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Away from home, but not
responsibility
Student Experiences:
Living Away from Home
By Jason Roskos
Moving from the little town
of Independence, Wis., with a population of just over 1,000
people, to Marshfield to attend the university wasn’t exactly my
cup of tea. It was to be my first time away from home, my family
and my friends, 90 miles apart to be exact. Many questions ran
through my mind: What would my roommate be like? How would I get
along with my neighbors? Would I be able to handle the countless
responsibilities that came with living on my own? Would I be able
to budget my money well? I’m not the only one to be facing these
questions head-on.
“I was really nervous about living on my own and having a
roommate. My parents told me horror stories about that,” Becky
Schade, a freshman from Wisconsin Rapids, said. At first, I too
found myself in a state of anxiety about not only concerning my
roommate, Kent Thomson, a freshman from Wisconsin Rapids, but his
mannerisms as well. Honestly, my largest concern was about his
tidiness, which, like me, is perhaps one step below chaos, so we
can agree on one facet of sharing the two-bedroom apartment with
the kitchen about as small as a Geo Metro.
Kent told me that he had no reservations about rooming with me and
that having a roommate fills the void or kills the “fear of death
from boredom.” Once a good rapport was established between Kent
and I, the next people to meet were our neighbors. We all hear the
cliché that “good fences make good neighbors.” There are no fences
at Far Apartments, but one thing separated the apartments: ideas,
about each other and our backgrounds we overtook with ease.
It took a few days to match names with faces, but once that phase
passed, I took the liberty of visiting them often. Of this union
of college students, Schade said “it was good to meet new people,”
and the one word she used to sum up the whole affair was
“interesting.” In this moment of coagulation, I amused the
neighbors with tales from my native burg, in return lending an ear
to some of their homegrown sagas. It was in these series of chats
that we realized that we weren’t that different. It was our common
goal of someday getting out of here and living our dreams that was
the final dab of glue that would bond us for as long as we stayed.
One of my neighbors, a sophomore from Nekoosa, Joe Gack, is no
stranger to meeting new collegiate faces. He said he has no
problem meeting new people and welcomed the new faces this year.
The division of responsibilities is a task no person can truly
bring himself or herself to do, but living on our own comes with a
price. The way Kent and I deal with household chores is simple,
but known to backfire: when the dishes pile up high, it’s time to
do them and we do them together; we do our own laundry, we cook
for ourselves most of the time and we don’t gripe about each
other’s bedrooms; which are both comparable to what I like to call
a “civilized junkyard.” John Adams, a freshman from Wisconsin
Rapid, put it best when he said rooming with another person
teaches teamwork, which is quite true in keeping a harmonic
balance between roommates.
Money is another essential factor in the roommate relationship.
Kent and I currently have the internet and since we both use it,
thus split the monthly bill. As far as purchasing food and other
necessities, that too is split whenever the need is present.
The last issue that we face is being apart from our families.
Being as far from home as I am, it bothers me that I’m not
properly informed about the home front, but for Kent and most of
my neighbors, home is but a mere 30 or so miles away. So going
home on the weekends is commonplace for them, but not for me.
Boredom sets in like a virus and only the football games on Sunday
help keep me sane.
Overall, the move to Marshfield and having the experience of
meeting new people is not as negative as my older relatives told
me. The freedom I possess is precious and the friendships I forge
here will hopefully last a lifetime.
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