Welcome to Roommates

My first roommate was my sibling, We shared a room until I was 12, which is when my pestering finally resulted in getting my own room. The next time I had a roommate was in college. My first college roommate and I got a long fine, but we weren't close. My second college roommate somehow didn't kill me over the next three years.

For two years I lived on my own in Maryland. Then everything changed when I discovered that I was moving to New Jersey. Now I could have probably found a place really far away from my work, but choices were limited and having a roommate would hopefully garentee an instant friend.

How did I find my roommate if I didn't know anyone where I was moving? Craigslist.

No seriously, I found them on Craigslist. You might be asking me if I am crazy. Or if I was worried about who this person might be. Well a lot of people did ask me those questions.

What I did was meet with my future roommate first. That way we could get to know each other and make sure we would be compatible. I actually interviewed with a few potential roommates. I had a list of questions and I made sure to bring someone with me (my mom and aunt) who could also share their oppinion.

I am positive that I found the right roommate. We get along well and we go out every so often. Yesterday was my roommate's birthday. We went to the city with a large group for karaoke. We sang our voices raw.

I won't lie that there wasn't an adjustment period. Going from living on my own to sharing a living space was weird. For the first month I felt like I was a visitor invading my new roommate's home.

There are a few things I do to make sure that there is harmony in my home:

1) Communication - leaving passive aggressive notes is not something I ever recommend. Talking to my roommate solves more problems than creates them.

2) Be Understanding - sometimes someone leaves dirty dishes in the sink. As long as they are cleaned by the end of the day, there's no reason for either of us to loose our cool. If it starts to be a problem see harmony note number 1.

3) Be Flexible - sometimes we both need the bathroom at the same time. It's perfectly cool to adjust a schedule as long as everyone makes it to work on time. Again communication is key.

4) Keep the common area clean - I admit at I am a messy person. My roommate is not a messy person. To maintain harmony, I make sure that the common areas stay clear of my things and to contain the mess to my room.

5) Do stuff together - movie nights, ordering take out, and yes Karaoke are all great ways that we hang out. Its not all the time. I invite my roommate places and they invite me places. Sometimes we can go and sometimes we can't.

The down side of this list is that this is only stuff I can do. I have yet to have a really bad experience with a roommate, but I know people who have. This list probably won't work if the roommate isn't able to meet you half way. And yes, becoming the roommate of someone you just met (heck even a close friend) can be a gamble. I have been very lucky and I hope everyone else looking for post-graduation roommates is lucky too.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post or it really pissed you off, please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to a Language Barrier

Because why only know one language?

Americans seem to be stereotyped as a people who only speak one language, American English. I wouldn't say that's an accurate stereotype for the Americans living along the Eastern sea board (or at least northern New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and New York). There are a lot of different people and cultures.

My roommate is Brazillian. She speaks Portugese and English (and I think she also knows Spanish). A lot of her friends are also Brazillian and though they also speak English, their friends and family who come to visit don't. This can lead to difficult conversations.

Today, I went to visit my roommate, who has been working at an Itallian cafe (it's a neighborhood cafe in Nutly New Jersey). A friend of her's was also at the cafe with her family visiting from Brazil. Everything that we said to each other had to be translated. I really wanted to be able to communicate with them, but I didn't know enough. I even accidentally said "good morning" instead of "good afternoon". 

My roommate's family is coming to visit and I don't want to sit there awkwardly while they're staying here. Therefore I've decided to learn Portugese. 

It's not the most difficult language I've tried to learn and thankfully I have a background in Spanish that helps a little bit. That doesn't mean Portugese the same as Spanish. I'm already noticing a lot of differences between the words. It does mean that the sentence structure is familiar and I can figure out a lot of the vocabulary with context clues. It's easier than learning Japanese (and some of my family members have been trying to teach me Japanese since I was young). 

I've been studying Portueges by using an app call Duelingo and listening to my roommate and her friends speak. So far, I can understand a little bit, but whenever I go to say something, I almost always end up saying something in Spanish. 

But I can't give up. If I want to be able to master a new skill, I have to keep practicing. 

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post or it really pissed you off, please like, share or leave a comment. I like hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Now, back to the studying.

Welcome To Party Time

Summer is in full swing and what's the best way to celebrate than with a party. Yesterday my roommate and I threw a party to celebrate all things summer. It was my first major party that I was hosting (or at least helping with the hosting) since college. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to next one.

Throwing parties now is very similar to parties I threw in College. Major differences include more food, better drinks and the number of people to help clean up (there were seven people in a house on campus as oppose to an apartment with just me and my roommate).

