Freshmen Year: Live and Let Live (Part 1)

Dorms at Stanford are largely run by Resident Assistants (RAs), students employed by the university to put together fun events for the dorm, act as a shoulder to cry on, and (lightly) enforce dorm or university rules. Most RAs are friendly, energetic upperclassmen, and “Gently”* was no exception. Gently was a tall, attractive brunette majoring in History. She was the type of person who I am sure has always been naturally popular throughout her life, without a hint of malice or manipulation. Even as a Senior, Gently was mature beyond her years, and quite ready to leave the Stanford bubble. This led to an interesting dynamic, as she was placed as an RA on the first floor of “Egypt."

Egypt was actually divided so that the first floor was all guys, the second floor was all girls, and the third floor was coed. I am not quite sure what the logic behind placing Gently on the first floor was, but I assume the powers that be guessed a shot of estrogen was needed to balance out the floor. This was on the right track, but somewhat short of the mark. You'd need truckloads of estrogen to turn the first floor of Egypt into anything close to "normal." You see, Egypt 1F was the place where I met many of the depraved friends who remain to this day constant characters in my life. As Freshmen, we just had that much more time to generally act like the social retards we were (and arguably remain).

If you peered down the hall of Egypt a random day that year, there would be little surprising about it. There was the carpeted hallway and the usual row of dorm room doors, each decorated with brightly colored name tags. If you walked in, you might pass a few rooms and stop at 110 - where Spamus and G$ reside. In a typical scene, the pair are at their computers playing a first person shooter called Quake on matching LCD monitors. It's actually dead silent, as they both have headphones on, are facing away from the door, and are engrossed in the game. Maybe G$ would be running around with Quake's version of a pinprick - a mere machine gun. Spamus is sporting one of the game's stronger weapons, the rocket launcher, and is on the prowl. He turns the corner and Aha! finds G$ frantically darting towards the end of the hallway, where there's a better gun. Spamus leans slightly in towards the monitor, as he tap-tap-taps the mouse, unleashing a gratuitous volley of rockets. Rocket blasts explode all around G$'s screen, and it is at this point that the silence is cracked by G$'s high pitched scream (“fuuuuuuuuuUUCK!”). His character is quickly reduced to giblets.

This was actually a common phenomenon as the floor was just filled to the brim with gamers (or generally weird people). There was a guy who tried to readjust his sleep schedule so he slept 8 of every 36 hours, another was a bronze medalist in the International Math Olympiad, a decidedly not in shape third repeatedly walked around with his shirt off. Of the 20 or so guys on the floor, I can think of over half who ended up as Computer Science majors. Multiplayer Quake matches amongst people living just down the hall were a reality, and when the whole floor was playing, a cacophony of insults, taunts, screams and gloats could be heard whenever something interesting happened.

With the personality of the first floor thus, it should be no surprise that the release of Star Wars: Episode II was highly anticipated. We prepared ourselves the only way we knew how - by repeatedly playing Jedi Knight II matches against each other. Jedi Knight was a Quake-like game themed Star Wars style. We'd fight on a stage that was designed to look exactly like the "Duel of the Fates" scene from Episode 1. John Williams' score would be blaring loudly in the background while I desperately tried to use the force to choke and throw G$ off the ledge before he sliced me in two. The music became ingrained in us. One day, I walked back into the dorm to see G$ standing in the hall talking to Gently. Though we are half a hallway apart from each other, spontaneously, he turns to me and begins loudly singing:
G$: "KOR-AHHHH. MAH-TAHHHH"
Me: "KOR-AHHHH. RAH-TAH-MAHHHH"
G$ and I start giggling, and we hear Spamus - "Is that BeatenByJacks? What're you guys even doing??"

Another Star Wars fan and character on the Egypt stage was TFH. At the time, TFH was the RA of the second floor. In a later story, I will describe the gaming heaven that was his room, but what is relevant now is that his dad worked at the toy company Hasbro. This meant a free shipment of six lightsabers. They were put to good use:

1) G$ and I decided to choreographed a lightsaber duel for an hour or so in the Egypt lobby. We'd run through a few moves, earnestly discuss how "cool" they looked, then practice a few times. The Egypt lobby was a highly trafficked public space.
2) On the day Episode 2 premiered, we were obviously in line for several hours waiting for good seats. Fortunately, we brought the lightsabers to the theaters. TFH and I decide to engage in a spontaneous lightsaber duel, which culminates with TFH pretending to use the force on me, while I act like I am pushed to the floor. I could see parents standing in line with their kids thinking "God, Little Johnny better not still be obsessed with Star Wars when he's as old as these losers."
3) Near the end of the year, non-local students often put their stuff in temporary storage for the summer. This meant there were 10 or 20 Door-to-Door storage containers scattered throughout the Egypt field (the containers basically look like outhouses). G$ and I saw this for what it was - a perfect place for a lightsaber battle. At 1:00 or 2:00 AM, we ran into field and tried to ambush each other from behind the storage containers, lightsabers providing our only source of light.

It seemed so natural at the time, but looking back I can only imagine what it was like to be one of the few non-gamers on the floor. Gently's room, for example, was situated directly across from Spamus and G$'s. As an RA, her door basically had to be open the whole day, so sounds of gunfire and virtual explosions constantly interrupted her attempts to catch up on reading. My roommate came from a musical theater background and was another non-gamer. I basically had nothing in common him, which was unfortunate because he was a cool guy. The difference was pretty obvious when you looked at the posters up on our room:

Him: Framed pictures of friends. Posters of Abercrombie & Fitch models.
Me: A single "demotivator" from despair.com which read, "Adversity: That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable."

