The Single Girl's Guide to Dealing With Your Roommate's Boyfriend

Hey lovelies,

After yesterday's heavier post, I'm in the mood for something much lighter today! So let's talk about something that I experienced during my freshman year of college which was a roommate with a serious boyfriend. Because I lived suite-style, I had 3 other roommates. One of them kept to herself a lot, but the other two quickly became some of my best college friends.

They both had serious boyfriends. One of their significant others didn't go to our school and would only visit occasionally and the other one's boyfriend lived down the hall from us.

Let me start off by saying that both of them are great guys and with the equally awesome girls, they make some of the most successful couples that I know. However, I have heard the horror stories that some of my friends living with not so pleasant couples have experienced and I just wanted to share some of the things that we did in order to avoid awkward situations for all of us.

Let's start with my actual roommate who has the boyfriend at a different school. Because he would only come visit about once a month and only for a weekend at a time, it's pretty obvious that while he was visiting, they wanted to spend a lot of time with each other. Although she was always super sweet about extending the warm invitation for me to join them on their days out, I usually tried to just let them have their time and hang out with them during more informal things like football games after dinner Starbucks runs. In addition, during those weekends that he visited, I tried to get myself out of the room as much as possible. Although I never had to do it because I felt awkward or uncomfortable, this could also be a good strategy for someone who doesn't get along with her roommate as well as I did. By making sure that I just found other things to do on the weekends I knew he was visiting, I not only gave them the breathing room I'm sure they appreciated (our rooms are tiny!) as well as giving myself little to no time to mope around feeling bad because I'm still looking for the prince charming that she's already found. If you do plan on spending time out of your room, make sure you tell your roommate where you're going and what time you think you'll be back so she doesn't freak out if you're not home at usual 11 PM and also so she can budget her time and makes sure she gets her gushy love bug time out of the way while you're not in the room.

Moving onto my suitemate with the boyfriend down the hall, I have to say that she did a much better job handling this living situation than a lot of my friends roommates did, as referenced by their horror stories and sleepless nights spent arguing eighth less accommodating roommates. My suitemate used to ask us every day if it was okay for her boyfriend to come over, no matter what time of day it was. She continued to do this even after we told her that we didn't care when he came over and although we eventually got her to stop asking, she remained polite and courteous about everything. This politeness that she showed at the beginning of the year made us more comfortable about him being in the room and he ended up being a really good friend to us as well. Because he was there every weekend, it would be a little ridiculous for us to think that we should avoid the room to give them space. In exchange for this, we would sometimes walk in on cuddle sessions in front of romantic comedies, but because they were always willing to share the popcorn and make room on the couch for everyone, it was never awkward for anyone.

So as you can see, dealing with roommates with boyfriends doesn't have to be a chore! In fact if it's handled well you might even end up with some great guy friends and stories like I did. Of course a lot of this is dependent on the willingness of your roommate to cooperate and respect you (I definitely lucked out) but with a little communication, hopefully you too can have a hassle free relationship with her significant other.

Love,

Ranjini

A Start on my Personal Philosophy

DISCLAIMER: I'm getting a little sick and just took some drowsy inducing medicine so please excuse all grammatical, spelling and syntactical errors. Trust me, it bothers me just as much as it bothers you...I'm an English major.

So one of the things that's obviously been in the news lately has been gay rights. This morning I was talking to my dad about this and because writing something out helps me firm up my opinions, I thought I would try expressing them here.

Let me start off by putting it out there that generally I am liberal. Although it can be argued otherwise, I consider myself to have been raised in a liberal fashion and I say this because my family has always fostered an extremely accepting stance towards others regardless of their race, sexual orientation or religion. It seems natural that we should accept other humans for what they are and judge people based only on whether or not they are good.

