Interesting. Yes. *murmurs*. Well, I may be blogging pretty often these days, but those thoughts just pop up in my mind when I least expect them. Let me connect the dots here.

College students need Feng Shui.
College students need Feng Shui..
Coliege syudeits nred Deng Shoi...
Colgeie stuidens nerd Fdmg Sjuo....

Ok, now that I've repeated that little rune about three times too many, affecting my ability to go back and correct my obvious typos, I will gladly move on and explain a few principles about Feng Shui that every college student needs to know.

1. Feng Shui has been around for more than four thousand years, so let's say Feng Shui was founded in 2,000 BCE. So, the idea of college is pretty new, what with Nalanda University and Takshashila University, both in India, founded around 700 BCE. Amazing. But the point is, if Feng Shui has been around for 4,000 years, it must have something that sticks.

2. Chi Energy. Chi energy is like karma, sort of. Different societies have totally different names for it, but you've probably heard of it. Ki is the Japanese word for chi, but the concept is the same. Chi energy is a life force, sort of, that flows through us as human beings and through all the stuff that surrounds us. Chi energy holds that as we move through the world, we are definitely not self-contained beings- we change and interact with the world we're living in. Sorta like a metaphysical 12 Monkeys meets The Butterfly Effect kinda rush, y'know. So everything has chi energy.

Chi energy doesn't pretend to move at a standardized pace, and it can run too fast, or become slow and stagnant, depending on your circumstances at the time. You need to be surrounded by healthy, free-flowing chi to feel more free from material stuff. With blocked chi energy, you might oversleep and miss your classes, or feel much less motivated than usual. If your room's totally cluttered, then yeah, your chi energy's gonna take a downward spiral, and you'll feel sorta out of step.

3. The generic college dormitory environment generally sucks. What everybody agrees on about dorms are that they're great social places, especially the ones at Gallaudet. But what about chi energy, you say? Of course, it depends on what you're talking about. So:

a.clerc hall
If you live in Clerc, you probably know that you have a little more
space to practice Feng Shui with- you have at least one bedroom, the living
room, and the bathroom at your disposal. Of course, if you want to create a
shrine to Dr. Benjamin Bahan in your coat closet, that requires some Feng
Shui know-how, too...

b.benson hall
If you live in Benson, you're sort of limited. Of course, you could
petition Campus Life and your floor RA in an effort to allow you to apply
your Feng Shui moves to the public bathrooms, but at least you've got your
spacious bedroom complete with a long window to play with, if your
roommate's willing, of course.

c.ballard west/krug & ballard north/cogswell
Krug and Cogswell... humble abodes for the Class of '09, and a
few measly RAs. You're in the same situation as a Bensoner. You got your
room, but you have less floor space to play with, since you have two built-
in closets and if your roomie is the devil incarnate (a'la Meghan from
Felicity) you'll have a few fruit bats and wiccan spells to banish
before you can submit your room completely to your Feng Shui doings.

d.carlin hall
You're a victim of one of the most quiet dorms ever on campus. Welcome to
Carlin. Ok, maybe that's a good thing. I'm all for quiet studying,
but your chi energy will be seriously disrupted, and your yin'll overwhelm
your yang. But good news, you have the troublesome foyer and small bathroom
to completely revamp in a Feng Shui sense. Depending on your digs, you might
have a small bedroom that's just screaming for a makeover, or a double room
that already has a very tacky huge wall mirror that might prove a little bit
troublesome.

e.peet hall
Ok, so Peet has disadvantages- it's far from the other dorms on
campus, and people hate walking back and forth- but isn't that really an
advantage? Don't Peet residents get all that exercise walking? But of
course, they're pretty close to the library, so they don't have to lug loads
of heavy books half-across campus. Plus, art majors only need to roll out of
bed and walk across the street to Washburn in the mornings! Peeters
only have their rooms to worry about, and they're not that tough to handle.
The only thing is, the drawers are built in so they're not going anywhere.
But they prove to be excellent spots for aquariums!

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for watching. This concludes Feng Shui and College, Part I. We'll be right back after those messages from our sponsor.