October 1992--Setbacks and Pledging
Each year, Turning on the Heat was the event of the fall. It usually didn't happen until October. Catherine's roommate Carrie inquired about it. The administration's story was that the school's ancient steam heat system took time and effort to start up each year. Turning it off again right away because of a return to warm weather would be a pain. "People would open their windows because it's warm again and the heat would just be wasted," they said. Carrie said, "They said it has to be consistently cold." But this was little comfort in late September to cold students wrapped in blankets. A little wasted heat sounded pretty nice around that time.
On October 2, I had to sit with my Humanities class presentation group instead of my usual group during lunch. Along with the presentation group, there were others. At the table were Steve, N., Ned, Ned's girlfriend Melissa, a guy I'll call J.--and Peter! Only one empty seat, and next to Peter, of all people! Of course I had to sit there. J. handed me the sheet with my part on it. "We're thinking about having you do 'Singin' in the Rain,'" he said. (We were doing some modern take on Greek plays. I was supposed to be a girl pretending to be a boy at an audition because girls didn't act.)
Shocked, I cried, "That's weird, because that's just the one I was thinking about doing!" I think Peter looked my way as I said this.
Soon, Peter said, "I'm going to take my tray up." He was gone an awfully long time for just taking his tray up, and, with a partition
in the way, I couldn't see where he went, or even when he went to the window. I began to wonder if he'd run away from me. But he finally came back, a newly-lit cigarette in his hand. Maybe he got it from someone.
"No, Peter. Bad," Ned said.
Peter put it close to an ashtray, and the smoke billowed my way. I waved it away, sitting forward in my seat and making exaggerated lunges for it. Everybody laughed.
"See that?" Ned said. "Nyssa knows it’s bad."
"They’re all bi***ing at me for smoking," Peter said to me, "I guess so I'll quit." He knew it was bad, but it was a long story how he got started smoking.
"Especially since you hated them before," I said. Then, with a smile, "Maybe you should try one of those nicotine patches."
"No," he said with a grimace. He tapped the ashes into the ash tray again. "Just willpower."
We chatted a bit about my broken jam box; I wanted to know if he could fix it, but no, he could only fix cameras. Then a short time later, after some more chatting, he said he was going to shoot pool, and left. (Until my dad could fix that jam box, I relied on MTV for music.)
Once he was gone, I said to Steve, "It's such a relief to be able to talk to him again."
"Yeah," Steve said. "You know, I didn't even notice that." He raised his eyebrows. "Hm."
Soon, the group began rehearsing the presentation. We went through the script several times. J. was supposed to say at the end, "My sympathies to your father." He told me to say my lines in a deep voice, which, he said, would make my "uh-huh" sound like Elvis Presley. I told Steve I should have an umbrella, and I did a little embellishing of the part I had to sing, trying to remember some of the things Fred Astaire did in the movie and the different ways they sang the song.
At about 12:30, N. had left, and my bosses Arthur and Nancy were the only other people sitting in the cafeteria. Nancy came up to me and said, "You know, Nyssa, I'm really disappointed in you. You, of all people, should know better."
I blanched, wondering what in the world I'd done.
She said, "You should know better than to hold your tray!"
I jumped up, and J. and I took our trays back.
Before Steve came back with our mail and copies of the school paper, J. and I started talking about The Omen, which he'd seen, and the person whose mailbox number was 666.
"We'll have to find out who it is," I said, "and kill them for being the Antichrist!" (I was joking, by the way.)
Steve came back with new, orange directories, and J. and I started looking for this person, who, however, didn't seem to exist. We found 665 and 667, but no 666.
You'll note that the directories didn't come out until almost a month into the semester. Every semester, this was a problem, and you'd be stuck without people’s extensions if they changed rooms since the previous year or you didn't have a copy of last semester's directory. You wouldn't even know how to call the information desk from your room to find out somebody's extension--if you even knew that you could do that.
Steve lent me a hat, tie, jacket and a dress shirt for my part. I dropped them off in my room, and began working on a note.
I got the idea for the note from an issue of the magazine Campus Life, in the column "Love, Sex and the Whole Person," written by Tim Stafford. I wrote the note before re-reading the column; later on, I wished I'd read it first to get the words just right. But I still thought (and think) that the note I did write was well-written. Since I doubt copyright matters 14 years later, this is the column:
"Q: Is it possible for a guy and a girl who were going out once to become friends again--to be just as close, if not closer, than they were before? I'm beginning to think it's not. What suggestions do you have for two people who used to date, but now, several months later, won't talk to each other?
