Residence Life...

...is ballsack.

I wake up this morning, at 11, so that I can go to lunch with my cohorts at noon. All is well as I take my shower, I dress, brush my teeth, and choose an appropriate (yet stylish) jacket for the current weather: cool and overcast. Then, it happens.

I step into the lobby and see the walls plastered with signs.

NO VISITATION DURING FINALS WEEK

NO PRACTICE HOURS DURING FINALS WEEK

Are they dyking me?

First of all, I am extremely opposed to the idea of having set 'practice' hours in the first place. This is a university where we pay 28,000 dollars to attend. I'd like to think it's an adult setting, with adult faculty and adult students. At this point in life, we're perfectly capable of being considerate, but further from that, capable of understanding that we can ask the people next to, above, and below us if it's all right to strum our acoustic guitars. If no one cares, I should be able to play, right?

The issue lies here: I can't very well take my duffel bag of pedals, a 75-pound tube amp, and my guitar to a 'practice room' (a 6x10 room, with an upright piano usurping most of that space) across campus to practice electric guitar. Besides- those rooms are completely taken, nearly all of the time by musical performance majors. I'm fine with that, but there are many, many students who play music, and would realistically like to dedicate a significant amount of time to music without majoring in it. Where do I go? The library? Oh, wait. That's where students go to study without any noise interruptions. Hmm. Something is wrong with this system.

I'm sure a happy medium could be found.. but having an absolute rule saying that I can't play guitar after 7:00pm just blows. Are they serious? I mean.. there are so many better options.

1. I'm fine with quiet hours. 10:00pm-10:00am is reasonable. But realistically, there could be 10:00am-10:00pm courtesy hours (That's what they're called now, but they're not courtesy hours) where people can play their instruments as long as their neighbors around, above and below have given permission and/or don't care. Then, 3:00pm-7:00pm could be actual practice hours, and by that, I mean NO COMPLAINT hours, where we can actually have a time set aside to benefit us, rather than restrict us.
   
2. Practice Hours are about courtesy, clearly. I refuse to believe that the University legitimately wants to parent us in this way. Based on the model I gave in point (1), we could even abolish practice hours completely, for simple courtesy hours. This would be disappointing if any neighbors were unhappy with practicing, but I can accept the responsibility of being courteous to others. I'm not a selfish bastard who just wants to practice when I'm not supposed to. I just want to be able to practice when there's no other reasons not to.
   
3. If Belmont, a very serious music school intends to keep its students musical, it may need to build a place to accommodate more musicians. It's true, the University's number one major is Music Business, and not musical performance-- but to assume that musicians play a minority role in this school would be convoluted and stupid. If the practice rooms are not adequate, as they clearly are not, then another practice location should be provided, with far fewer time constraints. This raises an entirely new budget issue, which would make this the least appealing idea.

Clearly, the approach to take would be to change the school's policies on practicing. Not only do the hours make musical dedication (not to mention improvement) nearly impossible, but they are extremely hypocritical in the context of dormitory life. For example, after practice hours, people can continue to listen to music through their computer speakers, or watch television or movies. These activities are widely acknowledged as louder than most music practice, especially when considering the decibel (dB) level of an acoustic guitar compared to two blaring 20watt computer speakers, or the roar of a neighbors video game played through television speakers. Just the other day, my friend and I played Dance Dance Revolution, and had the volume cranked. The Residence Assistants came over to watch, and said nothing about the volume. It's because it's the principal of the matter, not the spirit of the rule that matters here, and I can't stand that.

I can't stand it.

So in the meantime, check out some of this music. Play it louder than a guitar:

"Continent" by The Acacia Strain
"Elephant" by The White Stripes
"Second Helping" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
"Sublime" by Sublime