Your Choice?

Similarly to Hiromi, I’ve felt a huge sense of manipulation in regards to housing for next year. Yes, we are given choice. Who do we want to room with? Light side or dark side? Choice.  But, all of these choices boil down to something that is out of our hands: our lottery number. Once that random number is assigned, our “choices” either plummet or soar. However, even then, you’re limited by what year you are. If you’re a rising sophomore with a good number, you’re still very limited simply because of how many years you’ve attended Hamilton. Our decision is based largely on factors that are completely out of our control, and we must simply make a choice given those restrictions. We’re also influenced by our friends, or by upperclassmen that insist that you’d never want to live there, and that you should definitely try to live here. Just when we think we know what we want, our opinions are swayed by what others are saying, where our friends are living, or maybe just by our number crushing any hope of what we thought we wanted. We have a choice, but once many of those choices have already been made for us.