became as big as their e-mails on my computer screen. Lauren lives in San Francisco, plays soccer, acts, and wants to teach math. Sylvia is from Queens, runs track, speaks Spanish, and adores Enrique Iglesias. Alycia is from South Carolina, sings, plays three instruments, and plans on being pre-med. I now knew all about what they did, but still didn't know anything about who they were.
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When I got to Yale, the lists of hobbies floated away when real live bodies arrived. Lauren seemed quiet and a little scared, but that was terribly misleading—she's far too confident to let fear get to her. Alycia became much more laid back as soon as her parents left. Sylvia scared the hell out of me; she looked roughly 28 years old, and she was not about to crack a smile for a timid little suburban Virginian like me. But we found that Sylvia has the greatest sense of humor of anyone in the entryway. When all our parents left, we were suddenly each other's new family.
Our differences made compromises and sacrifices inevitable. By the second semester, after initial music and TV conflicts, Lauren actually asked me to play the Dixie Chicks CD, and all four of us sometimes crowded around the TV for una telenovela en Espanol. We ended up sharing everything from detergent to boyfriend problems to childhood memories. It was impossible not to take interest in the dynamic lives around me, all the passions, opinions, and values I had never encountered before. I had written in my journal that I wanted college to be a time to stop receiving so much guidance and teaching as I had from my family and to start giving. Good intentions, maybe, but not at all realistic. I was leaving everyone and everything that had contributed to my background, but I was entering a home of three other lives brimming with richness. Three other cities, high school experiences, religious beliefs, and life plans. I ended up taking in more this year than in all my 18 previous years, thanks to my three suitemates and the bursting characters that they just couldn't hide beyond the first day.
- Alycia Scott, By Alycia Scott
- Lauren Keane, By Lauren Keane
- Mairin Burke
- Sylvia Park, By Sylvia Park
All materials © 2000 The Yale Herald, Inc., and its staff.
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