When junior Chelsea Brown of Los Angeles saw “eDorm” listed as a housing option on last spring’s draw form, she couldn’t have been more excited.
“The first thing I did was go out and buy more glowsticks,” said Brown, who is heavily involved in LA’s rave scene. “I mean, I knew there were a few people at Stanford who like to, you know, party, but I had no idea there was a whole community centered around “e”, and I couldn’t believe they’d be so open about it with the name.”
“I was ecstatic, if you know what I mean, to live with people who like to have a good time. I thought it was gonna be so refreshing to get away from all these straight-edge workaholics.”
But when she moved into eDorm this fall, Brown was a little confused.
On the first Friday night of the school year, she suited up in neon spandex, with a pacifier hanging from a candy necklace and glowsticks covering her arms and legs. “It’s Friday night, we’re gonna roll face, right!?” Brown asked in the common room, where laptops were arranged in snowflake formation, with about a dozen students hunched over, furiously coding. “Oh yeah, big hackathon tonight,” replied sophomore Melissa Doherty. “Gonna be aweseome!”
Brown confronted senior Andrew Ngo, who was sitting nearby, typing python script. “You guys are doing this all ironically, right?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, totally,” said Ngo, who had no idea what she was talking about.
“Okay, actually where’s the “e,” Brown finally asked Amanda Huerta, the RA, resorting to bluntness after her confusion reached a crescendo.
“Well, Constantine over there is working on an e-commerce startup,” Huerta offered.
“Okay…cool,” Brown said, tentatively. “But you know, where’s Molly?”
“Oh, Molly Cho, she’s right over there, working on her iPhone app which will be rolled out in November.”
“Oh-ho-ho, ROLLED out; I get it,” Brown replied, chuckling. “You guys are sneaky.”
When Brown actually “got it,” she was less than amused. “What the fuck is entrepreneurialism?” she said. “Ewwww.”
At press time she was rolling face.
