When I saw the dorm-suite for the first time, I was quite satisfied. According to the information I had, there were four people per unit, with two two-person rooms, a living-room and a bathroom making up each unit. It was virtually impossible to get a private dorm-room, so I would get a roommate but I had already looked into possible ways to get a workspace somewhere else setup and there seemed to be workrooms for rent, so students could work on projects on their own. There were rules for them, some of which made me wonder just what had happened that such rules got instated, but none seemed to be overly restrictive. I was not, for example, planning to use fissile materials. That was one of the rules that made me question the incident that had caused it to be added to the official list of rules. Another was a prohibition against a variety of biological agents, most of which scared me to no end.
No, I had an idea for a project that was small in scale but could have far-reaching effects. If I was unable to find a biological solution for the restoration-project I had been working on for a while, I might be able to make a mechanical, or rather micro-robotic, solution. But that was a project for another time.
Anyway, after entering the dorm-unit, I was standing in the living-room, furnished with a small coffee-table, a couch and a loveseat against the back-wall, with two doors leading into each of the bedrooms on either side. The whole thing was maybe three on four meters, making it rather cozy. For a moment, I wondered why there were no windows, when I realised that the wall was not an outside one.
On the couch, a slender asian girl sat, her nose just leaving the book she had been reading. She looked so much like the cliché asian girl that I had to suppress a smile. The whole deal, mono-lidded eyes, pale, clear skin and long, black hair.
“Hello. You must be one of my suitemates. My name is Lin Ru Shi.” she greeted me in a friendly voice, without any noticeable trace of an accent. I internally scolded myself for expecting one.
“I guess so. You can call me Diana.” I answered, remembering to use the right name. “Which beds are still free?” I asked, just as the door was pushed open from behind me and someone else entered, as I stepped further into the suite.
“I set up in the right-side room and there is already luggage in either of them, so you are in the left room.” Lin Ru Shi answered.
“The luggage in the right room is mine!” A voice sounded from behind me.
Turning around, I saw a friendly smiling woman, slightly tan and with blonde, wavy hair enter the unit. She was slightly taller than me, but not by a lot.
“Hi, I’m Karen!” the smiling woman greeted, before moving forward, as if to hug me, but being stopped by my luggage, which I used as a shield.
“Hello Karen, you can call me Diana.”
“And I’m Lin Ru Shi.”
I moved toward the left-sided room, sticking my head in before entering. The room was maybe three meters wide and six meters long, with a large window on end, next to a door heading towards another room, in the same direction I was coming from. One closet was set against the wall to the hallway outside, next to two beds, with their headboards towards the window-side of the room. Another closet was directly opposite of the door I had just entered through and two desks were placed at the wall, one right next to me, between the two doors, the other a little closer to the window, due to the closet.
One could call the room cramped, or maybe efficient would be better. The luggage was already piled on the bed on the other side of the room, so I placed my meagre belongings on the bed right next to me. Not that I really cared.
As I inspected the room I would be sleeping in, I heard Karen and Lin Ru Shi talk outside. It seemed that Karen was either intent on making friends with her roommate, or maybe just very nosy, but I could easily hear her badgering the other girl with questions ranging from the inane, “Can I call you Lin?” to the slightly insulting remark that she always had wanted to go to Japan. Or maybe it was not insulting and just uninformed. I should not prejudge.
Walking over to the other door, I was able to inspect the bathroom, it seemed slightly inadequate, especially for four young women who all wanted to do their thing in the morning. The room was divided by a shower-enclosure with curtains and a short check showed that the other side was equivalent to our side. Next to the shower, was a toilet and a wash basin with a mirrored cupboard above it. Rudimentary, but it should be enough. Sure, only one person could shower at a time, but we obviously would have to live with that. What else could we do.
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I mentally debated for a second if I wanted to move back into the common room and talk with the other two, or if I wanted to unpack but the clincher was that I should at least try to get to know the others, so I walked back out.
