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Sign here Roommate contracts redundant, USC students are not children USC has gained national attention again ? this time for its idea to implement roommate contracts. Roommate contracts are written agreements between two roommates that set groundrules for things such as visitation, study time and use of personal property. The contracts contain questions to be discussed between all roommates and leave a space for the roommates to write in their decisions on these matters. It all sounds very nice, but when it comes right down to it, these contracts are going to accomplish very little. rpicnnc havA Kp?r?n rri\/r?n tr? ovnloin tVio mmnncoH nooH w ? v/* ma 1VUOV1IO 1IWT V UVVH T Vll IV/ VA^/IUlll LI IV/ v3 Up^WOV/U 1JLV/V/U for the contracts, but none of the reasons can withstand much criticism. The idea has been aired that the questions on the roommate contracts help to 'break the ice' between roommates and provide for getting to know each other better. First of all, roommates tend to find ways of breaking the ice without the help of a piece of paper that says "When do you like to study?" They are usually interested enough in knowing who they're going to have to spend the rest of the year living with to ask questions and prompt discussions that will eventually let them know when their roommate likes to study, eat, meditate or whatever else they might like to do. Roommates have always gotten to know each other fairly well within the first week or two of living together. And they've never needed university help to do so either. The contracts are also said to be a way for people to say 'no' when their roommates want visitors. This is another point that is generally always covered by roommates in the first few days of roommatedom. And if a roommate is going to violate a spoken agreement to not have visitors at a certain time, a little piece of paper is not going to stop them. Some of the questions are so basic as to be juvenile. It seems as if the people who made up the contract think they're dealing with a bunch of young children instead of people who are or are soon to be full-fledged adults and will have to leam to take care of these things by themselves. Most roommates are responsible and mature enough to solve M. - - C? " ~ ' " small differences between themselves. Larger problems can be, and always have been, directed to the Resident Adviser. Only now, all the RA has to do is wave a piece of paper in your face and say, "You said ..." How convenient. Yet again, USC has shown itself to be taking on the roll of the over-protective parent who likes to dictate their children's lives and who refuses to let them grow up (or at least show they have). University students are adults. If they weren't going to college, they would be on their own, working and being in charge of their own lives. College students should be seen as grown-up people. Their classes and activities are their work. Their rooms are their rented homes. Their roommates are the people they have to leam to live with ... all by themselves. (Apartment complexes don't have roommate contracts). And just how much did these contracts cost to print? Who paid for it? Did the money come out of students' housing costs? If it did, will housing costs rise ?again to cover the cost of the high utility bills that were supposedly the cause of the last housing cost increase? It would be interesting to know. Given the chance, most students could show a maturity that exceeds what university administrators seem to think they are capable of. When people are put in adult situations and are allowed to handle them by themselves, they usually handle them in an adult manner. But, hey! If you're being treated like a child, you might as well act like one. The Gamecock nnn a j ? : nnn a^ac\ news, i ii-u^o /A.uvcrusiiig. / / Jeff Wilson Sharon Willamson Editor in Chief Managing Editor/Copy Desk Chief Lynn Gibson Elizabeth Lynch News Editor Carolina Life Editor DougAube Renee Meyer Sports Editor Photography Editor Kelly C. Thomas Viewpoints Editor Elizabeth Fox Sherri Tillman Assistant News Editor Assistant News Editor David Bowden Kathy Heberger Assistant Carolina Life Editor Assistant Carolina Life Editor Brant Long Julie bouchillon Assistant Sports Editor Assistant Photography Editor Octavia Wright Acoictsiwti M tin/} Kristin Francis Erik Collins Graduate Assistant Faculty Adviser Ed Bonza Laura S. Day Director of Student Media Production Manager Ray Burgos Renee Gibson Assistant Production Manager Advertising Manager Kyle Berry Carolyn Griffin Assistant Advertising Manager Business Manager Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should be, at maximum, 250 to 300 words long. The writer must include full name, professional title if a USC employee or South Carolina resident, or year and major if a student. An address and phone number are required with all letters sent. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit letters for style, possible libel or in case of space limitations. The newspaper will not withhold names under any circumstance. ^WELCOME TO YOUR NEW JOI WITH THE IRAQI DEFENSE DEPAR ...? ?... I: j il 1 ^ ^ jj iK^.J *m ?3?S5ssb*?~- *-*"^ ?.. ,-t ; #**??** WSmvCW"&#*** I:. % ... 