Places and Spaces

I remember one summer a while back when my family rented a private villa in Jamaica and we had a cook, maid, and a driver. It was paradise, nothing was more welcoming then having Adele cook pumpkin soup and prepare dinner while the family sat out by the pool and played cards. Wait a second, I’m stuck here in 2 East 8th, that’s like nature’s candy (grapes), sweet!
Without furniture you could confuse my room for Cell Block 2114 with a view of the Sears tower, but it does strangely feel welcoming in a strange Ikea sort of way. There is fitting wooden furniture about, a TV, a Table for two and a Kitchen area. All the basics of one of the cheaper rooms available at Columbia College. So it’s interesting to see the other room types that my fellow gamers have, and how they utilize this space.
My neighbor has a lovely apartment with a Bar, and no intrusive columns sticking up in his room. The kitchen area is something you would see out of MTV cribs sans the shiny awesomely expensive fridge. “Enough about the room Kyle, how welcomed is gaming in the room,” well I’ll tell you what, he does have it decorated to his liking. On an entire wall he has enough movie and game posters to make a movie theatre jealous. The other wall has the average size TV against it, with all his consoles decorated above his desk where I put my printer.
The cleanliness of his room is absolutely amazing, it should be photographed and put in a brochure for 2 East 8th to trick people into thinking that all the rooms look like that. The lighting also makes the room just shine, anyone can walk into the room and just feel comfortable, you would never second guess where you would want to sit or place your personal stuff. The room looks as though it was intended for a lot of people to be able to congregate in there, but he doesn’t utilize this space. Because he’s a hardcore gamer he doesn’t have a lot of people over, people will even ask me about him, “he’s that kid that lives across the hall from you?”
With some more wireless controllers for his Game Cube he could have a serious bachelor pad, it just looks like the perfect example of a place you could have fun. The windows are huge and allow and abundance of light in during the day, which includes a view of the lake. The place is clean in every sense of the word, smells, looks, feels (I don’t dare taste but I’m willing to bet it does) clean. So while the room looks inviting because he doesn’t have many people over it’s not very inviting since no one is invited over or has ever seen the place other than me.
On the other hand you have my other neighbors whose room isn’t exactly the cleanest, and smells like cigarettes, and occasionally like potpourri. While this doesn’t sound inviting the people who live in the room are more inviting. They always throw parties, and have the Play Station readily available, however they are casual gamers, so the games are mixed in with the DVD cases and occasionally strewn about. But it gets the job done, everything from the old controller to the awesome sound system connected to the Play Station 2 to give their DVD’s and games an amazingly rich sound.
A big game they play there is Winning Eleven 8 which is part of arguably the best soccer series in gaming. It’s so good it inspired the boys to play indoor soccer in their room, which I can assure the rooms are definitely not built for any strenuous activity. The walls aren’t very thick, as the boys can testify this because as a result from indoor soccer they have a peculiarly soccer ball size hole in the wall.
Gaming fits about anywhere in life, best example is in the hallways before classes you’ll see the occasional student with a Game Boy or a Play Station Portable jamming out to some games before class starts. The fun doesn’t have to stay in the room anymore; even I care my PSP with me everywhere. With WiFi readily available on campus it’s even easier to access all the rich features the PSP and Nintendo DS have to offer. From surfing the Internet right before class, to playing my neighbor as he sits in the comfort of his room. The future of gaming is looking to take over your living space and to even expand beyond the confining space of the family room.