This becomes tricky because I start sounding like an absolutist but I really consider myself more of a moral relativist. This stems from the fact that I have accepted that as humans, we don't really know which religion or belief system is "right" and therefore should not be able to pass judgment on others who believe differently from us. It should be up to each individual to choose his own values and the only time that I have a problem with these choices is when they involve going out of a persons way to ridicule and point out the flaws in another person's decisions simply because they think differently.

 If you haven't guessed, I support gay marriage mostly becaus I don't think that it needs tone as big of a deal as people make it out to be. If you don't want to have a gay marriage, then marry a girl if you're a guy. And hey, if you're a guy who wants to marry another guy because you love them and care about them, who am I to tell you you're wrong?

I don't see it as the end of the world for some conservatives to continue to think that having a gay marriage is a ticket to hell, but I strongly believe that it isn't their place to jam that philosophy down everyone's throats. I think that by taking the time to just focus on ourselves and doing what we think is correct while giving others the breathing room to also focus on what they believe, we envelop ourselves in the true essence of what it means to be a tolerant melting pot of a country.

Love,

Ranjini

Better Late Than

Never.

So this post is late but whatever I was really enjoying my time off work! That one day was all I needed to feel completely awesome about everything.

I've moved on to the point in the summer where I start freaking out about college stuff though. At this point, I feel like because I have experienced a year away from home, I know what works and what doesn't. While it's refreshing to be able to prepare for a year away with the collective experience of this past year, it also gives me this insane expectation that everything about this year has to go absolutely perfect. I know it won't, but for whatever reason, I'm having a really hard time accepting the fact that despite my efforts, I will have to deal with plenty of unexpected challenges.

My biggest fear is that one of them will be making and keeping friends. When I started school last year, I had one close friend that I could always rely on for anytime I needed anything from a hug to a buddy to run to the grocery store with. Since then, we've grown apart and while I do miss having that sense of comfort and reassurance, I love that I've gotten more time to focus on bettering myself. I have a somewhat new (or maybe just intensified) view on life that forces me to rely a lot more on myself and I've begin to understand the value of putting in hard work now combined with the patience of waiting for good things to happen as a result. While I'm very happy with these changes, I have to admit that bringing them about caused me to move relationships to the back burner and ending the relationship with that close friend was the first step. Although I can think of a hundred ways that I want to improve myself, I need to put the focus back on maintaining close friendships and finding a balance between introspection and interpersonal relations.

I want to come home from first semester with a college experience that I can be proud of. I want to have good grades, a decent amount of money saved, a set of friends that I'm proud to call my own and the confidence that these things are here to stay because I put effort into making them happen.

At this moment, I feel anxious but prepared. I'm confident that if I focus and remain in touch with these goals, they should be completely attainable.

Wish me luck!

Love,

Ranjini

Dorm Room Plans

Tomorrow will be the first day that I don't have work, class or outstanding homework hanging over my head and I plan on carpe-ing the crap out the diem!

Speaking of that quote *cue fancy segway that was totally planned*...

I plan on starting my dorm deorations tomorrow!! Tomorrow morning I'm going to help my mom make lunch so I can begin picking up some of her south indian cooking tips for when I'm far away and crave a home cooked meal (which happens a lot more than I thought it would!) and then I'm going to Costco or somewhere to pick up a rainbow pack of sharpies.

Oh. My. Goodness. I haven't had one of those rainbow packs of sharpies since I was probably 10. I used those markers until every last one, even the ugly colors, ran dry. They're just so danged expensive, but I figure that because I plan on use them in place of buying expensive premade dorm decorations, it'll be cost effective and good for my creative spirit which hasn't gotten much love lately.

I know I want to do the carpe diem quote, "Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna" (Never Say Goodbye in hindi) written in hindi script and some variation on the "Keep Calm and..." traditional poster. I found one that says "Keep Calm and Do Some Fucking Cardio" and I LOVE it, but I'm not sure that my roommates would appreciate having the F-bomb so prominently displayed on the wall, especially when parents and family come visit.

