49.

Sometimes it seems as if one’s life comes down to just a few numbers. You start with a birthday and a Social Security number. Then it becomes a GPA, and SAT scores, with entire industries formed around manipulating them both. Draft numbers, lottery numbers, all have the power to dramatically change one’s life.

And then there’s this.

Room draw numbers came out today, with the usual combination of students gloating confidently and meekly walking around campus with their heads down. And just like last year and the year before, you eagerly await the first opportunity to get to a computer and see your own fate. You sit down at dinner already knowing the topic of discussion. Nothing new there.

But being a rising senior changes the whole equation. There’s no “better luck next year” as you log on and discover your fate. And if your number is bad, you can’t console yourself by saying that there would have been hundreds of people in front of you anyway. Instead you have in front of you one of the last quantifiable and truly random elements of your young life. That room draw number is yours, it’s permanent, and it’s a statement on the luck you’ll be having for a long time to come.

I can’t complain. 49 out of 500+ is pretty darn good. Not good enough to garner me a townhouse (and the instant popularity associated with being able to draw one), but better than most. Not that it really matters much. I’ll probably be living in Culinary House again anyway.

So I have a useless number that makes a useless statement on my life. It shouldn’t matter, right? But it does. It tells me exactly what I want to hear.

I’m lucky enough.

Posted on February 2nd, 2005 by Lee
Tagged: College