The question I'm most often asked when people find out I live at Mary Foust is: "Is it as strange over there as everyone says?" Maybe it is.

     One morning this year I woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep. This was particularly upsetting in that it was a Tuesday (my first class at 10 a.m.) and he most taxing item on my list of early morning tasks was the roll onto my side that would be required at around 6:30 to avoid the sun that would begin spilling in through my window. But once I'm awake I'm awake for the day, and so I thought I might as well get a shower, have some orange juice and start early.

     I stepped out into the hallway in only a towel - the bathroom being only a few feet from my door. Usually I can make the trek quickly, without anyone catching a glimpse of what I look like before a shower and a shave. Not this time, though.

"Come to join us?" came the whisper. A female voice.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the light and there they were ... a half dozen of my neighbors sitting bright eyed and bushy tailed in a circle on the floor, chatting it up at 4 a.m.

"Um ...Hi..." I stumbled. "It is 4 a.m., isn't it?"

"Shank of the evening," one of them said. "Sit down and settle an argument for us..."

     Turned out the lot of them were up before the sun because they'd never been to bed. They had been up all night discussing "gender roles" and their origins. Was the white wedding dress a deep insult to the woman who wears it and an anachronism besides? Do men watch sports because their fathers teach them to? Is "virginity" a misogynistic social construct?

     Turns out this was a discussion that started in a Core class last semester and keeps cropping up every few weeks, sparking a late night session like this one.

     "Foust Chats" take place everywhere --hallways, bathrooms, under trees outside on our lawn and in the Ashby Parlor, the great soft womb of our home. The topics can be political or philosophical, religious or ridiculous. They're bull sessions full of half-formed notions, strange questions, amusing gossip and bald-faced lies. They're times for leaning back and letting go - reflecting on and processing rather than absorbing and regurgitating information. They're less about what we know than who we are and what we mean.

     It's these sorts of talks that are at the heart of a University's purpose - and I find more and more that they're disappearing in the electronic hum of stereos, television sets, video game systems and the seductive ease of e-mail. As the world becomes smaller and we all become more distant from one another, a University - or at least a small corner of a University, like my home - should remain a place where personal connections are still important and where learning and growing is an organic process, a give and take.