Roommate Affairs

I have been sharing my small college room with someone else for two years. We have been studying different subjects, believing in different religions and going to bed at different times. It has been wonderful.
Last year I was a confused freshman who had just arrived at "the US oldest higher education institution for women" for the international students' orientation. Overwhelmed by the amount of new information I had to absorb, I closed the door of my half-empty room, pulled down the white plastic window shades, and went to bed. A loud knock on the door woke me up on the next morning, and I met Danielle - a French-Canadian horseback-rider with bubbling interest in politics and mellow blue eyes. Danielle also turned out to be one of the most absent-minded, intelligent, funnest and messiest people I have ever met.

Danielle quickly filled every empty space of our room with decorative pillows, elephant necklaces, posters of Bob Marley, and books about urban legends and ghosts. My rooming experience with her exceeded my highest expectations. At the end of the year I had to collect from the room everything that Danielle forgot, decided to leave behind, or asked me to keep in summer storage including her gray fridge, full-size mirror, CDs, and jewelry. Danielle and I missed the deadline for forming a moving group to room together for the next academic year, so we left room 314 with nostalgia and headed towards a new dormitory.
Luckily, now we live in the same building but on different floors. Danielle has a sweet spacious apartment which she shares with a Republican rugby player. I got a small converted double on the third floor which I later ended up sharing with our mutual friend, May.
May doesn't only have a spring-like name. She carries a pretty spring-like spirit that makes her cuddle, act goofy and ask many questions. If you enter our room at any point you will probably adopt a look of confusion because of the mixed odors in this small space. The smell of powerful Tiger balm, green tea, natural hair products and all kinds of herbs are very common here because May loves Chinese medicine. It is yet to be seen what I will find in the room when the academic year is over. Somehow, I am not worried.

Moving Out, Moving In

My eyes slowly investigated the old two-storey house at 747 Crown Heights, NY. This is where I am going to live for the next two weeks. I don't know the roommates, I don't know the neighborhood, I don't know what I am going to do.
"Think of it as an adventure," I tell myself.
I step in and try to unlock the door. Failure. I think the woman, who is renting me the room and who left for Argentina, lied to me and gave me the wrong key. It makes sense - I already paid her. The door is finally unlocked and I sigh with relief.
"I wonder what's next," I tell myself.
What's next is the absurdity of the room, in which I am going to live. I know I saw it before but somehow it looked different. Or at that time I had convinced myself that the cheap price and the short time period justified the living conditions.
"Well, it doesn't matter any more, does it," I tell myself.
Then, I try to drag my bright red suitcase Grand in the room but there is not enough space.
The room is with the size of a Camel cigarette box just without its soothing beige nuances. I laugh - it is like a funny sit-com scene.
"This could only happen in a movie," I tell myself.
There is a bunk bed, a shelf heavily packed with big Economics textbooks, and more books, and more books - all staring at me threateningly to remind me I know nothing about economics. I don't even need to turn around to see the other part of the room - it is a desk with an ancient Visual Sensations desktop and a closet behind it. The only way you can sit in front of the computer is to push your chair a bit into the closet. When someone enters the room (and the carpet doesn't get stuck at the process) he/she will see your arms, and feet, and maybe your nose. But half of your body will be actually in the closet. So this is how I blog right now.
"Two weeks," I tell myself. "Just two weeks"