With Welcome Week - or Welcome Weekend, as it was - over, 40,000 students at this university are slowly recovering.

Hangovers are being drowned in bottled water. Memories are being assiduously examined for the trace of a name, a fraternity affiliation, a street or anything else to identify hook-ups. Classes are being ignored. It is, after all, only August.

Paradoxically, now that the welcome is over the arrival can begin. Though campus was infested last week by minivans and parents carrying boxes and bags, most of that luggage was simply dumped onto dorm floors. After being pillaged for suitable bar-wear, they were abandoned until this week.

It’s time to move in. After four years of college - two of medical school and some nine dorm rooms and apartments - I’ve been able to reduce the process of settling into a place to several easy stages.

STEP ONE: Postpone, postpone, postpone.

If you were smart, you packed clothing and soap into one box. With that easy access there is no good reason to do any further unpacking for at least a week. Eventually you will run out of clean clothes, and you will be able to delay no longer - unless you have your parents’ credit card, in which case you should hasten to a book store and stock up on Spartan clothing.

If your parents ask why you spent $500 at SBS, just explain it was for textbooks. Be cautioned: You cannot run this scam more than once a semester, and you won’t actually be able to buy textbooks for real afterward.

STEP TWO: Invade.

While some might advocate setting up as early as possible in order to keep space from your roommate, I have found that later is just as good if done aggressively. Simply place boxes in any area of the room that you want to claim. Say, “Hey, would it be OK if I kept this stuff here for a couple of days, until I decide how I want to set up my room?” Leave it there for the remainder of the semester. If it’s moved, move it back. Indignantly. If you’re a girl, cry.

STEP THREE: Place your furniture.

It’s facile and dumb to say that men position furniture differently than girls. Instead, I’ll divide all people into “pragmatic placers” and “aesthetic arrangers.”

Placers will observe that dressing usually follows a shower. They will put the bureau and mirror close to the door. Arrangers think that this is vulgar and barbaric and will put the drawers wherever the flow of the room dictates.

Either philosophy can be carried too far; the die-hard placer will end up barricading himself in his bed with every single item he owns within arm’s reach and a speaker on either side of his head.

The adamant arranger will, at some point, try to suspend his desk from the ceiling in an effort to make the most use of negative space.

Occasionally someone who would like to be quirky will put up a Chinese screen or set a chest of drawers on its side in an effort to express their love of art. They are dumb.

STEP FOUR: Clothes.

This will take six seconds. Grab an armful of clothing. Stuff it in a drawer. Close the drawer. If the drawer doesn’t close, leave it open. Repeat. If not all the clothing will fit into the given space, throw the remainder onto the ground. This automatically becomes the dirty clothes pile. Trust me, it’s all going to end up like this in two weeks anyway.

STEP FIVE: Tchotchkes, knick-knacks and the like.

For some, this category consists of picture frames, candles and whatever is sold at Pottery Barn. For others, it’s beer bottles, lamps made out of beer bottles and big, plastic coin banks that are shaped like beer bottles.

While the majority of women at MSU make an effort to make their room a welcoming, warm and soft place to take refuge, the majority of men at State try and use their room as a giant mnemonic device to help them remember that they are supposed to like beer, drink ridiculous amounts of beer and inform other people as often as possible that beer is good.

This desire is so strong as to motivate some to steal big store displays, something I have never understood. I like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, but I’ll be hornswoggled if I’ll set up a giant cardboard cutout of Cheesasaurus Rex next to my bed.

STEP SIX: Walls.

They surround you. They keep your ceiling from falling on top of your head. Treat them with respect. First, no black light posters. Glowing posters do not look cool. They do not look spooky, and they certainly do not impart a magical air to their subject. Hendrix is as much of a genius in the visible spectrum as he is in ultraviolet, and in the latter he resembles one of those addle-brained morons with tiny glowsticks in their mouths.

Second, please realize that on a campus of 40,000 students, every poster available in the tri-county area is in at least 10 other students’ rooms. There are more Slipknot posters than there are literate Slipknot fans. The same goes for ‘Beers of the World,’ The Beatles and “Starry Night.”

Oh, “Starry Night”; according to legend, Van Gogh sliced his ear off when he found out every single sophomore in America bought a print of “Starry Night.”

By this time, you’ve got yourself a room that you can sleep in comfortably. If you don’t, well, don’t worry. In nine months, you’re just going to do it again anyway.

Rishi Kundi is a third-year human medicine student who just found out he doesn’t own enough furniture to fill a crummy efficiency. His column usually appears every Thursday. Reach him at kundiris@msu.edu.