<p>I agree with the idea of contacting the dean of students. However, I would also suggest you go to the University health and see a counselor to talk about your issues and the fact that the lack of sleep is effecting your ability to adjust to school and your grades. The counselor will, I’m very certain, be an advocate in assisting you in getting your own room, or he/she sees this as a persistent issue for you. If your mother is going to insist you live in the dorms, you need someone to help you advocate for a single room, for medical or emotional reasons, as I sense having a roommate at all is not something you think is a positive for you, as a student. Regardless, a counselor can assist you with negotiating all the transitions through living arrangements over the years.</p>
<p>I definitely agree that you should go to your Dean of Students. First, it will be helpful that they know about why your academics are being hurt. And second, hopefully they will be able to help you figure out how to get the people in housing to help you – either by moving, or by helping you deal with this roommate.</p>
<p>Because honestly? I am ASTOUNDED by how unhelpful your RA and RD are being. Yes, if there are no quiet hours they can’t punish your roommate, but, as someone who works as basically an RA – dealing with this kind of situation is literally what my job is. I mean, yes, every school is different, but I can’t imagine that your schools doesn’t put their RAs through conflict resolution training, etc. If someone came to me about a roommate who was refusing to make any sort of compromise, esp. in thing this kind of situation, I’d be having a long conversation with that roommate about how that’s completely unacceptable, regardless of the rules. There must be SOMEONE in your housing office who can help – maybe a Dean knows who that is.</p>
<p>OP wrote:
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<p>Wait . . .what?? There is more to this story, I think.</p>
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<p>In the first place, I’m female.</p>
<p>In the second place, no, I don’t find watching porn a condition worthy of compassion. It strikes me as something that the room mate should only do when alone, if at all. (I do not feel a need to look at porn, I think few women do, but apparently it is common amongst even “normal” men. If not, magazines like Playboy would not exist.)</p>
<p>Video games, what’s the big deal as long as the room mate uses headphones or turns off the sound? </p>
<p>Perhaps the room mate is confining his porn-watching to night time in hopes that the OP will be asleep and not see it. As long as the room mate is quiet and the lights are off except for a reading light or a computer screen, does the OP have the right to demand that he adopt the same schedule as the OP? </p>
<p>The OP has gone on to say that he “doesn’t like people” and tries to avoid interaction. </p>
<p>There is more here than meets the eye. The RA should try to broker a “room rules” deal between the two of them. If the OP’s medical condition is such that he cannot tolerate ANY activity in the room during his sleep window, then he needs a single for medical reasons.</p>
<p>I’d say it’s time to move out. You have strong medical reasons supporting your need to move.</p>
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<p>I know someone whose laptop got ruined when they hosted a party and an unknown person peed on it. Just saying . . . </p>
<p>No, seriously though, I would talk to the Dean.</p>
<p>I apologize for the lack of replies; I went home for Thanksgiving, and I didn’t have access to a computer.</p>
<p>Someone said that there’s more to it than I’ve revealed; I haven’t done that intentionally, I referred to it in the other thread, I just didn’t think it was relevant. For what it’s worth, I was formally diagnosed with Aspergers at 14/15, informally suggested by my pediatrician when I was in first grade (but not pursued because of the lack of distress.) Recently, I’ve had symptoms that are suggestive of Schizophrenia, and I see a psychiatrist about it. It could be hallucinations due to insomnia, but because there’s so much overlap between Aspergers and Schizophrenia, it’s possible that certain problems attributed to the former are actually pathological of the latter. The Schizophrenia possibility is also part of the reason I don’t want to escalate it too much. If someone overreacted and things degenerated to a physical confrontation, I think that I’d be at a distinct disadvantage when blame is being doled out. Possible schizophrenic says one thing, normal kid says something else, who would you be inclined towards believing?</p>
<p>Now that that’s clarified, I’ll say that I’m going to see my ODS counselor this week to ask if there are any single rooms that have opened up (or if there’s anything that can be done if there haven’t been any that have opened up.) If she can’t do anything I may see the dean of students, but I don’t want to make an appointment with them only to have them say “well have you spoken to X.” I’d think that if that happened and I came back to them, they might be less patient about the amount of time they’re spending on it, but I don’t really know. I originally had the medical documentation to support a single room, but my school has more people living in the dorms than they’d anticipated. As a result, a lot of doubles are now triples, 8 person suites hold 10, etcetcetc. </p>
<p>Sleeping pills: I take 1 5mg Ambien nightly. I can’t take a stronger one because of health problems; I was actually taken off of Halcion because of the much greater risk for complications as compared to the Ambien. </p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean by student cubicles at the library; We have >10 on campus, and I primarily use either the main or sci/eng library, and both of those have rows of tables; no closed cubicles, no study carrels, no real “private” studying areas. </p>
