Week Six Part Fourteen: Pinenut Plaza Dormitory and Zeta Zeta Epsilon Greek House

Marion Landgraab: 25 years old. Aspiration: Pleasure. LTW: 50 1st Dates. Astrological sign: Gemini.

Jacqueline Riedmayer: 23 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. LTW: Become the Law. Astrological sign: Aquarius.

Gretchen Riedmayer: 23 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. LTW: Become Space Pirate. Astrological sign: Aries.

Jaden Kules: 22 years old. Aspiration: Knowledge. LTW: Become Space Pirate. Astrological sign: Scorpio.

Margaret Landgraab: 19 years old. Aspiration: Popularity. LTW: Have 20 Simultaneous Best Friends. Astrological sign: Gemini.

Sarah Pons: 17 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. LTW: Become the Law. Astrological sign: Aries.

Ingrid Riedmayer: 17 years old. Aspiration: Fortune. LTW: Become Chief of Staff. Astrological sign: Gemini.
Family trees:
Jaden
Jackie and Gretchen
Marion and Maggie 
Sarah and Ingrid

"Magical"
narrated by Sarah Pons

The year I went to college, there were seven of us...six girls and one guy. We were supposed to live in Sim State Dormitory, but we ended up getting moved after the first week because they needed to fumigate it...bugs or something.

Anyway, while they were getting our new rooms at Pinenut Plaza Dorm ready for us, we killed the time shopping for clothes. I mean, what else are six girls going to do with a few spare hours? I think Jaden looked at cell phones the whole time we were there.

Even though Jaden really didn't get our collective obsession with fashion, the seven of us were soon really close. I knew almost everybody before, 'cause I'm related to almost everybody, but seeing them around town wasn't the same as living with them.

Of course, it wasn't all socialization. We all kept our noses to the grindstone pretty well, in fact, and maintained 4.0 averages.

After our freshman year, we moved over to the Greek House with Douglas Long, who had been there the year before the rest of us. While we were moving in, this random cheerleader girl kept trying to strike up a conversation with me. Douglas says she hangs around all the time but has never actually tried to pledge or anything.

Jaden and Douglas bunked together in the mens' dormitory; I think Jaden was happy to have somebody who wasn't always talking about shoes and makeup. The women's dormitory wasn't big enough for all of us girls, so we switched around between that and the two double rooms.

Not long after we moved in, Jaden and Gretchen started going out together. They worked together in high school, so they've known each other forever, and they have a lot of common interests. I was super happy for them. (In addition to them both being my friends, Gretchen is my first cousin twice removed. I know that doesn't seem very close, but family loyalty runs deep in the Riedmayers.)

Speaking of family...I always felt bad for my cousin Ingrid. She had kind of a rough childhood and was very moody and withdrawn for a long time. She really blossomed in the Greek house, though. Sometimes I even caught her doing lighthearted things like juggling.

She also gave us all makeovers regularly. I think even Jaden let her cut his hair a few times.

Ingrid wasn't so happy when the secret society came to abduct her. I guess she hadn't been paying attention to the rest of us getting snatched one by one, because she thought she was genuinely getting abducted and almost broke this guy's nose hitting him with the back door. We managed to calm her down and she still got into the Landgraab Society.

Jaden and Gretchen were still going strong...

And I had started a little something with Douglas.

The only crisis we had was the one time Marion set herself on fire. We're not sure what happened...maybe some grease got on her clothes? Anyway, most of us were studying upstairs when it happened. Maggie ran down first to help.

Douglas ran down to help too. We didn't all want to get in the way, but he could tell that Maggie was panicking. Fortunately, the fireman also arrived quickly and Marion manged to survive with nothing but minor burns...a small miracle, considering.

I don't know if maybe that put Jaden in mind of his own mortality, but at any rate later on that year he took Gretchen down to the Crypt O' Night Club. It's not the most romantic place, if you ask me, but Gretchen told me about it later and said that while they were having drinks at the bar Jaden told her that his parents had met each other at that very bar, about thirty years previously. She thought that the evening was magical even with the creepy atmosphere.