For anyone wanting to throw a party and need a little advice, below are some pieces I picked up from my roommate and lodgemates.

1) Pick a simple theme and is seasonally appropriate (also that isn't offensive to another culture). This is helpful because decorations will likely be easy to find and might be on sale. If you decide to not have a theme that's okay too.

2) Make your apartment / house look clean. I don't mean do a full scrub down before the party, just a quick rub down so that people aren't questioning the green stuff growing in your sink (just kidding). Parties tend to be messy and you have to clean up after them anyway. Why put in all of the effort to make you apartment spotless before hand only to have to clean up all over again the next day?

3) Recruit people to help out with set up and clean up. You will need the help. I don't know how many times I've woken up after a party, looked around and wished I wasn't the one who needed to clean up. It's a little less daunting with a few extra hands.

4) The type of food to have. This is tricky because I feel it depends on the type of part. If you are throwing a dinner party or back yard BBQ it's kind of a given that there will be a lot of food and enough to cover at least one meal. If it's neither of those than I would suggest some finger foods. Things that are easy to put together and clean up after. Chips and dip are good bases for these parties, but not usually enough. Small sandwiches, meats and cheeses with crackers, and plenty of desserts keep people filled up.

5) Have people bring something (drinks are the best recommendation). When I was in college, my lodgemates and I threw a party within the first few days of moving in. We had a supply of drinks and some chips when we started the party. The next morning we didn't have any more chips, but about three times as many drinks as we had started with. Yesterday we asked everyone to ether bring a drink or a snack. We currently have a cooler full of drinks and no more tuna sliders.

Of course these are suggestions. All parties are different. Heck there have been many parties where it's just a group of friends who order pizza. Clean up, though, still sucks.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post or it really pissed you off, please like, share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Now I just need to be ready for work tomorrow. Joys.

Welcome To Fan Perils

Happy Forth of July weekend everyone! Yes, Independence Day was on Friday. I got to set off legal fireworks for my glorious audience and have a wonderful dinner prepared for by my sister. She is an excellent cook and made a truly American meal of pulled pork and corn on the cob on the grill.

Yesterday I was with my roommate and their sig fig (significant other). We got along well and traded anime and Youtube shows to watch. Attack on Titan is my current passion (got my sister involved) and we were trying to get my roommate more into it. We had several adventures and trolled a few people online. I also proved what a nut case I am about my favorite characters.

*Warning Fan On Rampage!

Speaking of favorite characters, I saw Transformers 4 today. Once I left the theater incredibly pissed off. If it wasn't for my agreement to go see them with one of my friends, I would have skipped it. I am angry and not just because the teenaged girl was only ere for eye candy and completely useless. Honestly if you want good Transformers watch Transformers Prime (everything we ever believed about Starscream is true!) or invest in the comics (at least Prowl is in them).

*End Of Fan Rant

Sorry I just really needed to get that out of my system. If you haven't noticed yet, I am a bit of a fan for certain works of fiction. It's a good way to relax and get involved with other people. I mean I did join an anime club and have finally started doing some cosplay. Believe it or not fanfiction also helps with the stress and practice writing fiction for an audience.

It just sucks when someone (Michael Bay) messes with your fandom. I just hope TMNT turns out okay.

To be fair not everyone understands fans like me (and I'm not even one of the really crazy ones), but we all have passions. My Japanese cousins tend to think that I'm a crazy otaku (it's more of a joke now than anything) and I'm okay with that. It's an outlet much like sports fanatics. In fact the word fan comes from the word fanatic. Most of you probably already knew that.

It's what I need to keep me entertained. It expands and influences my imagination. How else am I supposed to make reality stranger than fiction. I have to improve upon things that have already been thought of.

If you enjoyed this post, or it really pissed you off please share or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers (even the international ones I'll use google translate even if it is a horrible service) and hope you guys enjoy reading about my struggles (and hopefully learning from them). Until next week.

Welcome To Homecoming

Not the Silent Hill Version...

Before I start this more nostalgic post, I would like to state my current goal. I want to meet Ellen. That is my goal in life. I do not want to sit in the audience and watch her make her show. I want to physically meet her and say hi, maybe get a hug. She is just so cool. Now, on to the post…

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This weekend was homecoming at my alma mater. It was my first homecoming as alumni at my school. It was really weird. It was one of those times where everything was the same, but everything had changed. I do miss being a student sometimes, but I like being a grown up. It’s just more stressful now on my own. 

I got up really early Saturday morning and drove down to the school. I stopped and picked my sister up on the way so she could see some of her friends. It was great. I saw a lot of people I had spent a lot of time with at school. It was almost like I had not left at all, but I could not just go back to my room and sleep after the rugby game.