“Hey, Diana! I was just getting to know Lin here! She’s awesome smart and will be a doctor!” Karen announced, after I entered the common room. Karen was just in the process of walking into her own room.
“Is that so? It is an interesting topic to study, which university are you enrolled in, Lin Ru Shi? Oh, and how should I address you?” I asked, after remembering one of the countless etiquette-lessons I had been forced to endure as a child. I was not sure of her nationality, so instead of picking one out, possibly the wrong one, I stuck with her full name. I took a seat on the loveseat, opposite of her.
She gave me a polite smile and nod, before answering. “You can call me Ru Shi, I don’t mind. If you want to be formal, Lin-nǚ-shì would be the correct form of address. And to answer your other question, I am enrolled into the Newfield University for medical school later, but I can spread my pre-med classes over all the institutions on the island. I hope to do as many classes as possible at the Guild University itself. What about you?”
“Dual Major, Physics and Electrical Engineering. Both at the Guild University.” I answered with a bit of pride in my voice. Only a small percentage managed to enroll into the Guild University itself, giving them priority when it came to registration, everyone else had to take the spots that were left over.
“Impressive.”
“Thank you.”
Just before it could get awkward, as apparently neither of us was a master at the art of small-talk, we heard a toilet flush and a moment later, Karen came back into the room. For a split-second, a horrified look passed between Ru Shi and me, when the dorm-door opened and another person walked in. That should be my roommate for the next few years.
It was not. The first person through the door was a tall, dark-skinned man, wearing a black suit with a white-collared shirt under it. Following behind him was what seemed to be his daughter and the woman that followed behind the girl made it almost certain.
The girl that would be my roommate looked rather similar to her mother, dark-skinned with a slightly wide look to her, not overweight, but not slender at the same time. She seemed to be slightly smaller than I was, but her hair made it difficult to judge, it was a shock of kinky curls.
The man threw a weighing gaze at the three of us who had already been in the room and his scowl indicated that he found us wanting.
“Tanisha, are you sure that you want to stay here? You could enroll at a good college, closer to home.” he told his daughter, after scowling at us again.
“Father, I have told you, studying here, on the island, will allow me to gain invaluable contacts. I told you about my plans and you agreed. And besides, don’t you think it’s a little late now?” she asked with a smile.
“Your father just worries, Tanisha. To him, you are still his little girl and now you go out into the world.” the older woman threw in.
“I’m sure you will do fine here. Just be a good girl and study hard. Don’t let anyone push you into something you don’t want.” the father told his daughter who stepped forward, towards us. At the same time, the mother was softly speaking to her husband, while throwing glances my way.
While her parents stood in the back, Tanisha introduced herself to us, before her parents called her back to them, exchanging soft words before, finally, I heard them mention that they had to catch their flight and the two older people left. Tanisha’s complete posture changed, it was as if a burden had lifted from her.
“Finally.” She said with a sigh. “So, who is my roommate?” she asked, with a smile on her face.
“I am. Why?” I asked.
“Thank god you didn’t speak up earlier. My mother was worried I would be infected by the lebanese, as she called it.” she answered, her smile turning into a smirk.
At the same time, there was a flash of outrage on Karen’s face, while Ru Shi had to hide a giggle. Finally, Tanisha took a seat on the couch, next to Karen, making the whole thing quite cozy.
The next few hours, we spent getting to know each other. I was rather glad that I had prepared enough anecdotes to give some colour to the identity of Diana Hunt. It was interesting to hear about Tanisha, whose father was a strict baptist, or about Ru Shi, who had to struggle with her role in society, thankfully managing to convince her father to allow her to study abroad.
The four of us were an interesting bunch, we had a medicine major in Ru Shi, a future lawyer and politician in Tanisha, even if I got a vibe that she was planning to live her life to the fullest now that she was no longer her father’s thumb, myself, with my ambitious plan to dual-major and finally Karen, who spoke the most about her plans, explaining how she would finally deal with the oppression of women in the west. She was enrolled in a sociology and gender-studies degree.