After they had a few drinks, a table opened up and they had dinner. After they ate, Jaden proposed. Gretchen was expecting it (I mean, they'd known each other about ten years and been dating for five...) but she said it was still an amazing and emotional experience, hearing him declare his devotion to her.

Jaden got the DJ to put on some slow songs for them, and they danced the night away before coming home to the Greek house.

Around the same time, Ryker--he graduated from ZZE a few years before we started--came to visit, and when Jackie went out to greet him he bent down and kissed her hand.

From then on, the two of them spent pretty much all our parties making out.

Again, I hasten to reassure you all that we didn't spend all our time making out and going on dates. A lot of our "dates" involved heading up to the computer lab in the attic and seeing who could finish their term paper the fastest. Maggie usually won the race, but then she had to spend a lot of hours editing, whereas Jaden and Douglas could crank out perfectly polished essays in the first try. (Not 'cause they're guys. Just 'cause they're super nerdy and the rest of us aren't so much.)

Douglas graduated while the rest of us still had one year to go. I was really proud of him--he got a 4.0 and all sorts of honors--but also really sad to see him go.

Maybe I shoudn't have been, but I was actually surprised when he called me over and got down on one knee...right there in his graduation gown, with the photographer snapping pictures all the while. Good thing I was dressed up from having just attended the graduation ceremony. I said yes, of course. It was wonderful to know that our separation would be brief...Douglas told me after he proposed that he had gotten some land just down the street from my parents. He'd supervise the building of our house, and then we could get married as soon after my graduation as I wanted.

After Douglas left, we had an open space in the house (it's against the law to have more than 8 people in a rental) so we asked a girl named Anna Jeffress to pledge. She and I had been friends for a while, and became even better friends afterwards.

I know Jaden was sad to have the only Y chromosome in the house after Douglas left, but at least Anna was a good study buddy for him. She's at least as nerdy as Douglas. Jaden and Anna kept the rest of us on task during that last year...maybe it was just because my mind was on my wedding, but it seemed like the last months until graduation just dragged by.

We all finally made it, though!










Notes:

1. As you might be able to tell from the loading screen pic, I was having trouble getting Marion to age up properly. She looked like a teen and could only wear teen clothes, but she had all the YA interactions available. (She could flirt with the other YAs, etc.) I tried moving them and all sorts of other things. What finally worked was aging her back down to teen in SimPE and then reloading the lot...she aged up to YA properly as soon as the lot loaded. Hopefully I won't have any more trouble there.

2. I don't hold with gender-based stereotypes, but I must admit I found this group's conversations hilarious. The girls all have high interest in fashion and would seriously talk about it ALL THE TIME and Jaden would always have negative interactions, because he has low interest in fashion. (He managed to become best friends with everybody nonetheless.) I can't remember if Douglas has any interest in fashion or not.

3. I have been planning on marrying off Ryker and Jackie for a long time, but at one point this play session I decided to see if he was more attracted to any of the other girls and maybe switch things up if he was. He must have got wind of my plot, because he kissed Jackie as soon as she greeted him. (This caused her to fall in love and him to fall in crush, so I had them make out a little bit and then he fell in love too.) They only have one bolt, but I guess bolts aren't everything. :)

4. Anna is a Knowledge Sim with the refreshing want to Max All Skills. Her astrological sign is Sagittarius.

5. Everybody got 4.0, Big Sim on Campus, and Secret Society. I'm like a machine. 

6. I'm working on a graduation post, so you can see everybody else in their caps and gowns.

Lot tour: ZZE Greek House

I apologize in advance for the fact that this post has about 50 pictures. And the formatting went kind of wonky partway through, though I'm gonna blame that one on Blogger.

The ZZE Greek House is located at 80 Crumplebottom Drive at Sim State University. As you all probably know, that house is the same as the Craftsman's Pride house located in the bin in the base neighborhood.

This is what ZZE Greek House currently looks like on the outside. I apologize for the gridlines. It also occurs to me that there really should be windows on the west wing over there; it looks weird the way it is now.

