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Table of contents1.

2.

3.

4.

Friendship, favors drown out neighbors’ noise - Page 4

Home away from campus provides unexpected benefi ts - Page 5

Low-cost crafts turn house into home - Page 6-7

Spring cleaning eliminates stress, mess - Page 9

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Ally DukkersEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

During my fi ve years in Chico I’ve lived in the dorms, an apart-ment complex, an apartment duplex and a house, all in dif-ferent parts of the town with diff erent neighbors.

Getting to know your neighbors can be a great way to meet friends and have people to hang out with, especially during the rainy sea-son when the trek to the bars or parties seems like an impossible mission. Having a good relation-ship with your neighbors is also very useful if you ever run into the problem of needing a cup of sugar

or more likely, a hammer or plunger.

I currently live in an apartment duplex where my two roommates and I live underneath an apart-ment of three women. It is a very strange thing to have someone living above you, because you get to know a lot about those people by simply listening. The woman whose room is directly above mine likes to sing every morning at about 10 a.m. This is some-thing I probably never would have known had she not lived above my room.

Living in a college town can be very noisy and almost always at the most inconvenient times; luckily we have Meriam Library

so we can study in peace. My next-door neighbors are in a rock band, and they practice every Wednes-day in the room adjacent to mine. While it gets repetitive to hear them rehearsing the same song time and time again, we are lucky to have a band nearby that will play at our parties.

I also live in very close proxim-ity to several fraternity houses, whose members like to blast music at all hours of the day and night.

After living in the downtown area of Chico for a while, sirens, trains, music, drunken people and car horns become parts of the white noise – the background noise. It all seems worth it, how-ever, because of all the fun and

interesting people I met.Despite the crazy living situa-

tions many people experience in college, it is a great time to meet a lot of people. I’ve met many of my best friends because they were my neighbors at one point or another during my college career.

If you just moved to a new place this semester or if new people just moved in next door or even if you never got to know your neigh-bors, I suggest you do. Living in the same area may not be the only thing you have in common, and you might create great relation-ships with those people.

Ally Dukkers can be reached at

editorinchief@theorion.com

Are your roommates giving you a headache? Check out The Orion Housing Guides for some new places to call home.

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Feb. 1March 7

March 28May 2

Housing Guide 4

Friendship, favors drown out neighbors’ noise

Ben MullinFE ATURES EDITOR

Last week I got up at 5 a.m. to go to work. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt that seemed clean and slogged two miles through the rain to campus.

The long walk was awful, but the fact that I could wake up at 5 a.m. at all was a testament to the benefits of living far from campus. There were no loud parties to keep me up into the wee hours, no broken glass when I took my trash out barefoot the next day and, best of all, no intoxicated people knocking on my door to ask for directions.

Having lived both on West Fourth Avenue and West 21st Street, I have had to study and sleep through earth-moving levels of bass and the sound of would-be ballerinas pirou-etting to the ground outside my window after consuming a truly awe-inspiring volume of alcohol. At long last, I’ve come to the con-clusion that living far away from campus is better, for the following reasons:

Neighbors are kinderThe fi rst time I explored my neighborhood, I

did it for a story. There was a pushy magazine salesperson scamming people out of cash, so it was my job to go door-to-door asking if anyone had seen a door-to-door swindler.

Not the most enviable job.After knocking on several doors, not only

was I given information as to the whereabouts of the scammer, but also a basket of home-grown tomatoes, two literature anthologies and, inexplicably, a two-page manifesto about how California’s prison systems should be reformed.

My immediate neighbors are much nicer than the ones I had when I lived a few minutes from campus. They respect my privacy, share their food and don’t try to get busy against my window.

Heart-healthy walksIt’s easy to become sedentary in Chico,

especially if your primary objective is to sit down and learn as much about the world as you can. Unless you’re a student-athlete, higher education does not prioritize physical

fitness, which is why on the days that it’s not drizzling outside or appendage-freezingly cold, I enjoy making the trek back and forth to my apartment. Putting one foot in front of the other for a half-hour is a nice change of pace, and it’s something I wouldn’t make time for if the distance didn’t force me to.

Safety fi rstOf the 37 robberies that occurred during the

fi rst quarter of 2011, 18 of them occurred in the south-campus area, within a mile of campus, according to crime statistics released by the Chico Police Department. Out of 115 burglaries, 56 of them occurred within a one-mile radius of cam-pus. It might be a farther walk, but I feel safer at night knowing that when I fi nally do get home, both my belongings and I are relatively safe.

Proximity to campus shouldn’t be the only deciding factor when choosing an apartment. Far more important are the people you live by, the things you live around and the safety you live with.

Ben Mullin can be reached at

featureseditor@theorion.com

Home away from campus provides unexpected benefi ts

Mark RojasFE ATURES DESIGNER

Bare walls are not the nicest things to look forward to after a long day of studying. Bring your walls to life with these simple and cheap art projects. They can be cre-ated with a new canvas, leftover project boards or scraps found at yard sales.

