Sorry for the rather ridiculous delay between posts. I am in Santa Cruz now, visiting my [grand]mother, and so, of course, school has ended. What to say?

Well, my courses for next quarter are in place, and should all be great. Math, humanities and social sciences core all carry over with new professors. The profs for the first two have good reputations, and for the third I changed sections (along with a friend) to the class of a likely terrific anthropologist Prof. Mazzarella. I added drama for art core, which sounds promising, and to fulfill a somewhat less exciting requirement, added a social dance class, about which I know nothing.

Finals were manageable: two papers – one long and book-reportish, the other less so – and two exams. I was satisfied with all of them, but can’t really predict grades at this point.
One dandilly ambiguous personal situation, a few friends’ birthdays, some new bands, countless teacups and a quiet last day later, I made it home. I am intensely tired, and not for lack of sleep, and most of my friends are gone or in finals, but it is nice to be back and have a chance to reconnect and eat some real produce.

I took a trip to the Reg’s special collections research center to kill some post-finals down time, and with the help of Bryce Lanham, I found out a few interesting things about the dorm. I apologize in advance, you probably don’t care.

Anyway, some trivia:

Snell and Hitchcock were both built as men’s dormitories, and both were used for that purpose at least through the fifties. Despite this, Snell holds the record of oldest women’s dormitory in a co-ed college. The University’s first women’s dorm complex – Foster/Kelley/Green/Beecher – was not ready in time, so for the spring quarter of 1893 Snell was assigned to women before becoming the next fall “a center of university life for the men of the colleges” (Goodspeed, A History of the University of Chicago 1891-1916).

Hitchcock (as well as B-J) allowed graduate students until the sixties.

Snell and Hitchcock, as well as most of the older buildings on campus, are held up by their stone walls, which is why they are so thick.

Both dorms were renovated in 1972-3, this renovation included:

• Replacing the section I and V stairways, and moving the section I stairway south, to meet fire code.
• Renovating the bathrooms.
• Rearranging some walls in the upper two floors of sections I and V to create access to the fire escapes.
• Replacing most of the dorm’s plumbing and wiring.
• Closing the chimneys for the inner-section fireplaces.
• Adding those annoying door-closing pistons to the inner section rooms.

This was supposed to draw “20 more years of useful life out of the aging dorms.” By comparison, Woodward courts (now the GSB) barely lasted 50 years, and rumor has it Max P. is not intended to last more than half that.

There were several more major changes intended that were never funded, including:

• Creating horizontal links between sections and buildings by cutting hallways through the inner sections (thus turning most of the doubles into singles) and connecting Hitchcock to Snell on each floor.
• Building a loading dock and bike entrance where the Hitchcock kitchen now is.
• Building a common mailroom and front desk for the two buildings at the base of section I, and giving Snell a second floor porch in the process.
• Giving Snell a third-floor study lounge (directly above the tea room).

There was even talk in the early seventies, which never made it to blueprints, of dividing section III in half, connecting the rest of the sections, and turning Hitchcock into two sections, each of which would be a separate house.

Day One

There are pictures, but not enough to be worth posting at the moment.

So it went well. The O-Aides (upperclassmen in the house back early to help) were ridiculously helpful (one arranged a technically unavailable shuttle to get my stuff here), and when move-ins were done, just really interesting people. The first years are cool too. Good people, and from wandering campus a bit, the reputation of Snell-Hitchcock (where I am) of being the eccentric, geeky and insular part of an eccentric, geeky and insular university is quite noticeable.

The room (and a half) is good. I am not sure how to set it up, since it is large enough (very close in size and layout of the dining room and back room at home) to have plenty of options, and my room mate hasn't said much. Things are definitely beat up, but most of the furniture, and all of the copious molding is well-cut old hardwood. The upper panes of the windows are elaborate pentagons.

By the way, ivy? My three east windows are all half-covered by it, and face a building that is equally furry. The north window has a view of the odd blocky Reg library, mostly blocked by trees.

The building is a ridiculous maze. To get from here to most other rooms involves going through the basement kitchen. Getting back involves a cloister on the first floor and a whole other set of stairs.

The non-house events opening day were a bit ridiculous. Aside from my ID (so-so photo, no retakes ever, even if you stay for grad school) and test appointments, I got pounds of what is essentially trade show swag (University IT logo flash drive...), and about three hundred pages of coupons, maps and information, on top of the hundred already sent. We will get more.

The food is edible. There are burritos.

It is early here.