Emails, Pesky Roommates and Loneliness

Hello friends! The Man of 1,000 Thoughts (@thoughts1000) hitting you with some truth and justice this week in response to some college campus frustrations.

Question: My professor isn’t emailing me back.  What should I do?

From,

NoMail

Man of 1,000 Thoughts: Do not be alarmed! Unless you are just now figuring out the “university” you are attending. You know, with the mostly careless faculty and horrible organization. Let me stop myself and say what I mean, your situation is not surprising. While there could be numerous reasons why your professor is not emailing you back, such as they are super busy or have not seen their email, it is important to remember this does not matter. You are a student who has to contact their professor, and you have to look out for yourself. Their situation is irrelevant, you need to keep sending them emails. Spam the hell out of that inbox until you get a response. I have found this usually gets them to respond. I suppose you could always confront them, but wouldn’t you feel like a jerk if they gave you a legitimate excuse? Plus, this is 2013, who likes confrontation? It is scary.

Question: My roommate keeps eating my food.  I told him to stop, but he continues to eat my food.  How do I make him stop?

From,

EmptyFridge

Man of 1,000 Thoughts: This sounds frustrating, and you may have a few options. Since you have already asked them to stop, it is apparent they do not respond to words. You could eat your roommates food. You know, give them a taste of their own medicine as they say. But what if this does not work? What if they do not mind, and they keep eating your food? What if their food tastes bad? Maybe you just do not want to give them any medicine. That is understandable. I get it. You could get a lock put on your refrigerator, so they can not access it. Even better, also put a lock on their refrigerator so they can not access their own food and they go hungry and have to beg you for their food. If you share the same refrigerator then great! Lock that one up. But maybe this still is not good enough. I imagine you know the foods this person likes to take from you, or maybe it is all of them. Lace the food with something gross; spider webs, pee? I do not know, I am no expert. Just make sure it tastes really bad. I can assure after a couple of times they will stop eating the food. There was a time when I was in high school that my younger brother was putting something in the sports beverages I was drinking. I could taste it. I do not know what it was, but to this day I am still afraid to open and take a sip from a Powerade bottle.

Question: I find myself alone on campus a lot without many friends.  How do I get involved on campus more?

From,

Lonely

Man of 1,000 Thoughts: Join the Grappling Club. Seriously, do it. The toughest club on campus. A great way to get involved, meet people and learn something fun and new. Join the facebook group “Grappling Club (WCSU)” or email me “Sarantos001@connect.wcsu.edu”. If you are not interested in that, there are actually many options to get involved at WestConn. I find it is usually commuters who have trouble getting involved on campus, but there are residents who have this problem as well. There are numerous clubs on campus to get involved with, you can find flyers all over campus for meetings, or you can check the WCSU website and see a list of clubs. Here’s the URL http://www.wcsu.edu/studentcenter/  You should be able to find something of interest on the list. There are frequent events on campus like the PAC movie night every Friday evening. They usually show cool movies. Never underestimate talking to people. Friendly people exist, and if you talk to them you can make friends. Most people would not mind, or in fact maybe looking for, new friends.

This content was originally published on 2/26/2013 in WCSU's The Echo.

Follow @thoughts1000 on twitter for some thoughts.