"A: It's possible to reestablish a friendship, but it's very hard. The more romantically involved you were, the more difficult it is to
find a non-romantic way of being together. Too many feelings get in the way.
"A few months isn't enough time to deal with powerful feelings. Often a year must go by before you can let go of anger and disappointment. Don't try to force a change. But keep the door open to friendship."
I thought enough time had already passed, since now Peter was talking to me--heck, chatting with me like a regular acquaintance.
The column went on: "A good way to keep the door open might be a note. It could say something like: 'Just wanted to let you know I have good feelings about you and hope that we can be friends again someday. I don't think we're ready yet, but I hope to see the day when we can sit down and talk like old times. Let me know when you're ready to try. In the meantime, I hope things are going well for you.'
"Then, when you think you're ready, ask your old friend if you might have a soda together. Keep it light. Don't go over the past. Just try to talk as friends. And if things feel comfortable, do it again in a week or two. Gradually you may be able to reestablish a
friendship." I thought we already had the equivalent of that first soda, that day at lunch.
This is the note I sent to Peter:
"Dear Peter,
"I want you to know I'm praying for you, and that everyone misses you at the Nazarene church in S-- (now known as the 'Good News' church!). I miss our friendship, and I think we should meet for a Pepsi at the Muskie sometime (not a date, dear friend!)."
I put "Don't Panic!" on the folded letter so he wouldn't think it was a beg letter or anything like that.
I checked with Pearl to make sure it sounded just right.
The time came to mail the note and go to Humanities class. I changed in a room across from the classroom, putting Steve's clothes on over my own. Steve had put a slipknot in the tie, but it came out--one end was too short. I put my hair in the hat, and came out of the room. N. did the tie for me, and Steve made an OK sign to me. We waited outside the door for our parts. While N. was inside doing hers, some teacher came by and smiled. Then she turned around at about the end of the hall, and came back by us, still smiling. I finally went in with a smile, and did my part. Problem was, J. jumbled up his lines, confusing me once or twice. N. shook my hand after class.
That evening, Catherine distributed her "HAPPY" signs: signs with "Happy Happy Happy" written on them, and covered with stickers and drawings. I put mine on my door each year for at least the next two years. When Elizabeth moved into the suite later that year, she saw my Happy sign and thought I must be a really happy person.
That night, I had a silly dream of a beetle, and told my friends about it. That's where I got my "signature." Some of my friends began calling me Bebe based on this dream. With them calling me that and Catherine calling me Stella, I began to sign my name as Bebe-Stella on Pearl and Cindy's message board. Then they tried to give me another nickname. Sharon or maybe Pearl took my name and started playing with it until she got "Stu." This one lasted quite a while.
On October 7, my hopes for a restored friendship with Peter were blown apart. I waited for several days--no answer. Then I talked with Pearl, who told me that her friend Dave O'Hara had been driving outside my dorm with Peter. I remembered that day, having seen the two of them in Dave's red car as I headed off somewhere. I was on the sidewalk beside the drive, or very close to it. Dave did not tell Pearl Peter's exact words, probably to spare her feelings. But Peter saw me walking and made some sort of nasty comment. I suspected he called me a rude name. I was furious.
Soon afterwards, he called to me by the dorm to return my stuff. "Here's your discs," he said, with the air of someone who wants to slap you or throw you into the river.
"Where's my notebook?" I said, wanting to do the same thing to him.
"What notebook?"
This may have been when he told me that he had gone through his room and not seen a notebook. So, to this day, my precious writing notebook is lost, along with all the notes and other things I had so painstakingly made in it.
So, even though he'd acted like we were friendly again, I wasn't allowed to be friends with him? I couldn't even make an overture of friendship without him treating me like mud on his shoe. This may have been when I began to view the before-mentioned "words" more as something that was supposed to be fulfilled rather than something that I wanted fulfilled. I hated Peter. I wanted Shawn or James, not Peter.
In October, I decided to join the Phi-Delt sorority, which some of my friends belonged to. I can't go into great detail because I was told to keep certain things secret. But I can mention things of more general knowledge, which "outsiders" were involved in, or which everybody knew about anyway.
