The Roommonster Era Comes to a Close

Okay guys, I know it's been a while since I've posted but calm down. I'm alive and well and I finally finished this Spring Semester so you have my full attention. Also, I dyed and cut my hair so I somehow got even BETTER looking since last time we spoke. So that's something.

Anyway, The funny thing about people is that no matter how much you might try to leave them, they rarely actually disappear from your life. When I moved out of the dorms and officially stopped living with my roommonsters about 12 days ago, I assumed the year and the nightmares that came with it would all vanish into thin air. No more talking about, thinking about, or living with the memories of the time of my life that will henceforth be referred to as The Roommonster Era. Unfortunately, as busy as I've become with my summer tutoring job and exciting MIB training with Adrian, I'm still a bit fixated on my time in the suite with the "roomies." In fact, saying I'm a bit fixated is a gross understatement. So I thought and I thought with my attractive new hair about how one might go about moving on and letting go. I came to the conclusion that I'm lacking what one might call "closure" and it's time to get me some of that wherever it is. Might as well start with some list making, because that's what all the adults do in the voice over part at the end of movies where they summarize thier experiences and why it all mattered.

Here's what I've taken from this years experiences. The good and the bad.

1. If I never see, hear about, or come into contact with a minion related ANYTHING from Despicable Me, I will be a happy and content individual. There were WAY too many minion references and paraphernalia in that suite considering most of them were between the ages of 23-25 years old.
2. My room mates were all older than me, and half of them were Child Development majors. They sounded like they should have been ATTENDEES at a child development center rather than employees. This was a red flag, and I should have picked up on it from the beginning. I've got to be more aware!
3. Cleaning is important. It's that simple. I don't want to live with strangers who can't clean up after themselves. 
4. Loving yourself is even MORE important. Turning to others for constant validation and support isn't a healthy behavior. On top of that it's annoying. Having lived with four people who didn't love themselves and looked to each other (as well as me) to love themselves for them I can say first hand how ineffective and unrealistic that expectation is. 
5. Emotions are exhausting and completely necessary, but being OVERLY emotional is counterproductive. Group crying on the kitchen floor about your childhood on a regular basis is an excellent example of that concept. I learned that I'm not the most emotionally healthy and emotionally intelligent person on this planet, but I was definitely more emotionally prepared than I originally thought before moving into the dorms. 

There I did it. It's done. I may not have found closure but I made a list and I'm now one list closer to closure than I was before. Trying saying "closer to closure" 5 times fast eh? Hopefully I can cry a river, build a bridge, and get the hell over it SOON for the sake of myself and the well being of my relationships with others. For now, I'll try and focus on more interesting things, like being a tutor and training to be a man in black!

As I mentioned before Adrian is working on MIB training with me. We call it MIB training because calling it "exercise" is way less fun and inspiring. I've also always assumed since childhood that Tommy Lee Jones would eventually show up at my door step and whisk me away to New York where we would practice intergalactic law enforcement together. So it all works out in the end. And Tommy, if you're reading this, we still have time to make it work. I'll accept Will as a replacement, but it just wouldn't be the same. Besides, I'm still waiting on Will to show up so we can go defeat Dr. Loveless in the wild wild west. But I digress. 

We've had two MIB training sessions so far. So far I think we are managing it pretty well. Only a tiny bit of arguing but even that has gotten significantly better since session one. Guys, we are totally crushing it. I'm pretty proud. I'm super sore because I take the "no movement is good movement" approach to down time. It's been worth it though. Definitely building up some muscles that have silly names that sound made up. 

Overall, this summer is panning out to be one interesting and fulfilling new era. Employment, MIB training, new ginger hair. Let's see if I can keep this going.

Until next time, I'll leave you with this exceptional photoshop job of my new hair and elf sized adrian on my shoulder. Yeah guys, I totally understand the internet now.

Just Because it Smells Clean Doesn't Mean it IS Clean.

Guys, I have a lot to say today. Just bear with me. Room mate A and I share a bathroom unfortunately. We have a cleaning schedule and everything. It's on our wall and I even made it into a pretty neon poster. We agreed to the terms of our cleaning duties and schedule at the beginning of the semester because she just couldn't handle uncleanliness. I've been noticing since last semester that Room mate A doesn't actually follow the cleaning schedule. And she uses the term "clean" very loosely. She writes "Cleaned Bathroom" on the board on her door after throwing a little cleaning product down the drain so that it SMELLS clean but isn't actually clean. Here are all the bizarre ways this girl has tried to clean the bathroom in the past.

