A few weeks ago I wrote about Stephanie Mahan whose dorm room was freezing due to a non-functioning heater. It had been a problem for several months and after following all the correct steps to get it fixed, nothing happened. She was desperate. So, I wrote the column, it was printed and that evening, suddenly her heater was working.
Almost like magic (or a ton of hard work completed by her community assistant), her room went from being a freezer to a normal room and everybody lived happily ever after, right?
Well, sadly that is not completely the case, because for Mahan, living in Ocotillo Hall has been one tragedy after another. For months, she braved freezing-cold temperatures, but as of late, something even more devastating has happened: her laptop was stolen.
On Friday, Feb. 22, Stephanie went to class. She brought with her a ton of books, studied at various intervals and almost went back to her dorm room on more than one occasion to drop off her books. But she didn't. She figured she should just suck it up and carry her books with her all day long.
When she finally did arrive back to her dorm room in the late afternoon that day, she was looking forward to checking her Facebook account before leaving to go home for the weekend. But when she got back, her laptop was gone.
In Ocotillo, the doors automatically lock and so there is no doubt they were locked this day. Her window was closed and her curtains were pulled shut. There were no signs of forced entry, either.
Her laptop wasn't a fancy Dell, or an Apple, but a somewhat inexpensive generic thing that functioned enough for her well-being.
She thought maybe her suitemates took it as a funny joke, but they didn't. Instead, one of them reported that her shoes had been stolen a few weeks prior, and again, their door was locked, their curtains pulled shut and no signs of forced entry. It is all very suspicious.
It's also creepy to think that someone has been able to get into these girls rooms without much of a struggle on more than one occasion. It's concerning because in recent months, there have been several rape cases splashing the cover of The State Press.
What bothers Stephanie the most is not that her laptop was stolen, because it can be replaced. Rather, Stephanie, a writer who writes poetry that can make grown men feel emotions, is bothered because she feels that someone has stolen her life.
On her laptop was a series of poems that were not saved anywhere else. Good poems about her boyfriend and parents, and demons she was finally able to get out on paper.
Alongside her poems were hundreds of pictures. Some were from her high school graduation, again, not saved anywhere else. Pictures from her summer Europe trip which she took with a group of friends were also lost. Family pictures of her 3-year-old niece and her 2-year-old nephew were also only saved on her laptop. Basically, things that were once kept in journals and photo albums were saved only on her computer.
Stephanie wanted to back up all of her work, but she was waiting for her father to show her how to include everything, in case her computer crashed. Waiting is something she will never do again. This lesson came at the high price of her personal keepsakes, which I think we can all agree is an unfair price to pay. Even ASU's tuition isn't that high.
What's worse is that Stephanie is not alone; this kind of thing happens every day. In 2006, according to ASU Police crime statistics, there were 907 larceny offenses on campus property.
Naturally, if you have information regarding this, or any other theft, the best way to go about reporting it is to call ASU's police at 480-965-3456.
Ray Ceo, Jr. is writing about an injustice near you. To find out where, write to him at: raymond.ceo@asu.edu.
