Limber up and flex your inner selfish tendencies because it’s that time of year when all you can do is look out for number one. It’s the housing lottery and we asked our first year writers to react to their first experience involving this animalistic, bureaucratic ritual.

“Friends ditching each other, boys paying their way to the top, first years getting senior numbers to live in new apps, and a rare case of someone faking mental illness to get a single south—I know it’s messed up. The claws have truly come out during this year’s housing lottery. It seems to be such a visceral and emotional experience for everyone around me—almost a fight to the death. Very Hunger Games-esque. As a first year, initially I expected to be apart of this mess, but then I decided to join archons and everything changed for the better. This was probably one of the smartest decisions I’ve made here at Kenyon in order to avoid the talons and backstabbing that I’ve been privy to from an outside perspective. Honestly thank god for division housing. It plucked me right out of the lottery and into a spacious room in Hanna with my two best friends. I truly have no complaints. I’m just quite sympathetic to everyone who is scrambling desperately to make it through this years hunger games and a little less sympathetic to the ditchers, spenders, moochers, and fakers.” –Izzy Michels

“To me, the housing lottery holds an almost mythological status in my mind. A nightmare I’ve created after hearing snippets of conversation in the servery or on the second floor library. Buzzwords like “a mob” or “bribery–I’m talking four digits.” float through my head. I even overheard a girl telling her friend that, “even if you don’t need to go you should just go to watch. I mean you’ll probably never see more people in a room at once ever.” I think I might have discovered the secret to winning the housing lottery: don’t enter. My roommate got offered a space in a taft cottage and invited me to room with her again next year. I felt like I won the lottery and I didn’t even know I had entered. I’m not sure if I should be ashamed or proud to say that I still have no idea how the housing lottery even works, all I know is that I got an email confirming my living situation next year.” –Dylan Manning

“I don’t have to deal with the housing lottery. I got a single in Leonard division as a sophomore, which is truly a dream. I do have a tight 89 square foot room which everybody lovingly calls the Shoebox, but truly, I have no complaints. I have been able to rest easy without the hypothetical anxiety dreams of living in a Mather triple or something awful like that. When I got the email from my CA with the left over rooms for sophomores, I could feel an immediate sense of stress come over me, but alas, because I have paid for my friends in my sorority, I have a calm, cool peace of mind.” –Reilly Wieland

So it turns out they all had is pretty goddamn good…