While you sun yourselves in far-flung locales, remember, gentle readers, that the 2008 housing lottery waits for no one. In the spirit of steadfastness, we invite you for a brief sojourn back to East Campus.

A Brief Guide to East Campus, from someone who lives in Wien

Next door to the dilapidated honeycomb that is Wien Hall rises the stentorious [point taken! - ed.] edifice of East Campus. With its own moat-like brick-layed "plaza" serving little or no purpose except during Orientation Week (hotdog party memories anyone?), EC lives up to its reputation as a latecomer to the campus housing circle, a distant add-on to the cozy buildings surrounding the lawns and nestled down among the residential side-streets of Broadway.

As an outsider, I'm afraid I have little to offer in the way of gross-out anecdotes about bathrooms or complaints about maintenance or broken doors or somesuch thing. I do offer a hodge-podge of general notes on the dorm, though, that might be helpful to potential residents:

• Your roommates matter big time, although it's likely yours will be hand-picked from your inner circle of Awesome People, which should put you in the clear. If, as a freshman, you decide to take the risk of being "excluded" in an EC exclusion suite, proceed with caution. Horror stories have ranged from "interviews" with upperclassmen who ask first-years about their sex and drug habits before summarily denying them a spot in their suite to pairs of tender outsiders attempting to survive in the midst of psychotic upperclassmen freakouts/binges.
  

• Three varieties of rooms exist: townhouses, high-rises, and 2-person flats.

• Townhouses include a huge common area with suburban island countertop. Creative and well-funded suites will use this space to set up a home movie theater, foosball/ping pong/whatever table, or at least offer their space for get-togethers and communal dinners. Uncreative suites will merely let the garbage pile up, the white walls go unadorned, and ignore the awesome kitchen setup. Again, roommates matter—you've been warned.

• High-rises benefit primarily from absurdly cool views and a decent living-room area with adjoining kitchen; doubles are versatile in that they have large single rooms, but before you commit to one, make yourself aware of the super-cramped table and kitchen areas.

• EC courtyard has been described as dystopian, and I won't deny it bears a strange resemblance to Oceania, with turret-like watchtowers, eerily lit stoops, and swirling piles of leaves and cigarette butts pooling in every corner. At the end of the courtyard, moreover, is the Heyman Center for the Humanities—there is nothing worse than Gayatri Spivak catching you nursing a 40 on the steps of a townhouse. Again, you've been warned.

• Finally, each floor of the EC highrise offers its own spin on the hall lounge: you'll see some floors with computer labs, others with exercise equipment and even a pool table.

If you're an upperclassman, you stand a good chance of ending up in EC. And if you've been in the majority the past two years, you already know you have a lot to look forward to after McBain and Wien/Shapiro.

- KER

If you live in River, McBain, Shapiro, or 113th and would like to contribute to our housing lottery coverage by writing a post like this one, send an email to bwgossip@columbia.edu