THESE DAYS, if you told me that people were running around madly in the Yard at 8:45 in the morning, I would assume that snow was falling and that first-years were naked.

Not so the day I received my housing assignment. Above the din of the Mem Church bells, I heard another shrill and annoying sound, quite clearly emanating from the third floor of Weld. It was a bloodcurdling, hair-raising, "this is where Cameron freaks out" kind of scream. It was the C-word. "Currier! Currier! Oh God, I've been Currierized!!" The day had come.

That was the scene two years ago and I am sure that that pretty much described the wake-up call for a good number of first-years yesterday morning. If they went to sleep, that is.

There will always be those nail-biting, self-inflicted ulcer-suffering first-years who want to be there, wide-eyed and ready, when the white envelope is dropped off to reveal the house of their choice (or maybe not) in the Hell Lottery.

The whole process can be relatively devastating. First-year friendships often take a nose-dive during house-picking season.

Take the example of a good friend of mine. Two weeks before the deadline, he had already decided on the easiest way out-- remaining with his current roommates, forming a group of four. Before he knew what had hit him, a gargantuan rooming block of 18 had mushroomed out of control.

The week before the forms were due witnessed massive debates over North and Mather--pitting those who never leave home without frequent flyer mileage cards against those with a taste for neo-penitentiary architecture.

Of course, the whole group split up and performances on the next day's hourlies were far from stellar, but in the long run, the whole episode brought them all closer together. Unless they were randomized, that is. That guy screaming in Weld no doubt wanted to ax the roommate who put down Cabot in order to "just test the system."

BUT IT'S GOOD that the process is no walk in the park. We already get enough handholding and kinder garten chaperoning from Mother Harvard. It's about time students are awarded the independence befitting adults. We already have our toilets cleaned for us, our meals cooked for us, our daily Crimsons delivered to our doorsteps.

When the Gulf War erupted, Dean Epps was there to tell us where to travel during spring break and when to return home after playing with our friends.

No, it's damn good that first-years have to make those agonizing decisions, staying up late arguing with their friends and maybe even losing some the night before the deadline. It's a way of teaching what friendships are all about.

If two guys can't talk to each other just because one liked the Currier fishbowl, then I can't see why they'd truly value each other's company in the first place.

Indeed, for many of us who had never before faced the prospect of living away from home, choosing roommates and a place to live represented an act of total independence, perhaps unprecedented in our lives.

And although 15 percent of my classmates couldn't boast of the feeling, the rest of us experienced the right to benefit from--or to struggle with--a choice made wholly on our own.

This is all pretty good preparation for the future. When you're deciding where to live later in life--say, Manhattan, Soho or Long Island--you'll face similar issues as when you chose between Eliot, Adams or Cabot.