Nothing screams “self-loathing” quite like choosing to live in Southside for the third year in a row. But it’s not all that bad, although maybe I’m just saying that because I never leave. I swear I’m returning to a primitive amoeba-like state now that all my classes are virtual. We’re only three weeks in and already I’m going crazy. The only time I leave my suite is to pick up my weekly Connections soup, left in a small package at my door by either my neighbor or whoever I bullied into doing it via the WRUR Discord server.

What doesn’t help my slowly creeping insanity is that every night, around 12:16 a.m., the person living above me drops a pen on the floor.

Of course, this seems very small and insignificant, and I don’t technically know that it’s a pen either. But despite all logic, THIS is the main culprit of my fury. Not the sludge that continues to leak from my ceiling onto my toothbrush. Not the light switch that turns back on if you push it down too far. Not the noise of the elevator that sounds like a gremlin moaning (from pain or pleasure I’m still not sure). No. The pen that drops above my head and taps across the floor every night. THAT is what drives me loony.

And apparently, the person living above my suitemate’s room ALSO does this, but it occurs around her bedtime, 11:12 p.m.

So what’s the deal? Is it code? Are the two suitemates living above us communicating? Are they competing to see who can make the person below them psychotic first? Do people even live above us? Is it all in our heads? Maybe there’s something in the Southside water.

The noises have gotten weirder lately too! I mean last night it sounded like they had snuck a six-footed elephant into their room (Hey! No guests allowed!), given it a jar of peanut butter, only to find out it had a nut allergy, and rushed to find its EpiPen as it wheezed and crashed to the floor.

I would LOVE to know what is happening up there, but like I said, I don’t leave my room and that floor is completely off-limits. So I guess I’ll never find out. 

But still, it’s really f***ing annoying.



Mystery upstairs: What’s that noise?

In anticipation of 2026’s graduation ceremony, the Campus Times conducted an interview with upcoming Commencement speaker Jeannine Shao Collins ’86. Collins, who earned a bachelor's degree in economics from URochester, currently works as the Chief Client Officer at Kargo: a multiplatform advertising and media company. Read More

Mystery upstairs: What’s that noise?

Through a live demonstration and tasting, Chef Dede prepared fried chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, and collard greens – dishes rooted in Black Southern history. Students leaned in as she explained the methods and care that go into each plate. Read More

Mystery upstairs: What’s that noise?

The first realization of my own age hit me in the months before I started college. I was helping my dad clean the small office he’d occupied in Rush Rhees longer than I’d been alive. The walls of which boasted childhood drawings that my sister and I had crayoned. Even though I was looking at my distant past, I realized I would soon be starting a new page of my future. Read More