The quad

Basically, I live in a quad in Le Mans Hall with my three best friends. They are all very involved with The Observer, and we have their best articles and inside columns pinned up on our door. Unfortunately, the only thing I have is a photo poll I was asked to be in. While I love to talk about “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes being my favorite song, I want more representation on our door. So here I am, writing a letter to the editor.

My roommates have written some incredible inside columns (see“The truth about (my) Inside Columns” by Maria Leontaras, “On living with extroverts” by Sara Schlecht and “An homage to friendship” by Julianna McKenna) that include me. Just about every time they ask for ideas on what to write, I tell them to write about me. I guess I should write about them.

Our room is filled with some pretty quirky decorations including a llama head, a light up baby Jesus and a poster of Gumby. However, my favorite part of the quad is the four Hogwarts House flags. When we first moved in, the four of us represented all the houses: Julianna was Gryffindor, Maria was Hufflepuff, Sara was Ravenclaw and I was Slytherin. As the fall semester progressed, our houses became a hot debate. We knew that Julianna was not a Gryffindor and is a prime example of a Ravenclaw. She put up a fight about this, saying that we never saw her at her most Gryffindor when she was in Ireland, studying abroad. This lead to Sara believing she was the Gryffindor, which made sense at first. Then the news came out. Sara. Hates. Affection. This is a war crime in our room, she is evil, she is Slytherin. Now, I am not evil — as cuddling is my favorite — I certainly do not read for fun, and I would not necessarily call myself bold. That leaves me with Hufflepuff. At first, I didn’t want to accept it. There was only one way to end this debate. We had to retake the Pottermore test.

The last time we all took the test, we were in middle school. We have grown since then. This was the only way to tell our true houses. We had to be completely honest with ourselves and retake the quiz. The results came out ... Julianna was in fact a Ravenclaw. She’s still sad about it. Sara is a Gryffindor, the rest of us still don’t believe it. I am in fact a Hufflepuff, I’m more embarrassed that I’ve gone this long telling everyone I was Slytherin. And, Maria? Yeah we always knew she was a Hufflepuff. Just look at her (Instagram @mleontaras). Since we’re the same, feel free to check out my Instagram too @emi_pants.

So why did I go through all of this? Your roommates can help you be true to yourself. They can inspire you to be more confident with who you are. They can make you become the best version of yourself. My roommates are my best friends despite us having different Hogwarts Houses. Our personalities are fundamentally different, but we fit together better than most. I know that many people aren’t close with their roommates. I am extremely lucky to have these three. So thank you to my roommates/The Quad/The Hot Girl Hot Spot, for inspiring me to write this. I hate writing.