Fire, Fire, Fire

Living in Hawkridge Hall is much like living in the projects, but with fewer drugs. Compared to student housing at Pitzer, Hawkridge is larger and cleaner, but completely unfunctional.

The showers don't work, the windows don't work, my radiator doesn't work. One thing, however, is in top-notch condition: the fire alarm. And, as if to assure us that something in the building functions as planned, the alarm goes of at least twice a week. Usually while I'm asleep. (Granted, the last time I was shocked into consciousness was at the ungodly hour of 12:30. PM.)

The first time I heard the alarm, I was generally concerned and quickly evacuated down nine flights of stairs. The second two times I was getting suspicious, but felt it best to evacuate any way.

The third time the fire was coming from my own flat, so I was well appraised of the situation. No one I live with spends any time in our kitchen--it's cold, and dreary, and reminds me of a prison refectory. As a result, we all tend to sit in our rooms while our food cooks, only popping in and out of the kitchen to monitor the results as necessary. Unfortunately, my flatmate forgot about her chicken, and by the time the smoke had reached my room, it was too late to save the situation. This time I was eager to evacuate, as there was no possible way to breathe in my flat without a lifetime of chain-smoking as preparation. Once standing in the freezing cold with the rest of our hall-mates, we tried our best to hide our guilty faces and look as confused as everyone else. It almost worked, too, until the hall director came out and loudly shouted "everyone return inside EXCEPT FLAT C ON THE EIGHTH FLOOR." Doing our best to salvage the situation, we tried to play it off like we weren't leaving because we like milling around in the freezing cold, but nevertheless I suspect we were outed as the guilty party.

After our ignominious brush with arson, fire alarms have continued at the rate of two or three a week. This always leads to the inevitable crisis of "To evacuate, or not to evacuate." Leaving means unwanted exercise and a stint out in the cold, but staying through the shrill alarms might cause irreparable damage to my ear-drums. I usually go, and I try not to be too annoyed--after all, if it weren't for our hip, trendsetting ways, fire alarms may never have caught on as the must-attend social gatherings of the semester. Furthermore, I've been trudging up and down nine flights of stairs with a frightening regularity, which is like a free gym membership but better because there is no conceivable way to sleep through it.

There's a hip new exercise craze in there somewhere: Fire-obics! The unavoidable path to sculpted legs, hips, and abs! This could be huge in LA, where every fad has its few weeks in the limelight.