My first interaction with the male cherubs followed immediately after a two-block walk to the dorm in the pouring rain after being dropped off at the wrong spot by a non-English-speaking taxi driver. I was dripping wet, rather frazzled and lugging two huge roller suitcases behind me. As I attempted to enter the doors of Jones Rez-Hall, one case promptly decided to get stuck in the door. Noticing the crowd of guys in the lobby who were heading my way, I frantically tried to get it unstuck before they saw me, carry-on falling off the top of the free suitcase and my loaded bag digging into my shoulder. I saw a couple of guys smirking (whether at me, I couldn't tell) and prayed that they wouldn’t find out that I was from Kansas. That would completely add to the image I was presenting them with at the moment.

They opened the door, and when one asked me if he could get one of the suitcases, I almost cried. Thank San Diego for Matt Wong.

After a harried check-in, during which my CA pegged my stressed-out self for future trouble (I'm not, she later told me), I arrived in my room and dropped off my stuff. After I met my roommate, we got in the elevator. The doors opened to a compartment full of guys.

“Hey, I’m Krystin,” I said, thinking that it would probably be best to just dive in instead of making things more awkward.

Some introductions were made, and I wound up eating my first dinner in Hinman at their table as the only girl. Thus far, I’d met three girls and about 18 guys. Prospects were looking good for the single girls (I was not one of them), and I was excited – I usually make friends with guys faster than girls.

By the time the next day ended, I’d met most of the girls on my floor. That night, we eagerly pored over the cherub facebook as soon as it was issued, scanning for male faces and, for some, potential flings. Bitter disappointment quickly set in. It wasn’t that the guys were unattractive or weird – it was that there were, quite simply, no guys. I was shocked – what about all the ones I’d met?

“Let’s count,” one of the girls exclaimed with some last remnants of enthusiasm.

We did, and the situation went from disappointing to dire.

26 guys. 62 girls. I’d met all but eight of the guys my first day.

As it happens, several of the us had significant others back home. That ruled out about four boys (approximately one-sixth of the male population) and at least seven girls. 22 guys. 55 girls. A few weeks in, a couple guys broke up with their girls back home. The odds increased again. 24 guys. 55 girls. With technically less than one guy for every two girls, the ladies were still in trouble. The cherub boys, of course, loved it.

“It’s very noticeable,” Toby Hollis, from East Bay, Calif., said. “At home, it’s usually half girls, half guys when we hang out. Here, unless it’s after floor hours, it’s mostly girls.”

For some of the guys who go to all-boys schools back home, being in an educational environment with girls was a new and very welcome experience.

“I’m used to learning around only guys,” my friend Mike Juliani, of Pasadena, Calif. said. “And being in an educational environment around females was very strange to me. It was distracting at times.”

The boy-girl ratio became the source of a lot of jokes: mostly testosterone-filled ones from the guys and despairing ones from the girls. It was forever immortalized in a song the boys on the fourth floor made up and recorded – called, creatively enough, “Cherub Music.” One jubilant line goes: “62 girls, 26 boys – thank you very much, Professor Boye.”

Yeah, thanks, Professor Boye.

“It reflects what’s happening on the high school newspaper staffs of America,” said Medill professor Roger Boye, who was in charge of admissions and “could have used those odds” back in the day. “If I was in the guys’ position, I would be [appreciative].”

But even with the boys’ unusually good odds and the ideal setting of a parents-free dorm with several single rooms, very few hookups took place. I had a couple friends who did, and heard rumors of others, but those involved refused to comment.

After being surrounded by beautiful women all day, I guess the guys still needed some time just to be guys. We third-floor girls quickly grew accustomed to hearing various shouts and stampede-like sounds reverberating through the ceiling during early morning hours. There were loud crashes that occurred several times directly above my room around 2 a.m. I never found the source, nor do I know whose room it was, but I would assume the guys were either throwing around desk chairs or bowling.

“Sometimes I feel like I need guy time,” Hollis said, in defense of the males’ absurdities. “That’s what floor hours are for and why there are so many adrenaline and testosterone filled games.”

Sure, Toby. According to him, games like “Abduction” were played by the boys as a sort of mental escape from having to be (and behave) around girls all day. This rather simplistic, “pseudo-wrestling” game involved dragging team captains between lounges. Aluminum foil wars took place during the fourth week, but quickly escalated into nuclear-level armament.

One of my best friends, Matt Wong (the Californian from the suitcase incident – we quickly became friends) was wounded during this war by a water bottle allegedly thrown by the fierce urban warrior Mitch Steinfield, a Los Angeles native. According to the Weekly Cherub, Wong was quickly escorted to the women’s-bathroom-turned-field-hospital. He refused to comment on his injury for this blog, as he’s still a little embarrassed.

But the boys’ adventures didn’t end there – even after floor hours. Our more civilized group of girls on the third floor got used to rather noisy and frequent fourth floor trips to the our water fountain because the boys’ was “broken.” The fact that these trips disturbed our nightly “girl talks” or sleep was overlooked, as any glimpse of the male species was always an appreciated sight. It was like seeing a panda in Kansas.

“I was definitely not expecting the disparity,” said my friend Lauren Hitt, from Baltimore. “I thought it’d be 50-50.”

But after our initial shock and disappointment over the ratio, we quickly became appreciative of having the guys around to hang out and become close friends with. There were 10:30 p.m. ice cream runs made, several poker tournaments played (laundry quarters became our pool), and at least one season of ‘The Office’ watched.

“I was a little disappointed at first,” Lauren said. “But I became really good friends with the guys. The lack of guys didn’t take away from my cherub experience at all.”