My pledge folder, which held a pledge diary, was easy to spot because of the Greek letters on the blue cover, and the sci-fi pictures: The "Don't Panic" creature from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a Vulcan hand signal, the Star Fleet symbol, one of the Doctor Who logos, and a picture of the head of the androgynous diplomat from Alpha Centauri on one episode of Doctor Who. (By the way, no, I am not a science fiction fanatic, I just happen to like sci-fi.) On the back is a drawing of me on a desert island. I colored my folder because of a note from one of the actives: "Please color me!" My fellow pledges were Rachel, Dori (the one who was in InterVarsity for a while), and Tammy.
Rachel's reason for pledging: "It looks good on a resume." My reason for pledging: The sorority seemed like fun, and Pearl and
Sharon were in it, along with other people I knew, such as my suitemate Mary.
Latosha once found me in the stairwell in the Campus Center, and we talked about pledging. She said,
"I heard you were pledging. It surprised me. At first I wondered if you were doing it because Peter's a Zeta and the Zetas are the Phi-Delts' 'little brothers.'" I forget how, but she concluded that no, that wasn't it. Which it wasn't: The sorority sounded like fun, and some of my best friends were in it.
At an open house for potential pledges on Monday, October 5 at 8pm, the actives said they wouldn't make the pledges drink alcohol like the Pi-Kapps and frats might. During pledging, the pledge master, Wendy, said, "We'd never make you pledges do something we wouldn't want to do ourselves." However, her tolerance of being hazed must have been much higher than mine.
The Pi-Kapp room was right next to the Phi-Delt room in the Krueger basement. Jennifer said, "When I pledged last spring, one night we came here to our room and saw a bag of manure outside the Pi-Kapp room. We were so glad to not be pledging the Pi-Kapps!"
The Pi-Kapps were the enemy, and they partied too hard. They made their pledges drink alcohol. You wouldn't want to be a Pi-Kapp.
The Phi-Delt room was prettily furnished with comfortable furniture, Greek letters, and various mementoes. I don't think there were paddles; at least, I don't remember any. Our InterVarsity group occasionally met there.
We drew names for pledge sisters. I got Jennifer. A pledge sister was an active who mentored a pledge.
Once, the actives told the pledges to go into Grossheusch and probably Muehlmeier to collect guys' underwear. Of course I shirked from this, being a conservative Christian. The actives half-jokingly accused me of a lack of unity. ("Unity" was bandied around a lot. The actives encouraged us pledges to develop it among ourselves.) However, this qualifies as hazing.
We knocked on Timothy's door--Timothy, the guy who almost moved in with my suitemate Tom the year before. When one of us asked for a pair of underwear, he whipped off his pants and underwear and gave us his briefs. I must have averted my eyes, since I don't remember a "visual." This shocked all of us, but we laughed about it afterwards. I hope the underwear had no skid marks.
Early on in the pledge month, as we pledges went out on some odd quest, I said I had finally found the college antics I had always expected in college. On TV and in movies, people would steal the other team's mascot. On Ozzie and Harriet, one of the Nelson boys and his college friends did an elaborate prank.
I liked the thought of the Zetas being our little brothers once we became actives. I liked this special bond with them. And no, it wasn't because of Peter: it was because of Darryl, Steve, Marc, and maybe a few others I knew or knew of who seemed cool.
When we had to do chores for the actives, Sharon asked some of us to wash her dishes. She felt bad, however, because these dishes had been sitting around for some time and were moldy. I don't remember what happened to those dishes.
Once, I got kidnapped by the actives, who took me to one active's family home, ordered pizza, and played the Grease soundtrack. Somebody passed around playing cards with pictures of Chippendale dancers. I don't believe I sat there in judgment, but I didn't join in as the others goggled at the cards. One of the girls picked out a dark-haired guy with glasses and said, "Here's one you might like." They wondered at me for wanting to study instead of playing games. But I was a student first, pledge second, and I had a lot of homework to do. My teachers would not have accepted the excuse that I was at a sorority party.
I believe all the Greek organizations would send pledges on night walks. This was no secret; I heard stories about such things even when not pledging. We'd be driven out somewhere, then have to make our way back without letting the actives see us. We were told to dress warmly for these walks, and if we had to change, would be given a chance to run back to our rooms and do so. It was fun, all this wandering around in corn fields and by the side of the road, trying to find our way back in the dark and without being seen by any passing cars. We all loved it. I said it reminded me of the End Times (when interpreted literally), with Christians wandering around during the Tribulation without being seen by the authorities who would kill them.
