In all of the online materials about RGGU dorms, there is a promise that each floor will have some sort of a common room with a television (which is one of the best tools for learning a foreign language). Our kitchenette is a common space, but it doesn’t include a television nor would the cramped quarters be a good place to install one. The closest thing to a common room is on the ninth floor of the other dorm, but it doesn’t have a single working light, let alone a TV or places to sit. It’s more like that room in your basement that you cleared out ten years ago because you were going to finish the walls and lay down some flooring. The one you still swear you’ll get around to one of these days.

The lack of a good place in the dorms to just sit and talk to people has mostly driven us to cafés up to this point, but lately has become more and more of a frustration. My friend Taylor began organizing an International Students’ Union and asked the administration repeatedly if there was a room that we could use for our meetings. They said no such rooms existed. She asked if there was a room where she could teach yoga, and again no space could be found. But that was all before the school decided a Soyuz of Foreign Students could make for good publicity and posted an article about the group on their website (article here). The posting names “building 4, room 49” as the location for today’s guest lecture. Building 4 just so happens to be the building we live in, the building that a matter of days ago did not have any common room available to students but now has a lounge with couches and chairs and tables and, yes, a television (no antenna at this point, but we could fix that). Best of all, Taylor just has to sign and they’ll place the key in her hand.

It’s kind of like the internet. It was available all along, we just didn’t know how to ask for it. (Unfortunately, the internet has been less than satisfactory lately. Sometimes it will go days without being able to connect. But when it works, I appreciate it.)