Alone alone alone.

[rubah]

my roommate isn't too bad really. She just wakes up too early xD

But yeah, the first weekend (especially the night before stu got here) I was crushed by loneliness like parker said.

[Shoeberto]

There's only really a few things to consider.
Can you do laundry? Like separating whites, folding, etc.
Can you physically remove a full garbage bag from its can, tie it, and take it to where ever it goes?
Can you keep your own living space tidy enough that it doesn't drive your roomie crazy? (this may not be applicable depending on the room mate, but generally it's better to go into it being clean)

I mean, that's all there is to independent living in a dorm. You still get babied pretty heavily, with dining halls, staff that cleans the bathrooms, and stuff like that. Really the harder part is adjusting to social living and being considerate of your room mate... and hoping like hell that they do the same for you. Not all will. You'll have to learn to cope with that, also, because it could get to a point where you want to explode at them (not a guarantee but a definite possibility) and you have to be able to control yourself. If you explode on them halfway into the first semester, that's still like, six months you'll have to live with that person (unless it gets really drastic and you have the money to blow on changing rooms (or if they have pot or something and you can get them kicked out for free))

For most people it's just a lot of common sense stuff. Just don't let yourself get so caught up in social stuff that your grades slip and you'll be good. I've run into too many people that've had to drop classes or just drop out because they don't know how to control themselves and actually put their nose in a book when they have to.

So... yeah, that's basically my retrospective on my first year in college! Hopefully it's useful.

[snacks]

Managing money is gonna be the best part

Then again, realizing the dollar store sold all the essentials (cereal, bread, etc) and spending 20 dollars on groceries for 2 weeks was fun

[rubah]

instead of $20 for the groceries for one day like you'll pay at the on-campus stores!

[Miriel]

The hardest thing when I moved into the dorms was having a roommate I really REALLY didn't like. Ergh. No bueno.

I also missed the constant companionship of my best friends back home. We used to hang out every single day and my best friend literally lived a few houses down from me. So not having that close group of friends and being thrust into a new environment where I didn't know people and actively disliked some people wasn't pleasant.

When I moved in with people of my choosing the next year, the issue was basically personal space and cleanliness.

One of my apartment mates was just a mess. Horribly dirty. Not just messy, but DIRTY. We kept having to have house meetings and talking to her about it, but we never resolved the issue. After the year was over, we let her keep the apartment and the rest of us moved out. The room I was sharing with my roommate was so tiny that it BARELY fit two beds. And in the mornings when we were getting ready for school we'd be getting into each other's way. There was only 1 bathroom for 4 girls. It was just hard not having that personal space. There was nowhere to go but outside if I wanted to have a private phone conversation or anything like that.

Getting an apartment for my own and living alone had the benefit of lots of personal space. But it's been lonely. I miss having roommates and people to talk to when I get home from school, and even people to go grocery shopping with. But I gotta say, I do LOVE having my own kitchen, my own bathroom and my own bedroom. There's just so much more peace of mind this way.

I wish I could have found the perfect balance of personal space + fun roommates to hang out with but it never happened that way.

Oh and taking out the trash. I HATE taking out the trash so freakin' much. And I never had to do it at home or at the dorms. But now I do, and I hate it. When I was living with roommates, all of us hated doing it and the trash would just pile up and up and up. Hate that crap.

Until this year, I really didn't cook much healthy food for myself and so that resulted in weight gain. My roommates and I would cook things like cupcakes for dinner and there was a ton of ordering pizza. Even if you have a kitchen, college life makes you lazy. After finals and stuff, you just don't want to cook. So either you cook something lazy and unhealthy, or you get fast food. Lately I've been cooking for myself and making salads and eating tofu and stuff in an effort to lose weight. But yeah. I would REALLY recommend that you bring things to your dorm/apartment that would make cooking for yourself easier.

It's like, if you don't have the material to cook (frying pan, spatulas, knives, various spices, oils, etc) then you're FAR more likely to just say, "oh I don't have any basil... screw it I'll have pizza instead of the tomato and shrimp I was gonna make." There was a period of time where I simply did not cook in my kitchen because someone threw out the cutting board. Lame, I know. Just have PLENTY of cooking material and ingredients around so that you're less tempted to order out for food or anything like that.

[Jojee]

Living in the dorms isn't hard, but it's pretty miserable if you don't like your roommate. Good luck.

