The fourth roommate that didn't join them in Mather, Yang says, left because she had made many close friends beyond the dorm.

"She kind of chose herself, so it wasn't a decision--it was just understood," Yang says.

Jane A. Lindholm '01, who lives in Quincy House, disagrees. She chose to join a lottery group with only one of her four first-year room-mates from Pennypacker Hall.

"One of them we just weren't close friends with, but we liked her fine," she says. Her third roommate moved out last January. "We had problems with her," she says.

Despite the difficulties in her room last year, Lindholm says she doesn't think the FDO should group first-years together under the assumption that they'll block together later on.

"For some people it's a nice idea to meet other people that you won't usually be friends with," she says.

Many first-years are already considering the perils and possible ego implications of their spring decision. Alexander P. Ogan '02, who lives in Stoughton Hall, says he doesn't plan to block with his current roommate. He adds that most of his future blockmates aren't roommates this year either.

"There's a group of about six or seven guys that I'm going to [block] with and two of them are roommates and the rest of them are not," Ogan says.

His friends haven't discussed it at length yet, he says.

"I think it's a little early and most people haven't started to talk about it yet," Ogan says.

John, a first-year living in Weld, is not going to join a lottery group with his current roommates. He spoke about his housing plans on the condition that his last name not be used.

"[My blockmates] are not going to be my roommates," he says. "I've gone outside the realm of my roommates and tried to find other friends."

John says his roommates haven't talked about their blocking plans yet. "It hasn't been brought up in my room," he says. "I guess people are more prone to talk about it if they know they're going to block with each other."

First-year concerns about upperclass housing will begin to surface soon. The introductory housing meeting for first-years will be held during the first week of February. Some proctors have already announced the housing meetings and deadlines for the coming semester.

Olivia Verma '00, a prefect in Mower Hall, anticipates first-year concerns cropping up soon. "I'm sure it'll start to come up a lot more as the second semester dawns," says Verma, who was also a prefect last year.

Verma says that only about half of the students in her first-year prefect group last year blocked together for sophomore housing.

"It's probably 50-50," she says.

Joshua L. Passman '02 says he knows little about the actual process of blocking. He says his friends have just started talking about the process this week.

"People have been starting to talk about in the last few days, though I don't know if people have set anything up," he says. "Most of us have a general idea of what we're going to do."

Passman, who hopes to room with his current roommates, says that many of his friends that will block together are also roommates. "I know quite a few people who have become really good friends with their roommates," he says. "I think in general Harvard did a really good job in terms of blocking."