Meet Bryant

I thought I'd take a moment to explain my living situation.

Welcome to Bryant Hall, home to 201 students, all living in individual rooms, divided into three blocks (X, Y, and Z/aka "zed"). I live in "the pod" of Y2. The pod is a grouping of four rooms on the end of the hall (rather than the long hallway down the middle). My next door neighbor is Erika (my amazing American friend from New Hampshire and my hang out buddy on boring weekday nights). On my other side I have Amy and, at the end of the hall, her boyfriend Ryan - both extremely nice New Zealanders from the North Island. It is nice only sharing a bathroom among the four of us, but the pod can be lonely sometimes no one walks by our rooms until specifically coming up to find us.

There are two other residence halls on campus, but we must eat our three meals per day in our hall's designated cafeteria. It is very safe, as our key cards only access our specific block and then we have regular, key door locks. Since Bryant is the smallest of the halls, I have met quite a few people by now and recognize even more, since we see the same familiar faces at every meal. The U of Waikato itself is small enough that I see people from Bryant while walking on campus.

We have a hall common area with large TVs and hall events - right now, a lot of people have entered the pool (not swimming...billiards - haha there was a mix-up) tournament and there is also a game of assassins going on. Assassin involves "killing" your target with water. You are confidentially given a target and your mission is to assassinate them within the certain time limit (usually a water bottle is the weapon of choice), while staying in the parameters of the hall, and obeying all rules (i.e. don't hit someone while on the way to class with books etc.). Once you kill one person, you take their target and pursue them next; the circle chain continues until there are only two people left who have each other as targets and then one assassin is crowned champ. I've seen a couple people sprinting from their block to the cafeteria to shorten the window of possible assassination.

This Saturday there is an inter-hall masquerade Ball - dresses, dates (optional), heels, jewelery, hourderves, drinks, the whole she-bang. People from all the dorms can attend and it is held in the theatre/performance hall. Should be fun...I haven't gone to a "dance" since prom.
As one of the RAs said: It's going to uncontrollably EPIC! (ha we'll see...)

** check back and I'll add pics of Bryant, my dorm room, and the ball!