CARA VAN METER
Living Editor
Pepperdine may have dorms like palaces, but these walls aren’t thick enough to muffle the comings and goings of Pepperdine princes and princesses. Instead the dorm — oops, palace – walls are paper-thin and provide no hindrance to the variety of noises that pervades any college campus, including this one, at all hours.
Sometimes you may enjoy grooving to your suitemates’ music. There are those rare occasions when raucous giggles from the opposite side of the dorm make you smile. And the lonely or bored among us may find some perverse pleasure in forced eavesdropping.
More likely, though, you are distracted by the tunes blasting through the walls of the room next door. At 2 a.m. those giggles that wake you are anything but funny. And even the loneliest and most bored students get sick of hearing their dorm mates argue with Mom on the phone – or worse ooze those disgustingly mushy sweet nothings to their significant others out in the lobby or common areas.
So, when the campus noise begins to overwhelm you, follow these four simple steps to find the silence you crave.
This step can be a little tricky. There are a number of options, but each comes with its own list of drawbacks. For instance, you could close your windows to reduce the noise of traffic in and out of the dorm and seal your vents to block out sounds from other parts of the dorm. But then you would suffer in the self-inflicted sauna of stale air created by the lack of proper ventilation. Or you could tape pillows and other fluffy, sound-absorbing materials across walls adjacent to noisy rooms, but you might suffer the wrath of housing officials who abhor the coverage of more than one-third of your walls. You could stuff towels in the cracks between the door and its frame, but then you would have problems opening your door, leaving you trapped in an increasingly airless space. So, step two is probably a better option.
In order to complete step two, you may have to give yourself a little pep talk. Tell yourself it’s OK to demand that others show respect for shared space by decreasing their volume a few (hundred) decibels. You’re perfectly within your rights in desiring undisturbed sleep and study time. Once you’ve convinced yourself of this noble truth, put it into action and go confront those noisemakers, whether they are raccoons banging around in the dumpster or friends laughing uproariously in the common area. Request, firmly but courteously, that your dormmates and their visitors use “inside voices” and save the impromptu rock concerts for a more appropriate venue — especially during those peak study and sleep hours.
If you happen to have the misfortune of living with people who won’t listen to reason (or, more likely, can’t hear it over the cacophony of bumps, clanks, and loud voices), take the third step by stepping out of your room or dorm and escaping to someplace more quiet. Go study in the library, meditate in the chapel or nap in Alumni Park. There are a number of such places to go on campus for a little quiet time, but sadly none of them — not even the library — are really soundproof these days. So be careful to time your visits accordingly. Don’t try to nap in the middle of a rugby game, and don’t attempt to meditate just after Sunday night chapel service has ended. If the library is full of disrespectful chatters, try one of the study rooms on the second floor, which can also be reserved in advance.
Finally, you may discover that even these three helpful steps cannot save you from the occasional noisy situation. In that case, it’s time to give in to the noise factor of college life and simply buy yourself a decent pair of ear plugs. Sound-reducing headphones are another popular option though a little more pricey than the old school orange rubber foam that farmers have been using for years to protect themselves. As a last resort, you can also layer one or both of these items with big furry earmuffs, which are available in a variety of colors and styles.
02-02-2006
