My favorite position: Ellicott RA

Hey, you know what really feels good? Silence. It is 1:57 a.m. and all of North Campus is quiet. Although my floor is silent, I am not.

Using a micro-cassette tape recorder while sitting in my dark 15-by-10 foot room, I will break the silence by confessing to you the truth regarding my three-year commitment as a Resident Assistant. I will skip the details about why and how I became involved with the resident life office and focus solely on exactly who I am when I announce myself as, “Jared Meyer, RA.”

To summarize the past three years, I would say that I have really enjoyed working for the resident life office, that the experience was extremely valuable, and that being an RA was a very significant part of my college experience.

Like every RA, I have had five primary responsibilities, known as “the five roles of the RA.” What I will do is honestly describe to you how each of these roles applied to me and whether they were even an integral part of being an RA in Ellicott Hall.

Administrator

A few of the most important RA tasks include lots of paperwork, constant quality control and dozens of meetings. Being an administrator is probably the easiest, but most time-consuming role, and unlike most RAs, it has always been my favorite. My extensive organization skills and compulsive need for order have always allowed me to do this part of the job extremely well.

Peer Counselor

I haven’t had many opportunities to counsel residents on my floor because when they stop by, it isn’t to talk about serious issues like the fear of being rejected from the business school or Instant Messenger addiction.

They generally visit me to say hello, to ask for eating utensils or to compliment me on my newly rearranged room. I assume that my residents have always had excellent systems of social support and therefore had no need to consult with me on a serious level.

Programmer

RAs are supposed to formulate and implement educational, social and faculty programs. Most importantly, they are expected to motivate residents to attend those sessions. While I was taking the required RA class, I was quite apprehensive about programming, since I was never trained in conference management.

Although programming was once a major challenge for me, I have held about 10 official programs during the past six semesters.

After my first year as an RA, I didn’t mind setting up and publicizing them. Hell, I actually enjoyed programming because most of my programs were on stress management, one of my favorite program topics. Apparently, most Ellicott residents couldn’t relate because attendance at these events was often miniscule.

Although it’s good to create community by fostering education and participation outside the classroom, the real reason my programs were so intimate was because most residents are simply not interested in attending RA programs.

They have enough going on in their lives, especially with competitive distractions like television and computers. Most of these kids have never had the natural motivation to spend an hour in the fifth floor lounge each month learning something that could possibly change their lives.

Yes, even programs on popular stress management techniques have never motivated more than a dozen of them. Who wouldn’t want to learn how to fight stress, release the evils of tension and feel good?

Fans of The Simpsons and IM users, that’s who. Most residents would probably attend programs only if they could sit at their computers or if alcohol was served.

Is programming even necessary? I agree with my co-RA of three years, Viq Hussain, who as my RA mentor, selected me to join the “Ellicott family,” that programming is unnecessary when there is a strong sense of community on a floor. Nevertheless, I still attempted to hold a few significant programs and was occasionally successful.

Shaper of Positive Behavior

This is probably the one role that residents, who are guilty of violations, hate the most. When it comes to stopping negative behaviors, let’s just say I have been a “thorough” RA.

I have only written about 10 incident reports, most of which have dealt with alcohol violations, and when it came to breaking up those social events, rarely did I feel remorse for the “innocent victims” involved.

Very few residents know this, but there is actually a legal way of avoiding documentation when being confronted by an RA. Think about it.

Team Member

Teamwork has been the most delightful aspect of being an RA, not only because of coordinating with a large staff of talented RAs, but having working relationships with so many other people on the campus.

I have created and maintained relationships with great people at The Diner, residential facilities department and University Police, and I feel that I have really been a part of the campus by having connections with so many friendly, helpful and good-natured people. My job as an RA has been one of my major accomplishments on the campus.

Along with the five roles I’ve already mentioned, I’ve spent an additional amount of time and effort working on professional development sessions and miscellaneous projects, all in the hopes of attempting to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our continuously improving resident life staff in Ellicott Hall.

It’s difficult to imagine myself not being an RA. I have been pretty satisfied with my social experiences over the past three years, but I feel that being an RA, rooming alone and living on North Campus made it difficult to develop more than a few intimate friendships on the campus.

Additionally, for a guy who likes to befriend and date young women, living next to “The Freezer” (LaPlata Hall) was utterly frustrating.

I’ve got less than four weeks to go before I graduate. The past three years have flown by and I sense that a good portion of my time was spent doing RA-related stuff. Maybe that’s why I feel that after I graduate, life will become simpler.

Since my sophomore year, I’ve been challenged with balancing the five aspects of my life (academic, personal, physical, professional and social) and I believe that after graduation, I will finally be able to fully experience all five aspects.

I have always been a proud representative of the resident life office, and like the cassette tape that is recording my confessions, time is running out. My last RA program will take place on May 10 at The Diner.

