The other day I was reminiscing about high school, so it only seems fair that today I’m talking about living in a dorm. Don’t worry I’m not planning on continuing to examine every phase of my life since high school. I spent Tuesday at a copyright conference in Colorado Springs. The conference itself was free, but obviously there are flight, rental car, and sleeping accommodations that still had to be paid for. I was long out of professional development money from work, so anything I spent on this conference was coming out of my own pocket.

I debated for awhile if I should come because it seemed a little silly to fly from Maryland to Colorado for a one day conference. (There was a half-day pre-conference on the basics of copyright that I decided I didn’t need to go to and flight times would have made difficult anyway.) After looking over the agenda multiple times I decided it really was something I wanted to go to. The copyright sessions at the big library conferences I mostly wind up going to tend to focus on copyright basics or on the new relevant case law. I already know a lot about copyright, and I keep up with the current case law so oftentimes these sessions aren’t as useful for me as I would like. This conference was really focused on doing the work of a copyright librarian. It turned out to be exactly what I was looking for. The sessions were really helpful, and I’m glad I decided to make the trek.

You may be wondering what the heck all this has to do with living in a dorm. Well like many conferences held on university campuses during the summer there was an option to stay in the dorms for much less than it would have cost to rent a hotel room. I had done this once before a few years ago. I received a scholarship to attend a week long workshop at the University of North Carolina, which included accommodations in their dorms. I didn’t find that a particularly pleasurable experience, but I’m also cheap so I decided to give dorm life another try.

While I’m staying here I vow that I’m too old for this and it’s not worth it, but I know myself and should the option present itself again I know I’ll do it to save money. Dorm life as adult is both better and worse than dorm life when you’re actually in college. First of all in college you really don’t know any better. I also stayed in hostels while traveling at that age. I wouldn’t do that now because I don’t have to. Also you have all your stuff with you so you make it home for yourself. As an adult just staying in a dorm room for a few days it’s a pretty spartan existence. Think back to what was in your dorm room when you arrived no campus each year, add the cheapest possible sheets and towels and that’s what you get for your stay. This room at least has blinds. The UNC dorm had nothing on the window so a streetlight shined into all night long keeping me up.

Dorm life as an adult is much quieter than when you’re in college though. There are no students in the dorm, so there’s no crazy drunk people wandering the halls all hours of the night. In some ways dorm life was never for me even when I was in college because I am a pitiful sleeper. My freshman year when I had to live on a hall it was loud all the time, and I really don’t think I slept for the entire year. After that my dorm rooms were always in suites so there were only a few rooms in my hall area, which generally made it quieter. My sophomore year I lived above a frat that ended their parties every weekend with the song American Pie. If I was home I knew not to even bother trying to go to sleep until after that song played.

I can’t say I’m sleeping much better during this dorm experience mostly because the dorm doesn’t have air conditioning. With temps in the mid-80s the past two days and the afternoon sun shining directly in my window it’s been pretty warm in the room. I’m one of the lucky Baltimoreans that has central AC and we also keep a window unit in our bedroom since the AC doesn’t get to our top floor very well, so we keep it nice and cool while we sleep. This warm weather sleeping thing is not for me.

This was a weird, rambling post which is mostly to say that I’m happy I no longer have to live in a dorm and I look forward to staying in my nice comfortable bed in my cool bedroom tonight.