Friday, September 28, 2012

Adrift

This year I have been living with a mission companion and an engaged linguistics major. It has been an interesting experience to say the least. Let's compare and contrast our schedules a little bit. My mission companion is a student at UVU, taking 12-14 credits with no job. My engaged linguistics major roommate, on the other hand, is taking four credits and working 30 hours a week (but even this is questionable). Both of them tend to never get up before 9:00 or 10:00. Then there's me. I work two jobs totaling about 20 hours a week. I am taking 15.5 credits. And they aren't easy credits. I have seven classes all together. Granted, one of them is a swimming class (an excellent choice, by the way)

But the point of my post is not to bash my roommates per se. I guess the thing that is insane to me is how adrift my other roommates seem. My mission companion never seems to have homework whereas I have been inundated with all kinds of work. The other roommate is always hanging out with his girlfriend and always seems to have nothing to do. This environment is kind of hard to live in because when people are adrift, they tend to be messy and have no regard for others. My mission companion is the exception- he will help occasionally or notice my contributions.  But I also feel bad because I can't give him the attention that he probably wants from me. The other night I was doing homework all night and he was very adrift. He needed some interaction that I just couldn't give him. I think it's hard for him to be in Provo with so few friends here in Utah. On the other hand, I have never seen my other roommate do any kind of cleaning. It took him two weeks to put his suitcases away.

How can I survive in an environment that is so adrift? Any suggestions for surviving an environment where being adrift is the norm? What keeps you from being sucked into the cycle of being adrift?

3 comments:

Oneup said...

You should have taken badminton....
I moved into the library the semester I had adrift roommates. I was generally there by 7am and did all things productive there so I could be adrift at hom.

The Millers said...

I am sorry. I can relate. Remember all my awful roommate issues freshmen year? you can do it!

Jess said...

As my trainer always said to me, Keep on keepin' on. Just stay clean little Jacob. Sometimes it's okay to be a little messy. But when you let that messiness take over, you've got problems. Case in point: my desk. It has been messy for 2 straight weeks. I look at it every freaking day and think, "I should clean you" and then I remember that homework is probably more important than the cleanliness of my desk. And then the vicious cycle continues. One day it will get clean. Probably this weekend. Or tonight, now that I think about it. Just keep being clean. It pays off in the end and your future wife will love you all the more for it whereas the future wives of your roommates will be forever disgusted with their disgustingness and wish there was some way to remedy it, but alas, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.