<p>Dave, I would highly recommend doing all you can to contact your roommate before you leave - thank goodness for the Internet! Then, hopefully you guys can make some plans or accomodations prior to arrival - contacting an upperclassman through facebook or livejournal who is familiar with the floor, after you talk to your roomie, sounds like a great idea too. It is not at all unreasonable for you to say, hey, I need to arrive on the 2nd and I don’t want to live out of a suitcase for 10 days, can we divide up some things, now?</p>
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<p>There are some threads on the College Life forum about dealing with roommates, there is some food for thought there.</p>