For the inside, I will first give you floor plan pictures.

The ground floor. From left to right, top to bottom: Greenhouse #1, pool, greenhouse #2. Then the hot tub room, a bathroom, the party room, and the eat-in kitchen.

The second floor. Women's dormitory and men's dormitory. Then the all purpose room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.

The attic. It's all one big funny-shaped room except for the bathrooms up near the top. (The areas with grayish wood are under the roof and not in use.)

And just for the fun of it, here's the roof. The gridlines are almost helpful here because you can see how the attic area fits under the roof.

Now for the real tour. Imagine that you are a Sim, approaching this house from the sidewalk. In fact, you can imagine you're Random Blonde Girl there. (I have no idea who that is; she's not one of mine.) You will see the usual mailbox and garbage can by the curb. Farther on you will see a telescope and a red sports car. The telescope is mostly annoying, but it is useful as a holding area for Sims just getting back from class. (They come from beyond the sports car and go straight for the telescope and occupy themselves until I notice them and give them something else to do.) The sports car keeps my students from clogging their wants panel with "Buy a car" and allows them to fulfill that pesky Woohoo in Car want. (Why they want that when there are two perfectly serviceable beds just upstairs I'll never understand.)

If you go up the stairs you can see to the right in the above picture, you will come to a very boring, narrow porch and thus to the front door. Here it is.

If you turn to your right as you come inside, you will see a burglar alarm, an archway leading to a dining area (we'll see more of that later), and a flight of stairs.

If you then turn about 90 degrees, you will see the back wall of the room, with a door and some windows. That archway on the far right is the same as the archway on the far left in the previous picture.

This room is empty on purpose; it is used as a mingling area when the college students have parties.

If you turn a little more, you will see a door that leads to the bathroom, the Greek letter, and the stereo with a CD rack. 

Move just a little to the left and you see what is normally an open space in front of the stereo. Right now one of the ZZE residents has her cosmetologist's chair set up there. Just behind the chair is a door leading to the pool area, which we will see later.

There's not much to say about the front wall here. I think that's Sim State Dormitory across the street.

So, let's turn back to the left and go through that archway we saw in one of the above pictures. This takes us into the eat-in kitchen. Here all you can see is Maggie Landgraab sitting around in her pajamas at 3 in the afternoon, plus the chimney of the empty rental house next door.

If you go around the end of the table, you will be able to turn and see the kitchen area. You can also see that people sometimes do their assignments at the dining room table.

If you continue around the table, you can see the fridge more clearly (It looks like a fridge. Very exciting.) and the larger of the two archways that lead into the living room.

Between the two archways is a beige wall that just begs for a painting or something. 

And back to Maggie. From this angle you can see the telephone, which is almost always in use.

Next we'll go back through the living room to the downstairs bathroom. This bathroom used to be the kitchen. Yeah, it was seriously tiny. (I am reasonably certain that I left the walls as-is and just took away the arches and added doors.)

The door you can see in this picture is not the one leading to the living room. It leads to the pool area.

On the left side of this picture, you might barely be able to see the other side of that door. You can definitely see the dresser (which is down here so students can change into and out of their swimsuits more conveniently), the hot tub, the juice keg, and the trash can.

Same room, different angle. As you can see, there is a bar next to the juice keg. I don't know if drinking and swimming is the best idea, but let's pretend.

If you go through that gap in the wall, you come to the pool. There really are ladders leading into the water; they're just invisible for some reason. 

Here's another view of the pool area in which you can see more clearly how it connects to the rest of the house--there's the gap leading to the hot tub area, and then a door leading to the living room.

To get to the back yard, such as it is, you go out through this set of doors.

Down the stairs to the left is a greenhouse.

Mostly students grow tomatoes here, because those are easy to grow.

Down the stairs to the right is a similar greenhouse with orchard trees. They go dormant during winter even inside the greenhouse, which is silly.

If you go back inside and up the stairs, this is where you end up...a sort of landing between the two stairways, with a couple of doors and a random newspaper lying around. There are also, obviously, some easels.

