Yes, that's my roommate sleeping.
Okay, I'm gonna try to make this as entertaining as I can for you but I might fail miserably so bare with me. Chih-Kai (Kevin), came to USF from Taipei City, Taiwan which for those of you who didn't pay attention in freshman year geography, that is a small island off the coast of China which is where Chiang Kai-Shek and his pro-American government fled after being defeated by the Communist army led by Mao Zedong.
Kevin actually, was not supposed to be my roommate. In fact, I had no idea who on earth he was until I was told that he was going to be my roommate for my freshman year, last summer. I had actually emailed back and forth was this kid from San Francisco named Aaron who seemed really cool and we even requested to be roommates.
Then came judgment day and we found out we were paired up with kids we had never heard of and we realized that we were also on the same floor which was really odd.
So going into the year, I was already pretty upset about that but I was prepared to make the most of the situation and deal with it. I met Kevin and he seemed alright, he spoke good English and didn't seem like a clown.
I wish I had known what I was getting into to say the least. It didn't take long to see what he was all about. He has a girlfriend back in Taiwan and of course, with the time difference, he had to talk to her at terribly obscure times of the day for me and that caused plenty of problems.
My first semester I was stuck in the unfortunate situation of having one early morning class every day. So I desperately needed my sleep just so I could function.
Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen since my roommate speaks Chinese and apparently it's quite difficult to speak Chinese quietly so I would toss and turn for hours and hours. The end result would always end up being me waking up at 10:30, and punching my pillow, because I realized I had missed my class.
This happened plenty of times last semester but luckily I didn't fail any classes last semester and did quite well, somehow.
I tried to talk to him about it but no dice. He continued his act and my sleep patterns would end up getting quite tampered.
Many stories this year involved Kevin, so I'm gonna tell you a few of them.
The first one was known as "The Alarm."
And yes, this is all about an alarm clock.
Kevin brought along this old school manual alarm clock with a legit bell that would go off and shoot out this ear piercing ringing that would not only wake you up, but scare the hell out of you as well!
The alarm was at first not a problem, in fact I had enjoyed using it because it got myself out of bed but then I left for a weekend and apparently Kevin did the same to visit some friends.
When I came back on Monday morning, I came back to a door full of letters taped to it and a bell that was ringing off the hook.
Kevin had now unofficially been deemed the "Most Hated Kid on Phelan Fourth Floor Dormitory" because of his trusty alarm.
And worst of all, he ignored the letters on the door and continued using his alarm.
It wasn't until I "accidentally" kicked the alarm off my bed post that he finally stopped using it because it was broken.
Thank god.
The second story out of three, that I have chosen to share, is known as "The Walk-In."
Now I'm sure many of you are predicting what this is going to be about but hopefully this hasn't happened to you.
It was a Friday afternoon and I was quite excited about the weekend but first I had to go to Spanish. So I went back to my room to pick up my backpack and leave. As I entered the room, I saw a weird figure to my left. I then saw a pair of feet with boxers and sweats around them and I saw what was an exposed leg that was not covered up at all. Then came the massive amounts of tissues that were all around the upper leg area and from there I covered my eyes, picked up my backpack, and walked out.
My roommate didn't even bother to pull up his pants as I continued to walk to get my backpack. Luckily I didn't see anything that would've been quite awkward as it was already awkward that I had walked in on my roommate making love to his right hand.
That one was a nightmare, and it just added to the legend of "Kevin."
The final story that I'll share with you all is known as "The Peanut Gallery." I couldn't think of a better name for this one but you'll hopefully see what I mean.
It was a Thursday night in the dorm at about 12 am and I was video chatting on tinychat.com with my friends Robbie (@TheRobbieV) and Pete (@PeteWiddles).
I went back to my dorm to get more comfortable and I walked into a large amount of screaming and loud laughing as if I was in a large house party. It turned out to be my roommate playing League of Legends while skyping with his buddies in Taiwan who were also playing the game.
Robbie and Pete asked me what all that noise was so I showed them by focusing my laptop webcam on him, creating a sort of "Kevin Cam." They were amused by how wild and crazy he was acting at that time of the morning. This act went on for 4 more hours during which Pete and Robbie mocked him and what was funny was that Kevin was so focused that he never even noticed!
This was the first of a daily occurrence where my roommate would do late night gaming with his buddies, much to my chagrin.
That's all the stories I have for you. Believe me, there are others, like when he punched a hole in the wall, or his late night shouting matches with his girlfriend. My roommate was basically nocturnal, he was up until 4 am before going to sleep. Then he'd sleep all day before waking up at about 7 pm in the evening and going back to his usual routine. That was beyond a nightmare, that was hell.
It's safe to say that I did not enjoy having a roommate this year and am happy that this experience is coming to a close.
My advice to whoever is going into the dorms in the near future, room with someone who you know you will be alright with. And if the school tells you that you have to room with a foreign student who you've never interacted with, please don't appease their demands, you will regret it forever.
Now for a "Cheap Seats Note," I will be heading back to the Coliseum for today's day game and sitting in my usual section 148 with all my best friends. I'm hoping for a great time at the ballpark since I haven't been to a Wednesday day game in quite some time. If you're out there, please come and say hello.
Cheers everyone! Hope you all enjoyed the post and I'll be back after midnight tomorrow night. Let's Go Oakland! I promise for a more baseball centered post tomorrow!
