I’m so excited it’s February! I have a lot of great blog posts planned and I’m really excited about them! But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I need to do today’s first.

So last school year (that makes it over a year ago cause I wrote it in 2016), I wrote a blog post about living with a roommate (read it here). This post is kind of similar, but also different. I am building on what I said last time, but with some better stories.

My reason for doing this is kind of to celebrate my roommate for this year (and at least the next) because her birthday was yesterday, February 5. So as kind of a tribute to her, I’m going to give some tips about living with a roommate followed by my usual anecdotal style of backing ideas up.

Like last year, my roommate and I talked some over the summer to at least be familiar with each other. By the time I moved in, she was already settled. I also moved up alone. As such, I texted a couple of my friends to help me unload. Well, in that, I also walked in my room and met my roommate. She offered to help me move in too. So that was our first official meeting.

I consider my roommate to be one of my best friends. We’ve been through a lot together and I’m glad for her friendship. With that background, here is my improved list of tips:

1. Communicate!- This was the first on my list last time, and it still needs to be first. Now this does not mean that you have to tell them every detail of your life, and not every type of communication has to be verbal. There have been times when I know my roommate has gone home because there is a few specific things missing from her side of the room. We do also text each other fairly frequently. And we talk in person like all the time.
2. Go on adventures together- Oh dear. Where do I begin on this? My roommate have gone on so many adventures. However, something usually ends up going wrong. We laugh about it later and still laugh about it to this day. So I’ll share a few with you of the types of things that happen to us.
   1. Every year on Halloween, Ball State has a tradition where they show The Rocky Horror Picture Show in screencast. Now what that means is that this takes place in an auditorium. They’ll play the movie on the screen, but then they’ll have actors on the stage acting out everything and mouthing all the lines. The last thing, the show starts at midnight. I had a friend go my freshman year, and I was invited, but I had an early class the next day. So I brought up the idea to my roommate, and she was like “yeah, let’s go!” I was a little stunned, but she had said she heard people talking about it and had kind of wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So we went. The doors opened at like 10 or 10:30. We got in line, and we were actually pretty close to the door. We got in, and one of the ushers asked my roommate if she had ever seen this before. She said yes because the ritual for people seeing Rocky Horror for the first time is to have them do something (each place does something different). But I was not about to let my friend go through that. We find our seats, and then there was a pre-show that started at 11. We did not end up getting back to the room until almost 2 in the morning. We both looked like death the next day. And then once we got back to the room after classes, my roommate said “never again.” And I couldn’t help but agree. I don’t mind the Rocky Horror movie; however, we both felt that we were the some of the most normal people there and it was just way too late for both of us (we’re old).
   2. I’m gonna dog on myself a little bit on this one. Alright, so my roommate and I have decided that we are going to live together next year, and we are getting an apartment together. The apartments we are looking at are actually considered on-campus, but it is a little bit north of actual campus. There is actually a bus route that stops there, so it’s easy access to and from campus. So I called the apartment complex to schedule a visit the day before we went. She never gave me a name and never asked for mine. It was weird, but I’m sure I had the right number. Anyway, so we get on the bus and head up there. The apartment complex has three stops. I didn’t know what stop to get off at, and it was not until we pulled away from the first that we saw the office. So we get off at the second stop, and walk away to try to pretend like we know what we’re doing. As we are walking, I was walking in the grass. As such, I didn’t see that there was a hole. I stepped in it hard and my roommate lost it. She still laughs at me to this day about it. Anyway, we get to the office, and the guy at the front desk has no record of the phone call I made the day prior. Luckily, it was the middle of the afternoon, so it was not overly busy. He closed down the office and showed us the apartment. It was just a crazy trip.
3. Do things that you both enjoy- Last year, I wanted to go to games and events and stuff, but I had a harder time finding people I want to go with. This year, my roommate and I both love sports, especially basketball. We actually spent both days of a weekend at the arena watching basketball games. Both were really good games. The men’s team had just come off a crazy last-second win against Notre Dame. They actually beat Valparaiso the same way, and we were there for that. The women’s team at the time was undefeated. The game we went to, the women’s team actually broke the record for the most points scored in one game there, so that was cool. We bond a lot over basketball and other sports.
4. Learn about their classes- my roommate is a legal studies major. She wants to be a paralegal, which is actually what my mom does. We have actually had a same professor, AND we have the same Honors class this semester. We’ve both complained about some of our classes, and we help each other when we need it, whether it’s ideas or feedback.
5. If you want to do something that involves both of you, make sure the other person knows- throughout the semesters, we’ve had various decorations and things put up in the room. But we always make sure we tell the other person.
6. Learn about their families- my roommate is always trying to keep track of who I talk about, and I do the same for her.
7. Continue to be yourself- I like my roommate for who she is (and I hopes she says the same about me). I don’t need her to be more like me. I want her to be herself.
8. Eat around them- this is a little bit weird of a tip, but hear me out. I think there’s a special kind of bond that forms when two people have meals together. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but I think that is something that has definitely solidified our friendship.
9. Do things for each other- it doesn’t have to be extravagant. I braid my roommate’s hair on occasion. She’s curled mine at one point. I think it’s something that really helps.
10. Play music- music is a good connector of people. One time, when we went shopping together, we were jamming to old country music in the car. If we’re both in the room, we’ve played everything from country to pop to old Disney. We definitely connect over music and it brings us closer because of it,

I’ve heard so many stories of not rooming with a friend because it usually ends up poorly, but my roommate and I became friends because we live together. She’s a great person, and I’m so glad she’s in my life!

Let me know if you have any thoughts or comments!

Love,

Kim ♥