The Thornton Effect

Been living in a room with barely any furniture sleeping on a floor in a pile of my bagged personal belongings. I can't wait to move into my new place, set up and just live there. After living on campus three years in the "mature" upperclassmen student house at Mount Allison University I can't wait to just BE in my OWN space. Those three years in Thornton were awesome though and I wouldn't take it back for the world. Now for summer. Being in a new place, being in a new space will be great. After three years in residence not counting summers was a truly amazing experience and the things you learn about other people, learn about yourself, learn about society and learn about the individual will propel me forward for a long, long time. There's even something I call the "Thornton Effect" and looking back I'm not sure if I coined the term exactly but I know I had it's effect in my life. To define something as amorphous as the Thornton Effect isn't easy per se but I'll give it a shot. A house like Thornton houses roughly eighty five people from multiple countries, multiple political backgrounds from all over Canada. Many different personalities all packed into one of the smallest houses on campus who have to get along, or at least coexist in the same cohabitat for eight months. So what it is is that when all these people first get together the first two weeks is like a hormonal dustup social shakedown with people's jigs and jags clashing in a wonderful smash of social friction. Friendships are made, people butt heads, people make their initial reputations for better or worse. Bold leaders emerge, blind followers follow. People's imperfections almost caricture and cartoonize individuals and reputations are built. If you're a whiny person you'll be see as negative. If you drink all the time you'll be seen as self destructive. If you are friendly and supportive people will want you around. In time individuals figure out it's easier to be easygoing and accept people's differences rather than taking a stand on every issue and pissing everybody off. Essentially people learn that they have to make sense, they figure out that their actions affect others and these reactions come back, good or bad, to the origin of the source. A good example was when I was talking at the dinner table with a fellow Thorntonite and I told her my age and she said, "You're SO OLD!" I took it in stride, she was twenty but a VERY mentally young twenty and I didn't feel like calling her on it. Can you imagine meeting someone of African descent and saying right in their face, "You're SO BLACK!" or meeting an overweight person and saying loudly in their face, "You're SO FAT!" She was totally oblivious in every way that she discriminated against me because of something I couldn't control. My age. I'm proud of my age, my experiences, my travels and even proud of my flaws. A few months later I called her on it ad she was a little embarressed but in time she understood how and why people see each other. Not for what we are (tall, short, thick, thin, white, black, yellow, red, straight, gay, athletic, overweight) but for what we do to others. University isn't high school and if the one thing I learned in university so far is that what you do follows you, how you treat people is how they'll treat you and being oblivious to others will bring about some humbling experiences but the best part is is that we can learn from them. If you don't learn from them due to pride you will be seen as socially self destructive by the majority and avoided by most. The golden rule really pays off, I just wish more people knew it. After spending time in Thornton I'd say people are more considerate, more easygoing, more aware and have more true confidence than they did the first day they walked in there. I believe in the Thornton Effect and hope that it lives on.