Just beyond that second set of stairs is another door and then the lounge area--TV, video game console, bookcases, lots of comfy places to sit--and the exercise area.

A slightly different angle, from which you can see the chess tables.

The last segment of the room is dedicated to musical instruments of all sorts. You can see here the fourth and final door that leads off of this room.

Through the door off the music area is this room. It occurs to me that those windows should have some dark drapes. They let in altogether too much light.

That bed came with the house that Beata Riedmayer-Landgraab and Malcolm Landgraab bought some 40 years ago. Joan and Edith Riedmayer brought it with them when they came to college 35 years ago. Their daughters--Sarah Pons and Ingrid Riedmayer--have probably both slept in it at some point in the last 7 years.

Here is another angle of the room, in which you can see that there is a little panhandle on the room and another door hiding on the short wall.

That door leads to a bathroom. It is kind of boringly white.

If you turn around in the tiny space, you can see that there are two doors at the one end.

The door on the left brings you here, to a bedroom that is the mirror image of the Goth Room in terms of shape but very different in terms of decoration.

See? That bed was purchased by the original residents of ZZE shortly after they set up this house. Sarah's parents, Greg Pons and Joan Riedmayer, usually slept there. Sarah doesn't like to think about that, since this is the most comfortable bed in the house and if she thought about it like that she wouldn't want to sleep there.

The Blue Room opens out onto that landing at the top of the stairs. If you go through the other door off of that same landing, you come to the men's dormitory, which is also blue.

 There are four single beds in this room, but you can't see more than three in any of the pictures.

The room is also equipped with a dresser. And some more curtainless windows.

And a painfully bare wall. There used to be a bathroom there (Jack-and-Jill style, like the bathroom between the Goth Room and the Blue Room), but I got rid of it after one play session because I couldn't see it well from my preferred angle of play. (It was hidden by the stairs.)

If you go around those stairs and through the door near the lounge area, you come to the women's dormitory. It is the mirror image of the men's, but painfully pink instead of blindingly blue.

These dormitories were established during the reign of the Whitfill Brothers. (I think. I could be wrong.) At that time, there were 4 men and 2 women living in ZZE House, but 4 beds were put in the women's dormitory anyway. (You can only see 3 here, but trust me. There are 4.) In the most recent college round, there were 6 women and 2 men. Whoever didn't get a bed in the dormitory took one of the doubles.

The women have a dresser too, filled with the clothes of a generation of ZZE members.

And they have a blank wall where a bathroom used to be too. We're equal opportunity poor decorators around here.

If you go back out of the bedrooms and up the stairs, you find the attic, a room full of odd nooks and crannies, ancient furniture (that desk and bookcase were brought by Edith and Joan as well), and robot crafting stations.

Just to the right of the desk (to your left if you're sitting at the desk) is a mirror also brought by the Riedmayer twins and a mini-fridge of more recent vintage. Plus a trash can, because there's no point having a "if you want a bag of chips but don't want to go down two flights of stairs" fridge if you don't have a corresponding trash can.

If you look further into the little cranny that houses the fridge, you see that there is a door.

That door leads to a bathroom which is pretty boringly white.

This bathroom is rarely used, but in a house that usually has 6-8 occupants it can sometimes come in handy to have more than 2 bathrooms.

Directly opposite this bathroom is another bathroom. I didn't take pictures of that one because it really is exactly like and very boring.

Looking over the stair rail from the other direction one sees toy crafting benches blocking some perfectly good windows.

To the right (from the perspective of someone sitting at the Goth desk) is a long narrow space with lots of crafting tables...students can practice flower arranging, sewing, or pottery making.

In the opposite wing is the computer lab. In real life it would be utterly impractical to keep computers up here, since it gets very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter, but Sim computers don't mind. The Sims get blue sometimes if I make them do their term papers in one sitting in the wintertime, but that's not anything a workout at the treadmill won't fix. >:)

So, there you have it. A sprawling, overstuffed manor that has nurtured a full generation of college students. It's not the prettiest, but they're all rather fond of it by the time they leave.