Choosing your housing

Picking a place requires lots of planning and forethought

If you're having trouble making rent, getting financial aid in time to pay for your dorm room, or moving out of your parents' house, consider this: as University of Hawaii president, your housing would be completely free.

However, it looks like President Mortimer will be in office for another three years, so you'll have to make a decision on where to live until then.

Basically there are three options: on-campus, off-campus, or with your folks.

Living off-campus may sound like the most fun, -- after all, you get to come and go as you please, you don't even have to go to sleep if you don't want to, and it's up to you if you want to drink straight out of the milk carton.

Unfortunately, here's also a downside to this free-for-all lifestyle. As the number of roommates increases, the probability of that any one of you will clean the bathrooms decreases.

The bathroom dilemma is solved by staying in the non-apartment dormitories, such as Gateway House, because the cleaning staff takes care of all that domestic stuff.

Of course, one of the prerequisites to living in the traditional dorms is a Sodexho-Marriot food plan, which may or may not fit your eating habits.

The Wainani and Noelani dorms are designed for the more independent students -- the ones that have pots and pans and whose cooking repertoire extends beyond cold cereal and toast.

Spending four months in close quarters with a lunatic you don't even get to choose and can't escape from may sound remarkably close to doing time in jail, and probably isn't too far off the mark.

Unfortunately, that the same problem students face living at home. If your mother's the kind of person that makes you wash the plastic wrap and double-bag the garbage before you take it out to the curb, take comfort in ths: sooner or later, you will be free.

It'll only take $300 to $400 a month in rent, and you too can have your very own room once again.

But that's just the problem, isn't it? Sure, you could spend umpteen billion dollars on rent for your own pad, but you have a room with your folks that costs you nil, and you get to use the "nice" car from time to time. Not only that, the bathrooms is pretty much a "mildew-free" zone.

So between the three options, you've got a lot to think about. Each one has their pros and cons, so decide carefully where you want to stay.

And if you think Mortimer has it easy, consider how he feels waking up and seeing a virtual fence made out of students' cars outside his house every morning.