When I was a sophomore, I lived with three girls. I did not know they partied girls until I moved in. At that time, I was actually looking for girls who are quite, friendly, and good at cooking. One of the previous tenants intentionally lied to me in order to sublease one bedroom to me. After I moved in, my nightmare began. First, all of them are sorority girls, so they would regularly bring sorority girls into our apartment such as cooking together, doing homework and talking gossips. Actually, no matter what they originally planned to do, eventually all the activities would end up with gossips. Hence, you could keep hearing laughing or screaming at the very loud voice. I tried to talk to my roommates much times about the noise they made which would interrupt my studies. They always replied we will try to turn down our voice next time. Unsurprisingly, the same situation kept recurring and nothing had been changed. I had to go to library or friends place to get away from those gossip girls.
Later on, things became worse and worse. They started to hold party almost every Friday, which really drove me crazy. Since I was not favor of the party and drinks, I like to maintain a regular sleeping cycle. Most time, I would go bed by the 12 at night. However, this was just the time they started to pregame and warm up. Sometimes, they even drank until 4 am, since everyone was drunk over, they would shout very loud, dancing, singing or even do some crazier things. I could not fall asleep at all. Finally, I opened my door, and shout at them “getting out of my apartment, the party is over!” I need to sleep! My roommates knew I was really mad this time, so they asked their friends to leave our apartment right after I pissed off. On the next day, I decided to have a serious conversation to them and set up rules, “In the future, we could only invite friends to come to our apartments during the day, and they need to leave by 8 pm. No party at our apartment. If you guys host a party again, I would call the policy. “Absolutely, it is hard for them to accept no parties anymore. They kept argue with me and said what about once a month. I rejected. They kept telling me they were sorority members, so they need to hold events regularly to maintain a relationship with insiders. We kept negotiate the rules and everyone made a concession. In the end, I allowed them to host a party once per semester. And they need to clean up the trash after party.
I have to say this entire year is miserable for me. I could not sleep well. I do not have a quite study environment. Living condition is also terrible since those girls were so lazy to clean up the trash. I was the only one who threw away the trash and clean the living room most. They would only clean it when I was mad and strongly complain the tidy issue. Unsurprisingly, my grades dropped very significantly at that year. From my perspective, conflicts are inevitable and exist ubiquitously. Based on these two examples, I chose to go to the library as my solution to get a quiet environment for studying. Thus, I am the one make a concession. In the second case, when they host a party at the midnight, I could not avoid conflicts by just leaving the house. Hence, I had to talk with them, and negotiate the rules, and find a compromise that everyone could accept. In the future, I would dig into more information and do more research to know the roommate better in advance, which would help me to make a wise decision next time.
I gather from this story that the following year you found an alternative living arrangement that was more toward your liking. Looking back on it I wonder if you might have stayed in the dorm as a sophomore. I doubt there is much that could have been done to manage the situation better for you, given there was only one of you and three of them.
ReplyDeleteLast spring I had a discussion group with some students who had taken the course the previous fall. There were three of them, two from China, one from Korea. At the outset we discussed the piece in Inside Higher Ed called The University of China at Illinois. I suspect you've read it and discussed it with your friends as the issues raised in it seem paramount on campus now. It really would be better for everyone if there were more cross cultural experiences that worked out well. The experience you describe likely encouraged you to find roommates from your own country as a safer path for you.
I wonder if you have other lessons learned. The library rather than the apartment as a place to study might be a good thing for other reasons than the one you describe. There needs to be some balance between work and relaxation and that is harder to achieve if everything happens in the same location. But, for example, if you had only one roommate who was in a sorority, might you have been able to negotiate something that was mutually agreeable? If so, but that didn't happen, it is the sort of miss opportunity that is regrettable. I don't know the answer here but I fear we learn to be too cautious from our past bad experiences and then block the possibility of good outcomes in the future.
Actually, all those three girls are from China. I agree we should have a balance between work and relaxation. I have to say sometimes it is not convenient to study in the library. For example, if I study very late at home, I could go to bed whenever I want. Instead, it is not safe to walk home alone if I studied in library till late night.
ReplyDeleteAs roommates, we should respect each other's living pattern. I mean even bar would close at 2 am, the home party is supposed to end by 2 am. Not just me, other neighborhoods' life also would be affected if they hold party whole night for every week. Regular living patterns are also important for our own health. Our bodies need a good rest to help natural detox tools like the liver, skin and lungs working functionally.