As if agonizing weeks of apartment hunting weren’t torture enough, I spent every second of last week in Residential Advisor training. A typical day started with semi-mandatory breakfast at 8:30 (or sleeping through breakfast and starting sessions at 9 or 9:30) and ended around midnight as I fell asleep over my door tags. In addition to learning all about how to break up parties, what to do with disorderly residents, and who to contact if I have problems, I discovered a lot about my fellow RAs: Who is dating whom? Who is willing to sprint from 1020 to Hartley-Wallach to get a glimpse of Chase Crawford filming an episode of Gossip Girl? Who rocks at trivia? Which nerd was the first to finish door tags and bulletin boards, and which slacker was last? Who went to art school before coming to Columbia? During a session about sexual violence, who actually asked what to do if a sexual assault is the victim’s fault? (It took all my willpower not to punch that girl in the face.) Who got in trouble four separate times for having a banned air conditioning unit? (That might have been me.)

Ok, fine, the gossip was mostly far from riveting, but it’s hard to be scandalous when you spend your days doing role-plays about disciplining students for every possible infraction. Check out the photos for more excitement…