Cleanliness.

It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what your upbringing was like, or the shape your house is in; College will redefine your definition of the word “clean.”

Make no mistake, by the end of your first year you will no longer cringe at the site of urine sprayed all over a bathroom stall, shrug to the idea of eating from dirty dishes, and simply rolls your eyes and laugh at puke in stairwells, on carpet, and well, just about everywhere else. Hell, you may even partake in some of these offending activities before your time in school is up! Allow me to elaborate…

It’s amazing what alcohol can do (see my post on this); It can make you come out of your shell if you’re shy, encourage you to sing when you have a terrible voice, and make you think that your kitchen is your washroom and that the floor is the toilet (as was experienced by a friend of mine). In most cases it can be held personally accountable for all misplaced bodily fluids/matter you’ll encounter in school and be the driving force behind late night hunger that knows not the boundaries of clean plates.

The odds of finding yourself in any of these situations is increased exponentially if you happen to live on campus. These cesspools of filth usually get to be that way for one main reason: The students don’t need to clean up after themselves. There is a janitorial staff (who must curse their jobs every morning immediately upon waking up) who clean up after the students day in and day out. Their stomachs are either made of cast-iron or they’ve become so desensitized to the filth from repeated exposure that nothing disgusts them anymore.

Don’t worry, the exact same thing will happen to you. After the first month of school you’ll have walked into a stall covered in urine an estimated 15.3 times. You’ll be repulsed each of these times, but will be completely over it by the next month, and almost expecting to see it in the following months. You’ll also expect rotting puke to be hiding behind every door and in every hall and stairwell (for the rest of your life).

The biggest obstacle you’ll have to overcome in order to accept and ignore these inconveniences is your gender; Well, if you’re a girl, that is. Co-ed washrooms are seldom an option for those with vagina’s as they weren’t designed to shoot urine from a distance like the genitalia of us males, thus ensuring girls a seat on (or hovering slightly above) a golden throne. However, in most cases you’ll have a female-only washroom on your floor that should be somewhat cleaner (although I’ve heard contradicting stories).

Two other things that will help are patience and the absence of a gag reflex. Patience because it’s only a matter of time before you’re immune to the effect of these occurrences and no gag reflex to ensure that you don’t add to the problem.

Good luck!

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