<p>Using the signs and such to get back at him would have a limited effect I think. He’s outwardly very social, and is friends with most of the floor. If anything, I seem like the “weird” reclusive one. </p>
<p>Finally, a broken computer might work in say, a quad, but if there’s only one other person in the room with you, it’s pretty obvious who’s responsible.</p>
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<p>LOL - I wondered the same thing. In the other thread, lots of people here unfairly bashed the OP because they sympathized with the roommate - yet here they have no problem supporting the OP.</p>
<p>Same situation just different issues each person was dealing with. I feel for BOTH OPs and think both should take whatever action is necessary to resolve their issue. Just because in the other thread poor old Elsie had what some found to be a sympathetic medical condition makes her no better a roommate than Mr. Porn Watcher here</p>
<p>I hope that you are able to get the university to provide you with a rooming situation that will meet your needs. Sounds like a very difficult situation for you to be in now.</p>
<p>Well, actually, as the OP just stated, they have aspergers…so, that’s interesting. Perhaps all the posters are just naturally supporting the spectrum kids on either side of the issue.</p>
<p>As far as I’m concerned the OP needs to take this up as a mental health issue with the counseling dept of the school. They would probably be able to get a single room. Most schools have singles set aside for disabilities, and what the OP described above would certainly fall into that category.</p>
<p>As for any student who is having trouble living with a roommate to the extent that it is impacting thier ability to actually study, they ought to agitate until they get a new room. The squeaky wheel and all. Just keep at it until you get what you need. Eventually you’ll wear them down.</p>
<p>I also think it is significant that the roommate in the other situation was not doing anything to negatively affect roommate, it was what she was not doing-- and her obligation to do so was debatable. </p>
<p>“As for any student who is having trouble living with a roommate to the extent that it is impacting thier ability to actually study, they ought to agitate until they get a new room. The squeaky wheel and all. Just keep at it until you get what you need. Eventually you’ll wear them down.”</p>
<p>This is really what the issue comes down to, regardless of the circumstances.</p>
<p>Maybe the roommate is doing things to get OP to move out</p>
<p>Long: I am so sorry you have to deal with this. While I am certainly not an expert in this field, it would seem to me that your Aspergers Syndrome is considered a disability. Most colleges have a SDS office… Student Disability Services office. If yours does, go there and explain your problems to them; I’m sure they can help sort this out for you.</p>
<p>The thing is Peachy, they have my disability information on record, and I WAS supposed to receive a single room. They closed 2 dorms for renovations though, and despite buying a hotel and converting it, they had more people need on campus housing than they were prepared for. As a result, a lot of rooms are holding more than they were meant to.</p>
<p>(Maybe just 1 dorm, I think the other was converted to a university office building.)</p>
<p>I would try that route anyway, you may be able to get yourself at the top of the waiting list for a single if you aren’t already. As the semester ends there will be people graduating or dropping out and their rooms will open up.</p>
<p>As far as I can see-- the roommate on this thread is making noise throughout the night, keeping his roommate from sleeping. Roommate on other thread is strangely quiet and removed. Noise interferes with studying, quiet does not. No one NEEDS to make noise-- headphones will do the trick, and the roommate here needs to use them. So, in this case, it seems that the roommate is actually causing trouble, whereas in the other case it’s simple incompatibility. If I were the OP’s mom I’d be on the horn to the school today-- I wouldn’t pay $$$$$$ of tuition and let the school put my child in a situation that made it difficult to learn!</p>
<p>So…
I tried the getting up early thing, drawing open the curtains at 930 AM etc. My roommate complained, and I told him that if he’d restrict light/noise after 1 AM, I would until 1PM.</p>
<p>He rolled over and went back to sleep, didn’t say anything.
HOWEVER.
That night (this morning) he invited a friend over, and they watched movies until 3 am. They left the room and I went to bed, and at 430, his cell phone alarm went off.
And.
His phone was on password lock.
So from 430-530 I got to listen to a cell phone blaring Kanye West.</p>
<p>And where is that phone now??? Perhaps time to give it to the RA.</p>
<p>Find out who supervises and pays the RA’s. Inquire from that administrator if it is part of an R.A.'s expected responsibility to mediate roommate situations upon request. Express that you have asked for mediation from the RA and are needing that response. These are issues of noise/time/media that any R.A. should know how to mediate.</p>
<p>The R.A. owes you both a session to work out these issues and if he won’t, ask the RA’s supervisor to come over and work with the two of you.</p>
<p>RA’s are paid by a year of free room/board and have some responsibility to do more than just take inventory of room damage at the end of each semester. </p>
<p>Likely both roommates have gripes about each other. Agreeing to a list of rules together might help, but you need someone in between you to write the rules.</p>