First, let me give you a background of my college housing situation. I am currently in a triple, and one of my roommates is my close friend from high school, whom I have known for quite a while. I was also assigned with another roommate whom I have only met at the beginning of this school year.
Anyway…
Last night, the latter roommate (let me designate as Roommate Number Two) brought in a girl who was drunk, saying that she needed to recover for a while. This was around one-thirty or two o’clock in the morning. The roommate whom I have know for a long time (let me designate as Roommate Number One) later told me that she had bumped into the furniture several times. After about a minute of struggling with myself, I finally mustered the courage to tell Roommate Number Two that I did mind the fact that he invited the girl. He complied, woke the girl up (she had been resting in his bed), and took her somewhere else. I hope that he just walked her back and nothing more. I give him the benefit of the doubt. I apologized and told him that I just could not deal with a visitor. He seemed to understand and said that it was fine.
While Roommate Number Two was taking the girl home, Roommate Number One and I had a deep discussion about what had happened. We also brought up how we felt about the experience of a new environment here in college. I told him about how empty I feel at UCLA. We also talked about the tension that had been developing between us. We concluded that if we believe in something, we need to take a stand for it before Roommate Number Two, or anyone else for that matter, began to think that we are okay with it. We also decided that we need to find good people to bond with and to confide in, and we talked about how we still need to comfort and help friends back home and at other schools who are having trouble. Lastly, I think we nurtured our respect and understanding for each other through talking about our disagreements and issues. It was encouraging to discover that there is still someone who feels the same way about things, even though he might not be as willing to verbalize it.
I am glad that we explored a church today. The praise and worship music was very good, and I enjoyed the fact that after the sermon, we broke up into smaller discussion groups in which we were able to meet and talk with people. Lunch was also provided, which was very good. The afternoon was spent reading a book for my ENG 85: American Novel class (Clotel), catching up with the television series Heroes, and talking with friends and family. We were also able to make the room a bit cooler (partly due to the cooler weather). I discovered how nice the lounge on our floor is, especially with the sun setting in the evening. It is always so cold and gloomy in our room in the evening, since our window faces the east. (At least it wakes us up in the morning.) As I am writing this, I watch the sun set before my eyes. I just love the warm, comforting glow of the setting sun. It reminds me of home.
We also filled out our roommate contract, during which we discovered that Roommate Number Two did not, in fact, say the same things as Roommate One and me did on the rooming surveys when we were applying for housing. However, Roommate Number Two seemed okay with our preferences, and he seems to respect our views and values. He seems pretty adaptable, which is good of him. I just hope that this is the way he truly feels, and that we are not forcing him into a corner.