'v::; , ':-l;'" ~**=~ v*^; Aspirations s It's funny how people pack their lives so full of misery. Everyone professes to dislike being miserable, but we do so much to make ourselves unhappy that if some little alien were doing a study of human behavior, he'd probably report that humans work very hard to make themselves miserable. In one weekend,I have seen more than a dozen close friends so sad about one thing or another that it hit me how we do ourselves wrong in dealing with other people, dreams, goals and life in general. And I'm just as guilty as the next guy. In many cases, this phenomenon is caused by our wanting something so much that we deny ourselves other happinesses in order to try to attain what we want. We want to go to this university so we don't accept an invitation to attend another university. We want this job because it pays more so we turn down that job. We want this person to notice us or ask us out or come back to us so we ignore the people who really like us. We want so-and-so to call so Anniversary o It's hard to believe it is going to be a year ago this month since Hurricane Hugo hit the South Carolina coast, leaving an estimated $5.9 billion in damages and claiming 29 lives. To the rest of the world, the hurricane is nothing more than an interesting tidbit of information, a kind of "Do you remember" fact. I even saw it mentioned as a question on Jeopardy! a few weeks ago. But for those of us who lived through Hugo, it is still as real as it was Sept. 21. There were many unsung heros of the hurricane, that never got interviewed by the local television stations and never saw their names in print. I encountered many of these heros during the storm, but somehow I had forgotten about them until Sunday when a big rain storm hit while I was in Sumter. That's when I remembered the college student that I worked beside in Carolina Coliseum bagging clothes and food to send to Charleston and other damaged areas. I don't even remember her name, so what makes her so special? She was helping to bag clothes and food even ?< 95 TMENT' *-**** ?> (f ( t t., , > -- ^?. \ A - > \_U|. tL/ AB k/AI If" THINK OF YOUF " 0 14i A| ?i u [ali si* * mi|i || .-J* )^ l ~Z ,^ju6ewM&r , ^Tv\ V teMAS Potr-D>sr*KH _* ' I M \ 1 .*JlaM*'****' m*$ 4*"><r<~*#*r~--*'' v ' v^"< s / *,"<*? t:-mvyf^-\-*?y^jv' v::; - :?:? :' % ^ V|:- - ;: fa&wAvvr Grtftett. tw>5 wr-WMwi ' i houldn't hind< KELLY C. THOMAS we turn down a night out with our friends to 1 wait for the phone to ring. In all of these instances, we are pursuing dreams and goals, but we're passing up many chances of equal happiness ? a chance to get a degree from a university (whether or not it's the one we really want), a chance to have some i money, a chance to have someone love us or a 1 chance of enjoying our friends' company. And, in many cases, the thing we held out for ! just doesn't pan out 1 It's a sad thing. We want something for < months or even years and never realize that we < only want it now because we've been in the ha- : bit of pursuing it for so long. i if Hugo calls lit i? *?> , , * i Jeff Wilson i i though she had just found out that her home in Charleston had been destroyed by the storm. But she was able to put aside her own prob- ( lems and help others. 1 I cannot forget the little children who brought 1 their toys to the coliseum to give to the children who were using the coliseum as shelter. A little 1 girl came in with her favorite pink bunny rab- ' bit. I asked her why was she going to give up her favorite toy, and she said there must be 1 some little girl that needed it more than she. 1 I can't forget my uncle Eddie, who went to ' Charleston with the national guard before the 1 storm hit and stayed there for weeks helping, even though he did not know how his own wife 1 and children were doing. i I SELF AS A SYMBOL OF PEACE, YOUNG FELLOW' r" ' 4 : ....^ '"* - **& eP*" &'&#*** . >. er happiness 'I just can't seem to get interested in anyone but Brian for any length of time. Besides, I keep hoping he'll come back. I'll wait" "I wanted to go to MIT to study engineering (I've wanted to do that all my life) ? but now that I think about it, I don't really have an interest in engineering anymore. I'd rather be a journalist, and I passed up that chance to go to the University of Missouri (a top journalism school) on a full scholarship while I waited on something I just don't seem to want anymore." These are real situations (the names have been changed to protect the guilty). Dreams and goals are great, and we all need them to keep us motivated and inspired. But we >eem to get so caught up in what we want that UAt>A ' we can i see wnai we Keep striving for your dreams, but at least stop and evaluate your surroundings once in a while. You might find you've changed, your ireams have changed, or there may be a new iream that you've never even thought of. But you'll never see it if you don't look, and looking is not so hard to do ? it can be fun. :roes to mind When the storm hit, he was lying in his bed m the armory and the roof came off the building. He said the sky looked like fire. "You could see the stars and the moon, but it was red. I thought the world was coming to an jnd," he said. I cannot forget the men who used chain saws jo cut paths in the trees that had fallen in the -oad so cars could pass through. I remember not being able to talk to my family for two weeks because the phone lines were lown. But I thought that if I heard nothing, that was good. People always find a way to get in ouch with you when the news is bad. I cannot forget the scenes of the damaged forests or the people standing in line for water md food. People say they can still remember where hey were when they found out that John F. Kennedy was shot. I think if you asked people where they were when Hugo hit, they could tell you without hesitating to think about it. For most of America, Hurricane Hugo is nothing more than trivia. -For South Carolinians, it's a name that will linger for years to come.