Despite the widely different personalities that lived there that year, I have to say there were few major fireworks or drama that came out of our floor. We all loved Gently, and I like to think she liked us as well. My roommate and I may not have become best friends, but I think there is no bitterness there. And I did meet many of the people that have defined me from that point on. Far from a disaster, Egypt was just a bunch of cool people hanging out together, letting each other do whatever they wanted to do. And that’s what it’s all about, right?

* The origin of this nickname is from a dorm tradition known as Secret Santa. This is where each participant draws a name of a person they will anonymously give a gift to. The catch is that the recipient are given anonymous commands that must be followed in order in order to receive the gift. This led to an entertaining week of random feats. In the midst of this, G$ and Spamus interrupted a widely attended dorm meeting to serenaded Gently to Tenacious D’s song “Fuck Her Gently” (NSFW). The punchline of this is G$ and Spamus’ dance wasn’t even a part of the Secret Santa – they did it just for kicks.

Unexpected Gaming on the Carribean

Using up some much needed vacation time, I went on a cruise to the Carribean right before Christmas this year. I had been to one cruise before with the parents to Alaska, which was a lot of fun, but this was my first time going with college friends. I’m sure my impression of a cruise is the same as yours and I was really looking forward to days of overeating, partying, exploring, and relaxing. While we did do all those things, there was one activity I can’t say I was expecting: competitive Jenga.

It wasn’t long until we discovered the ship’s game room. Our days were taken up by shore excursions and exploring the sports deck of the ship, but nighttime was a different story. Dinner time for us was 6 pm, and despite often ordering several appetizers, main courses, and desserts we were normally done by 8. Our other main activity was heading into “The Vault,” the ship’s nightclub, which we couldn’t really do until 10 or so. This is when we’d head up to the game room.

The game room was far from the prettiest room on the ship. It was largely undecorated, with blue carpet and bare walls. A glass door leading to a deck outside was obstructed by a big caution sign. The room was sparsely inhabited to begin with, but when there were people there it was a combination of senior folks playing bridge and families trying to keep their young kids occupied.

It was in this environment that we walked in and started playing semi-sober, obscenity-laden Jenga. “Fuuuuuuuuck!!!” we’d say after realizing the piece we picked was squarely wedged in the tower. Trash talk would fly back and forth about how “you just certified your incompetence as a Jenga player.” After a successful piece was plucked, we’d return to our drinks that we’d brought in from the bar next door. Inevitably the shacky table legs, natural rocking of the ship, and alcohol would lead the Jenga tower to crash.

That may have been the end of it for some groups. But not us. After a session or two of blissfully ignorant Jenga, the analysis began. We quickly uncovered a few Jenga basics: 1) choose a piece which has space around it to increase your chance it isn’t wedged in the tower, 2) look at both sides of the tower to make sure that a piece is truly free, 3) if a tower is leaning, the side leaned toward is more likely to have structure bearing pieces.

Soon Jenga games are being played for rounds of drinks. Advanced Jenga techniques are developed and not shared. There are no take-backs – select a structure bearing piece and deal with the consequences. Fever does maximum damage to the tower on innocent pieces, just to cause chaos for the person following him. I innovate with the “lightning pull” to deal with particularly snug pieces (friction is minimized the quicker you pull out a piece). Pieces are twisted, lifted, and tapped, out of the tower – anything to prevent the tower from being destroyed.

In the midst of one of these “intense” games, one of us hypothetically brings up the ultimate Jenga challenge – pulling out a single middle block which supports the rest of the tower. This culminates in a situation where we decide to just stop playing the game and concentrate on improving our Jenga technique. We call this “Jenga Academy.” We frantically build up mock towers with only a middle block holding up a few stories and attempt to pull the piece out. It seems doable, and indeed it is – after several tries, Spamus is the first to succeed. Immediately after, we set up a real game so Spamus can try out the technique “on the field.”

Two moves later, Spamus has an opportunity, which he greets with open arms. Spamus explains that he needs to first “channel his chi.” Apparently the way this worked was by posing in various freeze frame action poses reminiscent of a 1950s Chinese karate movie. Spamus then began a drawn out “Hiii-yaaAAAAAA” yell. Meanwhile, his hand approached and pulled away from the target piece, as if taking practice swings before a critical golf shot. A final yell, he plucks the piece out, the remainder of the tower falls down, a nervous beat while we await the crash, but somehow, stability. Spamus has done it – victory and high-fives all around!

Needless to say, when we were done with our Jenga session that day, there was no one left in the game room.

While that move was the culmination of our Jenga cruise, strangely, it was not the last we would hear of the game. Two months later, T-dag has flown down to visit us. She excitedly informs us that her boss uses Jenga for different purposes. Apparently, he has a 100% success rate of hooking up with a woman who comes back to his place if the two of them sit down and play Jenga together. Does T-dag’s boss play vanilla Jenga? Or does he apply obsessive analysis and kung-fu yells in the midst of the action? Though the former is probably more likely, I must admit a part of me hopes it’s the latter.