Two-timed at the Rec Center

During my three years at Hopkins, many relationships have come and gone. My freshman housemates in the AMRs? Vanished -- most into the distant recesses of my Facebook friends. My first, second, third and fourth dating attempts at Hopkins? They're around. Like most ex-boyfriends, they're too around, for the most part.

But through it all, one relationship has survived; it has endured many an evil suite-mate, boyfriend and professor, and has always been there when I needed it. Ralph O'Connor: namesake of the athletic center and love of my life. The love, it seems, of quite a few of our lives, because lately I've been feeling a little neglected.

Like most of us at Hopkins, I tend to be a little wired. I need an outlet for my stress. I need to throw things, climb walls and sweat profusely, all in a safe, supervised and time-effective manner.

Therefore, imagine my concern when I arrived at the Athletic Center last week and found that Ralph had no space for me unless I was willing to wait half an hour. I just assumed it was a bad time and came back 12 hours later. Still, no available machines in sight. Not to be deterred, I returned the next morning only to find the same problem.

If this trend continues, Hopkins is going to find itself with a lot of students with severe anger, stress and weight management issues.

In the past, the Rec Center has been remarkably responsive to student demands. I guess that's why I'm so surprised -- and so irritated -- to see that such an easily amenable problem is still occurring.

With 4,000 undergraduates, not to mention graduate students and faculty, does it really make sense to have only seven treadmills and eleven elliptical machines, at least two or three of which are usually broken? And where are the abdominal machines?

I'm not alone in this feeling of distress. Just ask senior Melissa Matarese, regular visitor to the gym. "If the gym were exclusively for Hopkins undergrads, then maybe the machines we have would be sufficient," she said. "But it's open to grad students and faculty and the community as well, and half the machines are always broken. People don't have time to wait."

Like many others, she has tried going during off-peak hours. "I refuse to go during the mad rush," Matarese said. "There's no point. Instead I have to make a concerted effort to plan my day around going to the gym."

In an otherwise outstanding facility, it is ridiculous that students should have to wait 20 to 30 minutes to complete a workout intended to last just as long. It's equally outrageous to have to use the cardio exercise machines in Charles Commons and then schlep over to the Athletic Center to use the weight room.

At a high-intensity, high-stress school like ours, the gym should be a relaxing escape from our studies, not a fight to the death for a workout machine. After I'd visited three times in 24 hours and still had to wait, I finally asked the student monitor if there was anything else I could do.

"Sign in on the wait list again," she suggested.

I asked her if that would actually make any difference.

"It might make you feel better."

It didn't. What would make me feel better are about 20 more cardio machines.

If the Athletic Center can't get more equipment immediately, it should at least do something to alleviate the congestion problem. Why not take a cue from the Housing Office and implement something like eSuds?

Thanks to eSuds, laundry is no longer an ordeal. I don't have to scout out machines at 7 a.m. on a Saturday; instead, I can go online and see if there are washers free, and if not, how long I must wait until they will be. Can't the Athletic Center do something similar? Let us find out if all the machines are taken -- and how long they've been in use -- before we drag ourselves all the way to the gym.

At a school like Hopkins, and in a city where it's largely unsafe to run or exercise outside, it's not unreasonable to demand a fitness center that meets our needs. For a while, the Athletic Center met mine and I thought ours was a lasting, healthy relationship. But now, I'm not so sure where Ralph and I stand.