I have been a part of the Delta State University’s community since the fall of 2015 and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Despite all the homework and projects our professors love to give us, I cannot express how much I appreciate my dorm room even though only half the room is mine. Just being able to watch Netflix and take a load off from the stresses of being not only an English major but school in general is wonderful. I can just sit in my room for an hour or two, listening to music while writing or reading without a care in the world.

But then, there’s the concept of having a roommate and living with them for an entire semester.

I have experienced a total of three roommates over the course of my stay in Brumby-Castle, and not all of them have been terrible experiences as a matter of fact we had plenty of laughs. Now, I won’t disclose names as that would be an invasion of privacy. Anything, I say here will not be used to make fun of or to be hateful toward them in anyway. I’m simply sharing my own experiences as I’m sure there are plenty of us who have had roommates ten times worse than mine.

My very first semester here, I lived with a girl from Vicksburg, and we happened to meet on orientation day which was fantastic. I knew someone that would be sharing the same room with me for the rest of semester, and if everything went okay then she would be my roommate until graduation.

Wrong.

At first, our lives as roommates was perfectly okay: we watched movies, Netflix, talked late into the night, complained about classes, and cursed our suitemates about locking us out the bathroom all the time. Then, everything began to change around the middle of the semester. She was part of a sorority on campus and the drinking and the partying plus the stresses of classes was beginning to take a toll on her. I knew she was having a rough time and tried to console her about it, and I also encouraged her on numerous occasions to not go to all these parties and skip class the next day.

She wouldn’t listen and was beginning to fail which made her mother irate and she wanted her daughter to move back home. Well, my ex-roommate vapes and I had asked numerous times to not vape in our room. I didn’t care if she did it anywhere else in the building, but I’d prefer it if I didn’t inhale this nasty smelling scented water vapor. One day, her mother said something to her that she didn’t particularly like and when I returned from my last class—the entire room looked like someone had gotten a fog machine and left it on while the window was closed.

I don’t know if vaping that much can be harmful, but what do I know?

Well, she moved into a private room for the spring semester and so Housing gave me a new roommate. My second roommate was quiet and very studious. We didn’t really talk that much which was fine as I was swamped with papers and homework from other classes anyway. I think out of the three, she had to be the best when it came to studying in peace.

My current roommate is a total sweetheart—I definitely hope we can stay together before she moves in with her fiancé. We may not have the same majors or schedules, but she’s great to be around and even when her fiancé is in our dorm, I don’t feel like a third wheel. It’s also hilarious to watch them joke around and wrestle with each other (she pretty much dominates him when it comes to that regard).

The only thing that she cannot understand at all about me, is the fact that I’m practically nocturnal and can somewhat survive without much sleep.  Honestly, I don’t know how I do it either and I guess we’ll never know, but she has a weird sleeping habit, too. How on earth can anyone who’s in their second year of college go to bed so early? I kid you not, this girl goes to bed no later than 11 p.m., like how is that even possible? Oh well. You’re not meant to judge your roommate’s bedtimes, I guess.

If anything, you can try to understand their living habits so you can both get along without killing each other.