MAKING THE BEST OF IT

On entering college in the fall of 2002, I knew that throughout my college career I would have a lot of unexpected surprises. For example, I never expected to join a sorority. Nor did I ever expect that I would be the type of person who would get extremely excited when they served chili in Danforth Dining Center, because this meant I could get as much cheese as I wanted from the salad bar to place on the chili without getting judgmental looks from the kitchen staff. The other thing that I never expected, especially after having a single my sophomore year, was that I would be a 20-year-old woman – 51 days away from being 21, I might add – with a roommate. I have been on the other side. Yes, I swear the grass was actually greener. I could sing, I could scream, I could do hand stands, I could dance around with my underwear on my head if I wanted to – all behind the safety of a closed door. Now, I have gone back to my roommate giving me a weird look just because I started singing Ashlee Simpson’s “Autobiography” with interpretive hand gestures. I don’t care what anybody says – she is dark and brooding. It says so in her song. My life is a bit like that of the protagonist in “Flowers for Algernon” who, through an operation, becomes normal for a period of time and then goes back to his original plight. Hopefully, through all this opening verbiage, you are beginning to see my point. For freshmen, this is still a very exciting time in your life. True, your roommate may be a person who you would ordinarily point at on the street and say to your friends ,”Look at that poor freak,” but now you are living with that poor freak, so you should really make the best of it.Though you might hate your roommate right now because of her Nazi-like cleanliness, voyeuristic curiosities, political harangues she insists on delivering because, frankly, harangues just seem better with an audience – even a reluctant one – and passion for music that would never be found in your iTunes library, this hate will not compare to the one that will evolve over the next few months. However, I have been through the freshman ordeal and am very proud to say that I am still quite good friends with my freshman year roommate. I feel like having a roommate freshman year is something your body gears up for in all the college anticipation excitement. You simply become adapted to being naked in front of another person, going through your wake-up routine with someone else present and falling asleep to lighting that is not your preferred choice. But I was a young, naive 18-year-old girl when I started college – keep in mind this was a time when C3 was merely an idea – but now I am 20 and a woman of the world. I have seen things, I have been places but more importantly, I have lived in a single for a year. I am having to relearn all the proper roommate etiquette that I have not had to use for a year and a half. This month’s “Cosmopolitan” had an article titled “Why a Roommate Can Suck,” which was actually not very helpful but really only made me more paranoid of my roommate pulling a “Single White Female.” Does “I really like that top” secretly mean, “I want to be you so I am going to throw your puppy out the window and then kill you so I can wear that top?”So I turned to a happier publication, “Madamoiselle” magazine, in which I luckily found an article called “Why a Roommate Can Be Wonderful.” If you simply are courteous, accomodating, put a scrunchy on the door when the pad is a rockin’ and nod your head and smile even if you don’t think it is that fascinating that the lead singer of Weezer is going to Harvard University, everything will work out fine and maybe even you will be able to have the good life with a roommate. So keep smiling and jingling those lanyards!Lepore can be reached atmlepore@campustimes.org.