I invite you to join me at the “Late Night Y2K Talent Show” to celebrate the end of my three-year commitment as an RA. Finally, a program of mine worth attending.

Jared Meyer is a senior finance major. His column runs alternate Fridays. He can be reached at jmmeyer@wam.umd.edu.

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Reproduced With Permission © Copyright 2000 - Maryland Media, Inc.

Kissing: The Intoxication Effect

“You’re doing it wrong,” Amy said, as she backed away from me. It was my first intimate experience with a girl, and although critical, my 11-year-old girlfriend gave me another chance to kiss her.

Moments later, I must have done something right because we ended up spending the rest of that warm summer night kissing. The same goes for the rest of our summer, but we did more than just smooch. However, not surprisingly, making things out of lanyard, participating in Color War and playing in the pool during recreational swim couldn’t compare to kissing Amy.

During the past 10 years, I have gone a great distance in learning about intimacy and my fascination of “the female gender and years still tender.” I am no longer that naive 12-year-old boy who was once criticized behind a girl’s bunk at sleep-away camp.

I’m a mature college guy who knows about something that boy wouldn’t have been able to comprehend back in 1990: The Intoxication Effect. The Intoxication Effect, which is ignited by passion, is one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.

I’ve only felt the I-Effect while kissing a few women and would do an injustice if I were to describe it as being very similar to the effects of alcohol. Frosty beverages, although delicious, have only contributed to making me feel relaxed and silly.

The Intoxication Effect is much more impressive. One great kiss can certainly be comparable to a few good drinks, but only kisses have made me feel as though I was floating off the ground. Additionally, I’ve never needed 20 bucks and ID to get high from a great kisser.

What exactly is the Intoxication Effect? I really enjoy analyzing life experiences, so when it came to answering that question, I pulled out the old notebook and jotted down a few basic thoughts.

During the few times that I experienced being intoxicated by a young woman’s kiss, three conditions existed. First, she was simply an awesome kisser. That’s a given. Second, she and I desired each other immensely, and I mean IMMENSELY. And third, it was rather late at night.

Yes, it may seem absurd, but the third condition has always existed. I even figured out that when the words “intimacy” and “exhaustion” are combined, you can spell “intoxication.”

The first two women I experienced the I-Effect with were blonde, so “blonde-haired women” was an additional factor that I considered including in my analysis, but I fortunately went on to prove that theory wrong.

I did this by discovering that the main ingredient in the I-Effect wasn’t hair color, but emotions. It was the strong feelings I had for the women with whom I experienced the Intoxication Effect that contributed to creating those natural highs.

Let me give you a personal description of the Intoxication Effect. The last time I experienced it, I actually wrote the following in my journal:

“Intoxication, her kisses, her passion, her presence. Only she and I existed during those strong moments; speed variation, pressure, compatible kissing techniques, her touch, smell, taste, sound, her face, her body; I was weak, but strengthened; disoriented; speech difficulties, the looks she gave me ...”

Now that’s some powerful stuff. I’ve never written anything like that about alcoholic intoxication. The closest I’ve come to it, though, was: “I began to feel a little nauseous, and my speech wasn’t great.”

Kissing a woman has never made me feel sick, and nine times out of 10 I’d prefer to kiss than drink, so I would rank drinking alcohol pretty low compared to kissing women. The combination, however, could prove interesting if both activities were experienced simultaneously and in moderation, but I’ve never tried that experiment, since I’d probably spill my drink.

Another benefit of the Intoxication Effect compared to being inebriated by alcohol is that even an excess of fabulous kisses won’t change my level of tolerance. That is, unless I form a real distaste for the woman I’m kissing, and if that were to happen, I would no longer experience the I-Effect anyway.

If kissing a woman, which is the basis of a physically intimate relationship, is not extremely satisfying, I highly doubt that our relationship will last very long. Staying in such an unsatisfactory situation would be what my dad once called “settling,” so the relationship would have to end.

Someone out there may think this theory is nonsense and that the relationship could somehow be salvaged, but I’ve learned that the basis for healthy, natural relationships is chemistry. And if kissing (without the aid of how-to videos) isn’t deeply pleasurable from the start, someone is trying to make something out of nothing.

So, if over a reasonable period of time, say a few weeks, the simple act of kissing doesn’t feel really good, be prepared to kiss your partner good-bye.

I was never a Boy Scout, but I follow the motto, “Be prepared.” That’s why I evaluated the Intoxication Effect. I wanted to both understand why I can feel intoxicated with certain women as well as to figure out how I can reach that level of satisfaction each time we kiss.

Have you ever seen those cute promotional graduation buttons that read, “Kiss me, I’m a senior?” Well ladies, I’m a senior, but if you’re going to kiss me, you’d better do it right.

Jared Meyer is a senior finance major. His column runs alternate Fridays. He can be reached at jmmeyer@wam.umd.edu.

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Reproduced With Permission © Copyright 2000 - Maryland Media, Inc.