By Michael McKay

Home Sweet Home!How one Sophomore went from Dorm to Domesticated

Memphis sophomore Ashton Duncan is in her backyard, sitting in a hammock while she pretends to the read The Girl who Kicked the Hor-net’s Nest on a spring day. WhatmakesDuncandifferentfrom other sophomores is that she’s sitting in her backyard. The house on Nutwood Street in Bowling Green was paid in full by Duncan’s parents after her grandmother died. Duncan has lived in the house since the summer before her sophomore year. She shares the house with two roommates, making her parents her landlords. Duncan said it was an invest-ment opportunity for the family as well as wish fulfill-ment from her Moth-er. “Mom is very do-mestic

and likes cooking, likes having the house, and she wanted the same for me early on,” she said. Duncan said her mother taught her two lessons a day on how to tend to the house. “The summer before I went to college my mom put me into this thing she calls ‘Perfect Wife Boot Camp’ and I had to learn all of her recipes, how to clean properly, and how to do laundry properly, she said. “All of those kinds of things, what you take to a funeral, what you take to a wedding shower, southern etiquette really.” She said her roommates aren’t as disciplined as she is. “My roommates are not

very clean,” she said. “So its hard to go behind them and do Perfect Wife prac-tices,” she said with a laugh. Duncan is one of many WKU stu-dents who choose to

Southern Belle

The Mirror: Duncan’s vanity holds jewerly and itmes from her grandmoth-ers farm. The quote is a lullabye from The Hunger Games that Duncan painted herself.

The Frame: Duncan created a frame from a window pane recovered from her grandmother’s farm. She put a mix of her friends, favorite animals, and celebrites.It faces her bed. “That way I can look at all of my friends before I go to sleep,” she said.

Left: Cabneitry from the farm with space for flour and baking material. Duncan said the last time she used it was to make cookies for a Christ-mas party.

The States: Duncan glued pictures from places she’s visited on to the shape of her home state. “I’m pretty crafty,” she siad.

The Horse:: One of Duncan’s favor-ite items is a metal horse bank that belonged to her Great Uncle.“It has a gazillion quarters in it right now,” Duncan said.

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moveofftheirsophomoreyear,fil-ing for an exemption to break their housing contracts. WKU requires students to live in the dorms for two years. Steve Briggs, assistant director for Housing and Resi-dence Life, is responsible for sort-ing through the green exemption forms. He said the forms might add up to 1000 individual requests over the course of a school year. Briggs said some decisions are easy, like students who live with their parents, or students who are taking care of a relative.Duncan remembers her case as be-ingmoredifficult. “They are in my phone as Satan’s Army,” she said.Duncan’sexemptionwasfirstde-nied. Her appeal was also denied. “So I called them, and they said I had a question mark on my file,”shesaid.“Theyendedupgiv-ing it to me because they needed the space.” Briggs said cases like Duncan’s are usually denied. He said HRL compares how students performlivingonandoffcampus. “We’ve found that students livingoffcampusassophomoreshave lower GPA’s than students who live on campus as a sopho-more,” Briggs said. Duncansaidlivingoffcampus has some drawbacks, like eating with friends on campus restaurants. “I don’t have a meal plan, so I don’t mind paying for campus food but sometimes I’m thinking, ‘why am I paying $8 for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich right now?’” she said. She said that despite some drawbacks, she likes having a place to entertain her friends.

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LivingOnorOff?

Pros:

1. A place to entertain2. A full size kitchen3. A parking spot4. A comfortable bed

The list according to Asthon

Cons:

1. Hard to see some friends2. Paying for campus food3. Driving to class4. Waking up early to drive