I went to the football game, for the first time in four years. We actually beat the school we were playing (we go more for the academics instead of the sports). It was so much fun. I spent so much time doing things I did not even notice I got wind burned until it was too late.  There was so much to do and not enough time to do it all. 

I got to see what the people who are now living in my lodge (house on campus) did to it. Some of us who lived there last year saw them going into it. They did a great job with the space. I wish we had thought of some of the stuff they had done. We traded stories about the lodge and how wonderful it was to live in it. They were going to have a Halloween party there, so we left pretty quickly. 

Last night I had dinner with a friend, who had graduated many years before, and her friends from school. They were wonderful to talk to and to hear about all of the changes that have been made to the school since they had been there. I hope that my friends can be like that when we get older. It might be hard, but I would still like to be in touch with most of them ten years down the road. It’s hard being away from them.

I discovered that a lot of my friends (well most of my friends) who had graduated had moved to northern Virginia and the DC area. I am not that far from them, but traffic here is just awful. Maybe I will take a few days off and just be in my favorite city. 

My college roommate and I spent the night at a Super 8 hotel (in the sketchy part of town). It was just like we were still roommates, except we had the TV on. She played her video game and I talked about random things. We have strange conversations, maybe one day you will see them in print. 

Homecoming was a lot of fun. The drive back was long, but worth it. It was hard to leave. I do not want to be the creepy old alum that hangs out and pretends to still be cool. I would rather still be 21 and trying to figure out what classes to take next semester. I wish time had stood still just a little longer. Oh well, I will just have to slow down the future and enjoy the present.

Welcome to your New Home

First you have to find it...

First I would like to give a shout out to Shark Week. Once again I am afraid to go into the Ocean. Beware the awesome power of the deep!

Finding a place to live was a lot harder than I had thought it was going to be. I had thought that I would search on the internet, go to the apartment place and (WHAM!) I’d be living on my own. This was the first reality check. Not only did I discover that cheap places to rent in the areas that I wanted to live were virtually non-existent, but if I did find something in my price range, it was already occupied. I also discovered that income requirements are another hurdle.

All of the places (except the first that did not have any free apartments in a normal price range) had income requirements. I also came to dread the term luxury in front of apartment ads. Honestly I don’t think luxury apartments are worth it if there isn’t any affordable housing anywhere else. Heck I’m still trying to figure out where poor people live in Fairfax County.

My mom and I went back home without any progress. I at first was convinced I would be living out of a cardboard box (or driving over an hour and a half commute to work). A few frustrated tears later led back to the internet. I was hoping to find a room for rent or a roommate. I found plenty of people looking for roommates, but I wasn’t sure how much I’d like kids, three cats (I’m allergic) or 18 year old French guys. There were a lot of 18 year old French guys looking for roommates. I finally found, with a good bit of help from my mom, a guy renting his basement with all utilities included. A phone call later and we had an appointment in two days to go check it out.

We also discovered that about twenty miles from where I was going to work was a small town with apartments with a rent that was at least reasonable. My mom started sorting through apartments while I just kind of nodded my head and agreed with whatever she said.

The next “new home hunt” started in the further away town very early in the morning. The first few places I looked at were nice. Mom helped me to identify what was lacking and what was a plus in some of the different places we looked at. One of the coolest things we discovered was that some apartments offer move in deals. If you move in by a certain date they cut the rent, wave fees for the pool or even give you a month free of rent (but check to see if it’s a 12 or 13 month lease).

After another long day of looking at apartments and still having an interview for a basement to rent, I found a really cute place that was in my price range. I decided to cancel the interview and put in an application for this place. There was also a lot of paper work required on my end. They are very serious about not doing illegal activates and knowing where the money for the rent is coming from.

About a month later I was ready to move in. I managed to bribe two of my friends, along with my dad, to help me to move all of my worldly possession to the new apartment. When we finally got everything in, just as it was starting to thunderstorm, I discovered that my apartment was a lot bigger than I had thought it was and that I did not have as much stuff as I thought I had. Don’t get me wrong, I have more stuff than I know what to do with sometimes, but I still don’t have a couch or a coffee table. For that matter my dining room is currently folding chairs and a card table. I guess I never realized how much furniture makes a home. My dad had to suggest the card table and folding chairs before I realized that I even needed dining room furniture.

After a few weeks, and my book case being rebuilt, I had finally managed to make my apartment seem more like a home. I especially love having a dishwasher. I didn’t have a dishwasher in college and I now realize how much I love them. I like having my own home. Now I just have to keep it clean.