Mark Rojas can be reached at

editorinchief@theorion.com

Mixed tapeMaterials:

Masking tape (1-inch wide)• Large paintbrush• Canvas• Paint•

Masking tape is a helpful tool to prevent paint from getting on windowpanes, but it can also provide interesting patterns for painting.

Start by putting strips of tape in various criss-crossing patterns on the canvas. Then, go to town with the paint and the paintbrush,

painting one color in between each of the sectioned-off areas, taking care not to paint under the tape. Once the paint is dry, pull off the strips of tape to see your fi nal product. For contrast, pick a complementary paint color to fi ll in some of the triangles you made prior to removing the tape.

Game hangMaterials:

Old board game• Glue• Hammer• Nails•

At some point you are bound to lose those dice from Monopoly or all the vowels from the Scrabble set. Don’t be hasty to throw it all away. Glue some of the remaining pieces to the game board, grab a hammer and some nails and put it up above your desk as a reminder of good times.

Low-cost crafts turn house into home

Step 2: Apply the paint. Use two tones for contrast

ILLUSTRATIONS BY • MARK ROJAS

Final Product

Step 1: Layout the tape

Housing Guide 6

Crayola meltdown Materials:

Box of crayons• Glue• Newspaper• Hairdryer•

Crayons are a lost art form among the college crowd, but none can argue the magic colorful wax can bring to a blank canvas.

Start by laying out the news-paper at your workstation to prevent unwanted splatter from the melting about to commence.

Next, glue the crayons tip-down on the top of the canvas, evenly spaced and in any order you pre-fer. Darker colors like purple and black will overpower lighter col-ors like yellow and green, so space them out.

Stand the canvas against a box,

table, wall or something else that will not move. Use the hairdryer to melt the crayons down the can-vas until you reach the desired eff ect.

Once all the crayons have been melted, sit back and let it dry for about 20 minutes, then hang.

Alternative option: once dry, hang upside down for a diff erent eff ect

Use strong glue to make sure crayons do not fall when melting

ILLUSTRATIONS BY • MARK ROJAS

Housing Guide 7

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Kacey GardnerMANAGING EDITOR

I don’t know what made me snap out of it. It had to have been partly due to the guilt

I felt about subjecting my roommate, a self-proclaimed neat freak, to the sight of my gag-inducing black hole of a room. I kept the door closed whenever possible, but she knew what was beyond it.

My room truly was a disaster: heaps of clothes covering the entire fl oor; empty glasses each with their own signature crusty fi lm at the bottom abandoned on end tables; dust coating every surface. I avoided the area at all costs, even opting to sleep on the couch.

The mess had accumulated over a period of about four weeks, and in that same amount of time, I had let my mind go, too. Where it went, I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t doing anything productive.

My spiral down into the doldrums started with that one class I decided to skip for one day. Then, one day turned into three days a week, and that one class turned into two. The more class I missed, the harder it seemed to go back. There was so much I had to do, but I couldn’t do it. I had let things build up for too long. There was no foreseeable escape. Time was ticking, and I wasn’t doing anything. I needed to get things in order, but I was tangled in the disarray.

It wasn’t until one afternoon, when I had the apartment to myself, that I decided enough was enough. Finals were less than a week away and I couldn’t bear to have my roommate come home once more and pretend to ignore my stagnation. So, I got off the couch.

The fi rst task was laundry — way too much laundry.

Along with this, I dusted and Windexed and vacuumed. I threw away trash, sterilized the crusty cups, made my bed with new sheets, Febreezed, folded and put away all my clothes,

and fi nally, about fi ve hours later, my bedroom was restored.

As I looked around my room and took in what I had accomplished in this one afternoon that I hadn’t been able to do for a month, I felt the weight of despair lift from my body.

I suddenly felt hopeful again, and ambitious. I no longer felt guilty or depressed or stuck. All of the things my mind had been avoiding were suddenly back and in ranked order, ready to be checked off . It’s amazing what eff ect your envi-ronment can have on your mental state.

This semester, I have a heavy workload. And while I’m hoping to keep things moving and to never again have to tackle such a daunting men-tal and physical clean-up, I now know that no matter how irretrievably stuck I may feel, all it takes to get back on track is getting off the couch and a little spring cleaning.

Kacey Gardner can be reached at

managingeditor@theorion.com

Housing Guide 9

Spring cleaning eliminates stress, messILLUSTRATION BY • LINDSAY SMITH

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Bedroom11122222222222233322223344

Rent500500575675900700800825750585685625800625625

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1000800900925850685785750900725725

130011001050775775

725/75010001350

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Bedroom11111111SSS

Rent575600500550550600650650625500500

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Bedrooms122222222222233333334445556

Rent900775750850675875

1000925650800850975875

120012501200115014001300900

1900180010501900180016501350

Deposit100087585095077597511001025750900950

1075975

13001350130012501500140010002000190011502000190017501450