d.t.p. (disturbing the peace)

Remember how in my first post I said that this blog was mainly a kvetching board? Today's entry will be a full fledged kvetch, so if you're interested in my complaints read on...

First of all, I know some people don't know what a kvetch is. I'll define it as the school newspaper, The Daily Tarheel, defines it:
kvetch (v): [Yiddish] to complain

On Fridays, the DTH publishes a section called the "Kvetching Board" where students send in their anonymous complaints. They're usually pretty funny, but some aren't that great. A few weeks ago my roommate and BFF Lucy ran across one that made me almost fall out of my chair laughing (literally!). Here it is, reprinted in full:

"Thank you, Cobb Community, for being stricter than a Catholic school. The RAs should just start wearing habits when they hand out noise violations at 10:30 on a Saturday night."

Here's the background story for why I found that so funny...

One weekend me, Lucy, and our other roommate Emily were watching one of Quentin Taratino's finest films, Pulp Fiction. Anyone who has seen the film knows that it is pretty long, so we were just finishing it around 2:00 AM on a Saturday morning. Literally as soon as we turned the TV off, someone came knocking on our door. We didn't know what to expect. Maybe it was a neighbor asking us to turn our TV down, which would be a completely acceptable request. I know the walls are thin and pretty much anything can be easily heard if you live next door. Let me preface something at this point: The TV WAS NOT loud enough to be heard out in the hallway, which would have been ridiculous. Even though the walls are thin, it still takes a lot of noise to be heard in the hallway. So anyway, Emily opens the door and it happens to be the RA on Duty, asking us to "please turn your music down." Like I said before, we had turn the TV off before she knocked. We complied and didn't think anything of it until the following Tuesday when the RA on our hall came and gave us an envelope. I opened it and inside was a long letter stating that we had received a noise violation!!! This letter was completely unexpected and definitely an unwelcome intruder. I thought that noise violations were only to be given out if we did not comply with the RA on Duty's wishes. For example, if she had to tell us more than once to turn it down, a noise violation would be acceptable in my opinion. Apparently this isn't the case this year. Noise violations in Cobb run more rampant than bunnies in the spring. Seriously.

Here is the next example of unfairness on behalf of Cobb:
Lucy had a few guests over one weekend when I went home. There were only two girls visiting and it was a little late on a Friday night when they returned to our room. Lucy told me that she and her two friends were talking at a normal level, not yelling or being excessively loud, when not one but TWO RAs on Duty come a knocking at our door (around 12:15 AM). Once again, we were given a noise violation, except this one didn't have an accompanying write-up. I find this completely gratuitous. Now I understand that "Quiet Hours" start at 9:00 PM, but seriously, if we're talking at normal volumes and not disturbing anyone it shouldn't be a problem. Cobb RAs have totally turned into Nazis this year, and for no apparent reason.

Once again, I would like to point out that the two times we were asked to quiet down were on the weekend. Completely ridiculous! Who is studying on a Friday or Saturday night/morning? Pretty much no one. If it was during exam time I would completely understand. What baffles me is that there is a lot of noise on our hall on weeknights and I don't hear RAs knocking on doors then. If you're going to be a stickler for the rules, at least be consistent with it and give out those letters on weekdays when they actually matter.

People on the hall continue to receive noise violations, but so far our room hasn't had any other than those two. I'm glad to be noise violation-free, but at the same time I still wonder why we even had any to begin with. I know about being a curteous neighbor and I wouldn't do anything that I felt would annoy any of my hallmates (which can't be said for some of the girls who live on this hall). I'll never know why the powers that be decided to put us residents in a chokehold this year, but at least it has become a running joke in our room. We always say "Oh, you better watch out! The volume is above 10!!!" when we watch a movie or something on the weekends. I guess it's better to make light out of a situation that you don't completely understand rather than stressing about it.

Sorry for the long entry, but sometimes there's just something a girl's got to get off of her chest (even if it is old news)!
Until next time!