On October 12, I joked around with Pearl. I made a low bow and said, "Greetings, active," after class. I gestured her inside when I opened the Krueger door. I put my palms together like my genie Zara, and said I'd wait in line so she'd have someone to stand by. She thought it was funny, and told the others as I went in line. Then Rachel started calling me a brownnoser. It was fun. Behind it all was an ever-present, "NOT!" I wasn't brownnosing; I was just having fun. Then I drew a picture on Pearl's board of Zara coming out of her water jar and saying, "Your wish is my command, mistress!" The next day, I found several notes about it, ranging from, "Bebe hasn't got enough brown on her nose for everybody. We'll have to fix that" by Sharon, to "Nice picture, but it should say MASTER SIR (followed by 'In your dreams, man cub')."
Another thing the pledges had to do was go around and collect pennies from people. People were pretty nice, but a few of them gave us funny looks. Another time, we had to get 50 people (preferably guys) to sign a roll of toilet paper, without ripping it. We got at least 51 in half an hour. On one of our missions, we saw a huge, white shape, probably an owl, fly from a tree by Grossheusch.
One night, we went on a scavenger hunt dressed in bathrobes. Dori wore a shower cap, Tammy wore a Burger King crown, someone had Pearl's Spike, and I had a soft, cuddly Garfield. We got funny looks from people. The worker in a gas station, our first spot, gave us such weird looks that I showed her the sorority button on my robe as we left. Rachel told everyone we were sleepwalking. A guy employee in Hardee's, obviously in on it, laughed his head off. In another place (the wrong one), there were a bunch of guys a little older than us. Dori told them, maybe to a comment that we looked good, that it was the latest style. She also told the guy in Hardee's that it was a winter version of a bathing suit contest. We were supposed to tell people we wanted to be dressed like that. At a small Dairy Queen (another wrong place), some girls there, probably our age or younger, saw us, and one said something like, "I don't know. They probably don't dress like that all the time. I hope not!"
Hell Week was aptly named: it was the week of testing, after or during which you would be initiated. You had to follow so many rules it was hard to remember them all. The Phi-Delts had to be dressed up every day, for one. I won't go into everything I remember because I'm not sure how much of it is secret. Our punishments were carrying around various items, which I also won't name, though everybody in the school would have seen them. These items were always in danger of being stolen by frat pledges. The Phi-Delt actives called it "Help Week," but everyone else called it Hell Week. I've mentioned elsewhere some of the things other pledges had to do.
Though we were supposed to ignore "evils" (males) during Hell Week (which I believe the actives said we were excellent at), we were allowed to talk to men if it was for or in a class or if it was a teacher or if we were at church.
I didn't wear a dress in Food Service, though I was supposed to wear one the rest of the time, because that was hardly the place to wear nice clothes like that. You'd sweat in the steam and possibly get ketchup or the weird Food Service smell on them.
I won't go into detailed descriptions, since I'm still good friends with some of the Phi-Delts. But one by one as pledging month wore on, all the pledges dropped out. At least two of us left because of the hazing, which was supposed to be forbidden at Roanoke. Hell Week hazing was much worse. For example, there were far too many rules for me to possibly read or remember while trying to keep up with classes. Naps were forbidden and we had to go to breakfast, no matter how late the actives kept us out. I was too shy and quiet to yell the required greeting across campus whenever I saw an active, so I got punished for that. (Even before this, I was too shy to greet the actives I barely knew when passing them around campus, unless they greeted me first, and apparently got unfairly judged as rude. Why would I have to be the first one to say hello?) I felt like I could do nothing right, when I was supposed to be keeping up with my schoolwork and job; my Hell Week points went far into the negative numbers, giving me the worst of the punishments. At least one night's walk was severe, a punishment, putting out Rachel and me, with our pledge sisters, in extreme cold and far away from the campus. By the time we found our way back, my toes were numb. The next morning, I didn't even go to breakfast. Rachel quit shortly thereafter.
After that, and after a Zeta party which I describe in the November 1992 chapter, I did not like fraternities or sororities. I was told that the Phi-Delts changed a lot of things because of the "Ill-Fated Pledge Class," and because of scathing letters Rachel wrote to the Phi-Delts and the Mirror, and that I should pledge again, but I refused. Though I didn't think Rachel's letter was appropriate, and she later regretted it, it spoke of things I was not aware of before, things which made it sound like some actives did not want me in the sorority for some mysterious reason. We were told that we were the most unified pledge class; however, we were unified against the actives. I don't see how hazing causes unity in a fraternity or sorority. To my shock, senior year, Rachel said she wanted to pledge again, but couldn't now. She even regretted dropping out. How could this be, after the things we'd said to each other the night before dropping out?
