Trancos

There is something wildly exciting about living in an all frosh dorm.

To begin with, the kids are ridiculous. Our dorm includes physics geniuses, musicians, cooks, dancers, writers, a 15 year old (already in college), a photographer of royal blood (some great-great-great^10 grandson of an Indian king), and a second floor student with parakeets at home named Voldemort and Darth Vader. We also have someone whose family dreams about having their teeth fall out, two fencers (whom I’ve made sure in self-defense to become friends with - one of them will that say she beats me at pool, but I go easy because I don’t want a saber stuck through my gut), and a floor of guys for whom ping pong is a secret way of existence.

The kids are ridiculous - but the dorm, equally so. We’re madly in love with billiards and singing “I’ll make a man out of you” at 2 AM in the morning. We sip “Tea with the PHE” (our peer health educator) weekly and practice whistling acapella (Stanford’s newest underground whistling acapella group in the nonexistent underground whistling acapella scene). We hoard candy, find steam tunnels, and climb roofs. There’s always some question on the first floor white board (“Who was your starter pokemon?” “Vote yes for Stanford Separatist Movement.” “Rank the 1st Floor in Ping Pong Rankings.”). Third floor is playing Secret Santa, first floor is playing white elephant, and who knows what the all girls second floor is doing. It’s too quiet for studying going on, so I think they are planning a massive invasion of the neighboring dorm Soto.

We’re taking classes from “Humor in Music” to “Trapeze” and on a single night, we crack at code and pull hair out over chemistry. We shower each other at midnight on birthdays and yell “T-R-A-N-C-O-S Trancos is the f***ing best every time” our “Tramily” rolls out. We wear formal clothes in the mess hall on “Formal Fridays” to make everyone else in the dining halls look underdressed.

And yet, in all of this hubbub, there is togetherness. There is a family. In the late night conversations and pillow talk and moments between pool games, there is a friendship - the kind that I wasn’t used to forming so quickly in high school. I often thought that closeness takes time, but when you live with 80 other people, you have no choice but to make each other your own.

We learn together and live together. For many of us, the transition to college has been a difficult process - academically and culturally. But you know a place has become your home when you start dreaming about it when you really home over break - even if the dream involves you having a 6 - 0 lead in ping pong over your close Singaporean friend who has beaten you every ping pong game in the last 8 weeks.

There’s something about coming back to the dorm at 2:30 AM and finding Trancos in the same condition as you left it at 10 PM. The same Disney music, the same hair tearing, the same pool games, and the same Tramily.

Trancos <3 and Tramily forever.