Review #7 - Hansee Hall

Welcome back, dear readers. I’m not dead, despite your hopes. Rather, I’ve just been floundering about, without creative spark. Blog post after blog post has been half-written, and fully deleted. These posts have been written from the comfort of my cozy little Hansee Hall room here at the University of WashingtscrewWSU. So for my next attempt at writing a post, I’d like to review Hansee Hall, UW’s oldest dorm.

            Hansee Hall is an Amazonian woman of a building. Made of brick, nothing can topple this building, save for the impending 10.5 earthquake that Seattle is overdue for. It’s situated in the University’s beautiful and wooded north campus, just minutes away from the north dining hall, tourist central the Quad, and the University Village Capitalism Center. The numerous surrounding trees means you can hear the soft sounds of birds chirping, drowned out only by the constant daytime construction and nighttime drunk frat boys and sorority girls. The Tudor architecture gives the dorm a homey, Ivy league feel, so you can pretend like you were actually accepted into your target school.

Hansee Hall in the winter months, covered in a blanket of downtown Seattle traffic accidents.

            The hall was built in the 1930s, which is evident from the interior. The four lounges are spacious and inviting, with secondhand couches and two grand pianos sitting atop the hardwood floors. There is a game room called “The Stagger Inn”, which houses a secondhand pool table, thirdhand pool cues, a ping pong table, and a foosball table. The room is far larger than it needs to be, leading to a vacant and empty feeling gnawing away at you as you fruitlessly knock pool balls around in an attempt to suppress the stresses of your college life. I mean, you’re only in college now, so the stress of daily life can only get worse, right? Existence is pointless anyway, and who’s to say you weren’t just placed on this Earth at this exact moment in time, artificially filled with false memories of earlier life? Not to mention the fact that you’re spending thousands of dollars to get a piece of paper that allows you to get a job which you’ll use to pay off your student loans for years and contribute to a fake and superficial capitalistic society in order to further suppress the feelings you have and attempt to replace them with material items like a new rug or a car you can’t really afford but it doesn’t matter because that’s what society tells you to do so you do it. There is also a TV lounge.

            The rooms are chock-full of amenities, such as a radiator for heating, shelves, a desk, a dresser, a mirror to hate your appearance with, and a beautiful antique armoire. Every room has a harsh overhead light that contributes to your insomnia, but the two outlets in the room means you can plug in a lamp if necessary. Also included in the rooms are ethernet and television hookups, both of which are included in the exorbitant cost of living here.

The average Hansee female's habitat. I downloaded this from the official HFS website. I'm not a creep. 

            Male and female bathrooms are separate, and their positions were apparently determined by a random number generator. It is often the case that two same-gendered bathrooms are literally beside each other, while the nearest opposite-gendered bathroom is farther away. Each bathroom has two stalls, a shower, and a bath. The shower and bath are each in a separate little room to allow for maximum privacy and maximum frustration wHEN PEOPLE CLOSE THE SHOWER DOOR AFTER FINISHING THEIR SHOWER LIKE I CAN JUST SEE THROUGH IT TO TELL IF SOMEONE IS IN THERE! DID I MENTION THEY DO THE SAME THING WITH THE STALL DOORS WHICH REACH THE GROUND SO IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL IF A STALL IS OCCUPIED? DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON LEAVING THE BATHROOM ENTRANCE DOOR OPEN WHILE I’M IN THERE, AS IF THEY WOULD WANT SOMEONE TO LEAVE THE DOOR TO THE HALL OPEN WHILE THEY’RE USING THE TOILET THEMSELVES. OH AND THE LIGHTS CAN JUST STAY ON ALL THE TIME ACCORDING TO MY FLOORMATES! WHO NEEDS TO TURN OFF THE BATHROOM LIGHTS IN A DORM WHICH HAD ITS ELECTRICITY INSTALLED IN THE 1930S?! Hansee Hall is the smallest dorm on campus, yet also consumes the most energy. Please turn off all lights when not in use. And as a courtesy to the next person to use the bathroom, leave all unused stall doors open. Thank you.

If you look closely, you can see a hidden door in the wall behind the pianist.
Kept behind the door are the hopes and dreams of every freshman intended-CS major.

            My final piece of consideration when it comes to living in Hansee is the social atmosphere, or the sense of community. Hansee houses roughly all of the socially awkward residents, and a few who just don’t like roommates. Due to this, the sense of community in Hansee is about as strong as my love life – weak, sad, and littered with failed attempts at fostering it. Don't even try. It's all a sham.

            Overall, I give Hansee a solid 8/10. It’s not perfect, but it’s far better per dollar spent than any other dorm, plus you get your own room in which nobody can tell you that your Star Wars Death Trooper action figure is lame and nerdy.

            This is Niles, signing off. Until next time. Stay cynical.