Crashbox

People alway talk about TAC being like living with a second set of parents because you are always being 'wached over' and there are a bunch of rules. I think that assessment is fairly accurate, but what is perhaps even more affecting is the way we are provided for here. We don't really have much to do in the way of taking care of ourselves: laundry and keeping our own room in some sort of order, and that's about it. Biuldings like the Commons and the library---even the classrooms---take on the same kind of aspect as our living rooms, kitchens, school rooms in our parents' house growing up: namely, ours to use and feel completely at ease in, but ultimately belonging to someone else. When you rent or buy a house of your own, suddenly all this changes. You can no longer feel indifferent to the condition and execution of the room. It is not a place you simply pass through for use and enjoyment, but all of sudden it means something to you. It has a power over you, and you must have it this way and not that or you get uncomfortable. What all this is leading up to is that TAC feels like home because of the similarities to your own home; the same familiar attachments form because you are participating, but not controlling. You can appriciate with a certain detatchment, and it becomes yours by habit, not yours by possession; the difference is liking something because you are used to it and liking something because you made it that way. I think this is in part the reason why rich people are so often dissatisfied: if you can control, you must; but it can never be good enough, because human beings are never satisfied with themselves. But if you are forced to deal with something you have no power over it becomes dear and perfect to you because you are not searching for a way to improve it, for that is not an option. In this way, TAC works it's way into your soul, forcing you to be sentimental about it every time you leave, for it creeps around in your memory the same way as your real home.