[KoShiatar]

I was fairly lucky with roommates at university, actually one of them was one of the nicest persons I've met and she was fairly quiet and clean despite not being a bore... a Godsend, especially because in that period I was recovering from a fairly hard blow.
When I really moved out, that is in a house that I paid for, and not to see my parents for months a time, the thing that made it really hard for me was loneliness. I came to a country I'd never been to, with a launguage I didn't know, without knowing anyone - really anyone. And for a job that I didn't know if it would go well and without even knowing where I'd end up living. It surprises me I actually had the guts to do that.
Homesickness plagued me in the beginning, but now I'm fairly used to my surroundings. What I still miss is my mom's cooking; when sunday comes all the house starts smelling like rosemary and salvia and baked meat and potatoes and it's just wonderful, feels so much like home. And my dad is great at barbecues and he always makes grilled meat for me every time I come home. It actually troubles me because I realize it'll be hard to reproduce that feeling and that exceptionally good food for a long time.

[Loony BoB]

I never had a roommate. I had three flatmates - the first was my Mum, the second a female friend from EoFF and the final and current one being my girlfriend.

Mum didn't act like a Mum when she was my flatmate, she acted like a flatmate. That was great. She helped me keep track fo when jobs needed to be done without nagging, and things were very easy for the most part.

The friend was messy and never really did any chores to the point that I got fed up with her (and it seems she got fed up with me) and I told her to head out ASAP. We're okay now as friends, but I don't think I'll ever ask a casual friend to move in with me again. Things just get bad.

With a girlfriend it's much easier to communicate and understand each other, although I have to admit she's still not as clean as I'd like, but that's been improving a slight touch lately.

The one thing I would ensure is that you set down some standards early on. If you let them slack off from day one they instantly get comfortable with slacking and if you do more significantly more cleaning than them then they'll grow accustomed to you doing all the work. Just be sure that you have some kind of understanding and it should work out... I guess.

Personally I love it when I live on my own because of the amount of control I have. But then, having a girlfriend live with you has a lot of upsides. I would say that I love that even more.

[Rye]

Yeah, I'm kind of worried about the roommate part, because the rooms at my college are unpleasantly small. I'm really easy going with a lot of things and I'm pretty neat, so I wouldn't be a bad roommate. But I'm afraid of having some psycho roommate. xD

[Aerith's Knight]

Roommates are always different then you yourself. Getting along great with a roommate doesnt mean that you both like the exact same things, but that you respect each other rules about living together and can talk normally and have some fun..

i think everyone always expects a mellow roommate and therefore brands every normal person as a physcho.. roommates are people too, just like you..

so dont expect too much, just have an open mind and im sure that it will be fun.

[KoShiatar]

I suppose that if anything goes wrong you could always ask to change roomates...?
I think the worst roommate I ever had was a girl who always stayed up late until at least 2 or 3 in the morning, then told me off because I woke her up when I had to go to classes at 9. She woke up, like, at 3 P.M. and in the meantime I couldn't make any light in the room to study! I mean, don't you ever have classes? Go to bed earlier instead of smoking weed WTF!

[Levian]

Since August '06 I've lived together with 29 people, we all had/have separate rooms so it's not too bad. STILL, I do feel like firing off a harpoon in someone's general direction every now and then. ESPECIALLY people that don't clean up after themselves in the kitchen and this one guy who don't flush. I don't need to see your poop, guy. He also dresses as if the 19th century puked all over him, and his hair is shaped like Toad's mushroom hat. I know those last two things don't have anything to do with the flushing and cleaning, which are the things that actually annoy me about him, but I still think they are worth mentioning. Oh and when he laughs it sounds like he has tuberculosis, which makes me think that maybe he IS from the 19th century. That would explain so much, both the flushing and the clothes.

[Rye]

Since August '06 I've lived together with 29 people, we all had/have separate rooms so it's not too bad. STILL, I do feel like firing off a harpoon in someone's general direction every now and then. ESPECIALLY people that don't clean up after themselves in the kitchen and this one guy who don't flush. I don't need to see your poop, guy. He also dresses as if the 19th century puked all over him, and his hair is shaped like Toad's mushroom hat. I know those last two things don't have anything to do with the flushing and cleaning, which are the things that actually annoy me about him, but I still think they are worth mentioning. Oh and when he laughs it sounds like he has tuberculosis, which makes me think that maybe he IS from the 19th century. That would explain so much, both the flushing and the clothes.

xDDD Oh Levian.

Are you still rooming with the blonde girl who stacks cartons of milk in front of people's doors?

[Roogle]

It was very easy for me to adapt to living alone. I think that many people overexaggerate potential difficulties of living alone, and I think that you'll be fine, too, as long as you have money.

[Caraliz]

being alone is scary but i have my man to come help me. ;_;