I've avoided writing this, my 50th post on this site, for want of something to write about. Actually it hasn't been the lack of topics but the wealth of them; and picking the right one to express what I felt about it.
as most of you know, I'm a resident advisor in one of the dorms at my school. 56 people live on my floor. 56 people coming from different lives and backgrounds and ways of thinking and all of them collecting here on my floor. What happens with 56 people come together to live? What happens when 4 come together (hopefully) coexist? Now all four individual personalities are under 4 equal microscopes. The values of one are weighed against the values of another in a constant--yet silent--struggle of "who is right?"
A week ago one of my residents came to me complaining that the fourth roomate was not working out. He was brining people over, letting strangers in at all hours of the night, and smoking marijuana on the balcony. The first resident was not happy. I told him to talk about it as a room try to sort it out and talk to the fourth roomate, then if it didn't work to come back to me. They came back the next time telling me it still wasn't working. I tried to help them as much as I could but our system does not allow for a majority rule. Everyone has a fair chance at CSUN.
An hour ago there was a loud banging on my door, I jumped out of bed and tore open the door (expecting it to be a prank) when to my suprise my resident was standing the yelling about calling the cops. Three peope had pinned the fourth roomate down while the first was yelling at me about the fight that had just happened. It felt like seconds before the cops were arriving on the scene and taking contorl (I was glad to give it up).
These guys, the firs three roomates, came to me asking me to fix the situation. I pointed out all the recourses available to them, I did everything in my power to allieviate the situation. But our system does not take sides--it does not decide who is right. Our system is put in place to help residents find mutual ground to respectfully coexsist without killing each other. So if it boiled down to a fight tonight did the system fail? If there was a death threat did the system fail? I've done everything in my power to alieviate the situation and still the police showed up on my floor tonight. I know I haven't failed as an RA, in fact I've done everything I was taught to do. But I still can't swallow away these nagging questions:
Is there a point in which the values of one outweigh the values of another?
Who is right?
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1 comment:
I am so, so sorry you have had to deal with so much. Those are such difficult questions to answer for so many different reasons- there's no way to be sure who is right, and sometimes the system set in place to help guide and protect does in fact, fail. However, the answers may lie in knowing that you did everything you could and everything you were supposed to do. You know you didn't fail, and at the end of the day that's what is important.
I know that's probably not helpful, but I believe in you, and you're doing the best you can. And you're, well, perfect for this job. So just keep swimming, just keep swimming...
<3 you. And <4 you.
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