A Slice of Life at Rowan: The Freshmen and the Dancing Portal

As I entered The Game Room in the Rowan University student center, right behind Wow Wingery, I heard the rhythm of stomping shoes. As I moved closer I heard video game sound effects. I saw bright lights and a small stage. Three students were mesmerized by the machine craeting these noises and lights. But they weren’t talking. There was so speaking while these students bounced and skipped on this mini stage in The Food Court. It was a serious game of Dance Dance Revolution.

The screen with many moving arrows indicating which direction to move your feet in makes me dizzy. But to these students the DDR machine was a portal. A portal away from The Food Court and away from Rowan. Perhaps it was a way for them to escape the stress of their school work and the hustle and bustle of The Food Court. They were there to just have fun for a little while before returning to their busy college-student lives.

The girl was tall with a long straight brunette ponytail. She was wearing black sweatpants that clung at the bottom and a gray v-neck workout shirt. She was there with her friend, DJ, whose name I heard her say later. He’s wearing gray sweatpants and a light blue t-shirt with the phrase “kill me now on it.” He must be a theater junkie because Rowan had a production called Kill Me Now in this beginning of last semester, which is coincidentally about the ultimate dance competition. You could tell these two were friends and it seemed as if they dressed in athletic clothing and brought water bottles and workout bags just for the occasion of playing DDR. This was their workout for the day, their time to have fun. 

The other guy that participated in DDR was not their friend. They met him right then and there. 

“Are you a freshman?” asked DJ.

The guy nodded his head.

“Us too,” said DJ.

The other guy was wearing a gray winter hat, gray shirt, khakis and white sneakers. Dark long hair was peeping out from under his hat. He even carried a towel which he used to wipe his face…that’s how you know you are a true Dance Dance Revolutionary. The towel doubled as a cushion on the railing behind the stage which he leaned against.   

The guy with the hat had a different style than the two friends. He used the railing for support and didn’t dance as much as the other two did. He stomped or shuffled his feet more. The two friends were super energetic. They had the rhythm of the steps down to a science.

While the girl and the guy with the hat took the stage, DJ followed along by doing all of the moves on point behind them on the floor. The two friends had more of a bouncy rhythm and relied on the balls of their feet most of the time.

“I can’t get the rhythm to this one,” said the girl. This was the only words that were spoken during a song. She was the most vocal out of the three and after one of the songs she lunged towards the DDR box and slightly grabbed it and shook it while saying, “Oh my God!” I guess she didn’t like that round very much.

Meanwhile I tried to casually play ski ball and ping pong with my friend so I wouldn’t look like I was obviously eavesdropping. Luckily my friend and I are bad at ping pong and the ball kept rolling by the dancers so I could get a closer look at the concentration and skill they had. Sometimes it was hard to hear their conversations over the other rowdy gamers in The Game Room.

The three of them also bonded over a game of some kind that was on the guy with the hat’s phone. It made me think of how easy it was to bond with people freshman year and how exciting it was to meet new people who shared your interests.

They never noticed me. They were too consumed by the portal that allowed them to escape Rowan. DJ walked away after a while and the girl said,  “DJ all you’re stuff’s over there,” as she pointed to the side of the machine. I guess he was too concentrated on getting food or maybe he suddenly remembered something he had to do and he almost forgot to take his things.

Eventually the two friends walked away and the guy with the hat continued to play on his own. Stomping his feet to the beat of the video game music and flashing arrows, completed consumed by the machine and oblivious to the busy world around him, at least for a little while longer.