To the girl who gets my current roommate next year,
I know that having a roommate with someone for the first time is a hard thing to adjust to, but it did not go smooth sailing for me. There were times when I loved my roommate and times when I didn't love her, but I'm still glad I met her and was able to go through the experience of living away from home for the first time with her. Although we are friends and I do love her as a person, I wish you good luck. Here are some tips for when you take on the challenge of living with my current roommate in the future.
1. Make rules.
In order to keep your dorm a happy "home," make sure you have some boundaries set. Give her a list of things you like and dislike and have her do the same for you. This should be able to keep some common ground between you two and also should keep you in line. For example, times you can and can't have people over, when you can and can't have men over and scheduled cleaning days.
2. Don't be surprised if she always has friends in the room.
Yes, she's social and her friends are loud, but they are nice people. If you're getting sick of them being in your room super late, just add that to the list of rules (if it wasn't already on there).
3. Don't let her get too drunk.
People handle being drunk differently and sometimes people don't handle it too well. She is one of those who sometimes can't handle it well. But if for some reason she over drinks, take care of her and be by her side.
4. When she's starting to feel like she doesn't belong, make her see how amazing she is and how much potential she has.
Of course sometimes she isn't going to feel like her life is going really well, but let her know that there's so much to live for and go after.
5. Love her for who she is.
Sure sometimes she can be crazy and wild, but she is who she is. Love her for her wildness. Love her for her craziness. Love her for the way she lives without caring about what other people think. And when she's not listening to you when you are trying to help her, love her then too.
With that, I wish you a final good luck and remember my advice to you. You're in for a fun year and I hope you enjoy it. This is not to scare you away from the amazing adventure that is ahead of you, but to guide you. I hope that you take all of this information into consideration when you face a problem next year. I hope you know that it's a work in progress but you two can only go up from here. Besides, I had the hard job of breaking her in to life away from home and life in a small room shared between two people.