1) In the beginning of the semester she was cleaning the bathroom shower with the SAME mop she was cleaning the floor with. And she was using pine sol. PINE SOL! What the HELL is that? Who wants their bathroom smelling like pine sol and WHO cleans their shower with a mop? Not just ANY mop. Not a  mop specifically designated to the shower. THE SAME MOP SHE USES TO CLEAN MAC AND CHEESE OFF THE FLOOR OF THE KITCHEN!!! And she doesn't even rinse or sanitize the mop when shes done using it in the kitchen before putting it on the shower floor! When I found out she was doing this and did everything I could not to yell "EEWWW" in her face.

2) She switched to pouring pine sol on the surface of the shower and rinsing it by running water about mid semester. Mind you, I've been scrubbing our shower on my damn hands and knees like a PEASANT trying to keep stains from setting in. My mother will tell you I don't clean like that regularly. Seriously, if you ran into my mother right now and asked her "Hey, does Ashley clean the shit out of the bathroom on a regular basis at home?" She would laugh at you and say "Absolutely NOT!" and she might even throw in a little Appalachian twang because the question you posed was so funny she reached back into her roots and pulled it out. Guys, I'm downright disgusting. But a shared bathroom and a cleaning schedule devoted to the idea of not getting fined by the Housing Department seems like a pretty good reason to start cleaning properly. When I told Room mate A, "What you're doing isn't really cleaning, it's pouring" she switched tactics.

3) Her next approach was to do nothing while making it smell like she did something. She didn't have the courage to talk it out with me, and she wasn't trying to get back at me. If she was attempting that she would have just staged another coup in the living room. She just legit doesn't have any sense of cleaning skills and didn't feel like asking for help or talking about rearranging duties. She didn't touch the toilets at all, dust settled over each week she was in charge and water rings set in and made their home. She never bought the plunger even though she agreed to do so, instead she tried using the toilet brush to plunge. HOW IS THAT EVEN LOGICAL? You're just ruining the toilet brush I bought because of your cheap bastard ways! Her way of making the bathroom smell clean without actually being clean was to purchase air fresheners and pour cleaning product down the drain to get that nice pine fresh scent. 

4) Toward the end of last semester our shower was completely clogged because she never pulled her hair out of the drains and she was leaving particles of food and whatnot from the mopping method she used for months prior. I asked her to put in a work order and she finally did THIS semester. Then she stopped pretending to clean the shower all together.

I wouldn't mind all the grossness and whatnot if she didn't insist at the beginning of the semester that we have a whole organized cleaning schedule because uncleanliness in the bathroom is just such a huge pet peeve of hers. She's obviously a short annoying little lier because I'm disgusting but shes where disgusting things go to die. I haven't even touched upon the whole "Where's that smell coming from?" incident of Fall 2013. The stories too gross to even describe guys.

Now, this bathroom is the SAME bathroom we had a HUGE fight over last semester because she refused to clean it claiming that I unnecessarily cleaned it during her week, and that it wasn't her fault I can't keep track of when I'm supposed to clean the shower. She demanded that I clean the shower two weeks in a row because I was so irresponsible as to lose track of my cleaning schedule. I called BS because I knew it was my week. I verbally told her I was going to clean, to which she didn't say, "Oh I already cleaned it this was my week." AND I kept track on my own as to when I had last cleaned the bathroom. So she said it wasn't her fault. I didn't ask if it was her fault because franky I didn't care. I knew the bathroom was bothering her more than it was bothering me, so I responded to her "Not my fault" with a little Polish saying. "Not my monkeys, not my circus." (aka, not my problem SUCKA!) Needless to say it really hurt her feelings and we had to have a whole meeting about it, RA's and all.  

In short, everyone cried in the meeting but me, people described thier feelings and emotions and Room mate C ran away in the middle and it was all really dumb. Really dumb, but a super funny and entertaining story. I'll have to describe that whole incident in my next post. It would be an injustice to leave you without that experience.

I know I got a little off track, I just had a lot to say. The main point is, just because it smells clean doesn't mean it is clean. But I guess another worthy disclaimer is, don't handle people you can't respect the same way I do. It leads to some interesting stories but mostly avoidable trouble. Show some self restraint in a situation where you think the person across from you is a jackass sorry excuse for a person. Just walk away knowing that they suck, and that nothing you say to them will make them suck less. Seriously, do as I say, not as I do. Also, learn how to clean before you move away from home, people will like you more if you do!