Not all the actives seemed to join in the hazing. Some were really sweet. I think my friends and our pledge sisters stayed out of the worst of it, but it was still hard to deal with being reprimanded or punished by a group that included close friends. I soon forgave my friends, but there never was any sort of relationship between me and my Phi-Delt suitemate, Mary. I also had trouble with the pledge master Wendy.
That semester, only the Phi-Delts and the Zetas could have pledges, for some reason I've forgotten. All the Zeta pledges also dropped out one by one, until neither the Phi-Delts nor the Zetas had pledges left.
I wrote in my diary one day that "the situation with Shawn is finally clear now. We have different definitions of terms in our own minds; to me, we're dating; to him, we're friends; but we both have the same idea of what it is. We'll have to get the word out that we're only dating...we're not boyfriend/girlfriend!!
"Oh, yeah. Anna said that just the fact that I'm here at school still, and not anorexic, is a testimony to God's strengthening power."
The next day, I saw Shawn, and we started walking together. I was happy. But then he said, "This is not gonna work." So much for dating.
Yet, despite getting rid of the term "dating," things still went on the same as before. He would still come over and see me or invite me over, we'd talk about all sorts of things, and he'd start kissing me. So did we really stop dating? And were we dating or not the whole time?
A few years after I graduated college, I watched a call-in advice show on MTV called Loveline, hosted by Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla, along with a woman who's name I forget. To my surprise one night, a guy called in about the very same kind of situation. He and a girl would occasionally make out (and possibly more--I forget now), even though this guy insisted he wasn't attracted to her. He said it wasn't a "relationship" (as in romantic involvement). She was getting attached. Dr. Drew and Adam said that they would call it a relationship, whether the heart was involved or not. And it would hurt the girl to break it off. Drew said to stop and cut off contact for a while, to give her time to get over it. He said there's a lot of bull going around these days, people saying "this is just for convenience, we're not really in a relationship." He did say women need to realize that sometimes guys will kiss girls they're not interested in. Testosterone-driven Adam, on the other hand, didn't buy that this guy was not attracted to the girl. I guess there are a lot of Shawns out there, when I once thought there was only one.
Each year in October, Roanoke held a Writer’s Festival. This year, we had Billy Collins (poet) and W.P. Kinsella (novelist). Two guys stopped me once and asked where Krueger Hall was. Only later did I discover they were Collins and Kinsella. Collins played the piano once in Krueger lounge, and Pearl hung out with him for a while. When Counselor Dude and maybe Rachel took Collins to his room in Krueger, they found there'd been a mix-up: Some (unmarried) couple on campus had rented the guest room so they could have sex in it, which they were doing right then. Collins joked about it, and Counselor Dude didn't open the door. Rachel thought it was sick. Rachel and Counselor Dude wanted the flowers, at least, since they were for Collins. The guy made a weird smile and almost threw the flowers at them. Collins told Rachel to keep them, but it wouldn't look good for the RA to have them. He told her to come and get them later, I guess, and "slip into something a little more comfortable"--just a flirtatious joke. So now Rachel had his pretty flowers. Collins writes humorous poems; I could imagine him writing about this whole incident, and immortalizing RC (and maybe Rachel or Counselor Dude).
W.P. Kinsella wrote Shoeless Joe, the novel which inspired the movie Field of Dreams. He read from Box Socials. Every time he said the town's name, Fark, he would pause and then say it significantly. The readings were so funny that I bought the book from the Campus Shop, and loved it.
Darryl and Ned occasionally did comedy skits as "Virtual Reality." I don't remember if they did skits the following semester; they did none the next year. My friends in the Group thought they did too much Monty Python, but I loved the skits. During a campus talent show, they did the famous Parrot Sketch from Monty Python, and a sketch about the Registrar's office. Ned played the guy working at the desk, and when someone pointed out that the sign was spelled "Registar's Office" instead of "Registrar's Office," he said, "Well, this is Roanoke."
Their sketch of the campus president was hilarious. It featured Darryl playing a clueless president, constantly offering people coffee. The "president" would get this dopey, open-mouthed grin on his face and kind of tilt his body a bit as he walked, a coffee pot in one hand and coffee mug in the other. The most hilarious part of it was, the second time they did it, the real president was there to see it--and he loved it. He must have been a good sport.
Also in that performance, Ned's new girlfriend Melissa played Ned's "Piece of Fluff," or ditzy girlfriend. (She obviously agreed to this, so don't go crying sexism.) At one point, Darryl picked up Ned's glass of pop and noticed the backwash. Darryl said, "I feel sorry for Shannon."
No matter what I thought of Peter as a person, no matter if I loved or hated him, I felt he was my burden and I was supposed to keep praying for him until he finally realized that he needed God again. It wasn't about me so much; it was about God. I thought he was just in a phase; I didn't realize he never would return to Christianity.
One day, we heard a lecture on "Job and the Mystery of Human Existence." The speaker was impressed that Roanoke students all read Job our freshman year, so we already knew what he was talking about.
A year or two before, this Clinton fellow seemed to have no chance of winning against the popular incumbent George Bush who had won the Gulf War. His run was a waste of time. Now, opinion polls showed him pulling ahead of Bush. But I knew he would lose, because Pat Robertson had said so, along with other predictions for 1992. He had said the same thing soon after the Gulf War.
Each New Year's, Pat gave predictions for the year to come, things God told him during a time of fasting and prayer. He never seemed to be wrong. Since I taped the show, I copied down every word of what he said each New Year's. He and his co-host would name the previous year's predictions, and say they had all come to pass. The only prediction I wondered about came right before the Gulf War. Had he really said the Stock Market would plummet, or had he said, rather, that gas prices would plummet? Had I written it wrong? Had he thought one thing and said another, which I often do? Whatever it was, I wrote down one thing, another thing happened, and he claimed to have predicted what happened.
I thought MTV had gotten too political. This, and the message that everyone should vote, wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't 1) shown political shows instead of getting back to videos, and 2) shown an obvious bias toward one candidate.
Even college students like a little trick-or-treating once in a while. Since I wasn't in the group who went that year, I don't know where they went to (perhaps to houses on Prof Row). Someone this year dressed as a mummy, wrapped head to toe in toilet paper.
The disgusting but funny antics of MTV and Nickelodeon's Ren and Stimpy now came to MTV, and became popular at Roanoke. We loved to imitate Ren's "STEEEM-pee!" and "STEEM-pee, you EE-dee-uht!" Ren and Stimpy's song "Happy Happy Joy Joy" became popular to sing--and I believe WIXX played it. One evening, while passing through the Campus Center lounge, I found a group of students all gathered around the TV, watching Ren and Stimpy.
This wonderful popularity, however, was shortlived: Ren's voice changed, the cartoons began to be more for kids, and a new cartoon arrived on MTV: Beavis and Butthead. But more on that one later.
I kept setting aside a tenth of my paycheck to be given either to the S-- church, or to my church back home when I went home for vacations. Some guy on The 700 Club (possibly Benny Hinn) had predicted a dark economic time for the country, saying that only the givers in the church would survive. Of course, in the fullness of time we see that though other parts of the world did see recessions in the 90s and the US went through its own recession for a time, it wasn't so bad as all that. Most people in the US seemed to survive, and I don't think being a giver in the church affected that. Heck, the 90s ended with a booming economy.
Clarissa and I heard awful stories about Krueger, that girls on the mostly-freshman third floor would get drunk and poop in the hallway instead of the bathroom, that somebody on the second floor puked or pooped in a shower stall....It turned out that at least one of these stories wasn't exactly true. I believe the shower stall story (and possibly the other one as well) could be explained by someone taking peanut butter and putting it in a shower stall as a prank.
Some people didn't even bother getting dressed for their 8:00 classes: They'd roll out of bed and go to class in their pajamas!
In high school, I had felt like an oddball for not wearing makeup like the other girls did. That was the 80s, after all, when you were "supposed" to wear it, and lots of it. But in college, I was no longer the only girl who didn't wear makeup. Rachel didn't wear it, Catherine didn't wear it, Clarissa didn't wear it. I finally felt normal. In the late 90s, I'm told, college girls commonly went without makeup.
Clarissa and I hated it when our suitemates would hold seances in the lounge. They'd turn off the lights and light candles, and Clarissa and I would hole up in our room until it was over, afraid to come out even to go outside or to the bathroom. We feared what they might stir up.
We also heard that Carl, Dirk's roommate, was a witch, and he and Dirk held a seance in their room in Grossheusch once. Carl said he went to bed in his nightclothes. When he woke up in the morning, his clothes were on, and all the drawers in the room were open. (He assumed Dirk had been asleep.)