Along the joint between the wall and the ceiling, I want to put a quote from Les Mis, "Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise" to kind of make it look like a ribbon running through there. I can't decide if I'll repeat that quote all around my side of the room or if I'll try to find some more (there are so many good ones from that musical).

Also because I'm really trying to take this time to focus on self improvement, I'm going to make some tracker posters which I'll admit that I was inspired by The Office episode where Michael causes chaos in the warehouse after they have like 400 days of accident free work. The basic concept is that I'll put a title on a sign and every day that I do (or don't do) that thing, I get to put a number up on the board and every time I skip (or don't skip) that thing, I have to start back at 0. I'm hoping that it will help me really visualize my progress on things like working out and eating healthy. It's also a little bit of a public accountability because although I know my roommate would never judge me for skipping a workout (she is waaaay too nice!), subconsciously I will want to keep my number high!

Wish me luck with all of this...I feel like I actually have a lot to do now that I have it in writing!

Love,

Ranjini

Work a Derk!

sidenote what a catchy title.

Okay moving on. Obviously this is about work. I work at a perfume store in the mall and I absolutely love it. The management is super understanding with my schedule of not being home for most of the school year and they are always willing to work around the whims of their employees.

The one thing that I'm starting to not be so crazy about however is the nature of the job. At the beginning of this summer, my close friend (and possibly the only reader of this blog :] -- hi joanna) told me that she oved her internship because it gave her regular hours with a regular schedule and she was able to plan her life around that on a weekly basis. Joanna has always been in my eyes an extremely organized person. She creates schedules and timetables and actually sticks to them. It's always been a quality that I have admired in her. When she told me that she was excited about her predictable work schedule, I wasn't shocked at the fact that she liked the consistency, but I wasn't convinced that the regularity of a work schedule was made for everyone either.

I thought that I would love getting a new schedule every 2 weeks because it would give me the chance to play around with everything else I had to do and basically keep me from falling into monotony. However now, I really wish that I knew exactly what my schedule would look like. Although I do enjoy getting to spend time at the mall both during the day when I can chat with the security guards and other employees and at night where I can really focus on my interactions with customers, I honestly would trade that just to pick up a shift where I work for a set time, a set number of days a week, for a set number of weeks out of the summer.

It's overwhelming, especially the last few days of a quarter, to have absolutely no idea what the next two weeks will look like. It makes it difficult for me to plan big events with friends in advance because anything I commit to is subject to drastic change, and it makes studying for summer school finals ridiculous because no matter how much planning I subject myself to, even one day switching from a 3 hour afternoon shift to a 6 hour morning shift makes me feel like I'm sinking.

I'm actually ready to go back to school and my predictable dining hall job with predictable classes where I can just focus on getting into a good routine with good habits. A monotonous schedule might seem boring on the surface, but it definitely helps you accomplish a lot more and leaves you feeling better at the end of it.

Love,

Ranjini

A Post A Day Keeps the Lazy Away!

It's my new thought. If I try to keep up with a post a day (because I'm feeling ambitious at this moment..it'll probably die down to a post every other day which is still more than I have been doing) then maybe I'll make it a point to do more itneresting things so I'll actually have something to write about. If not, at least I'll have a record of my average life!

So here's to it.

This morning I woke up and went to the testing center to take the last tests for my summer classes. Then I came home and worked on some labs for these classes. Then my friend tagged along and we made a glorious journey to the main office of the college to turn in those labs. Not that exciting, but I got some driving in and I listened to Sweet Home Alabama (All Summer Long) by Kid Rock about 150 times.

Tomorrow I start up work again. I have been working but tomorrow I start my schedule that is not watered down due to these final exams and such. I'm a little nervous that I'll start going back to how I used to be before I started bringing a textbook to work with me and just ridiculously bored, but it'll also be nice to just relax for once and people watch.

Today I also realized how much I hate/love texting. I love that shooting someone a text can be a simple yet thoughtful (by 21st century standards) way to let them know you're thinking about them. It's also great for planning small events that don't require a full phone call. Personally, I am a huge fan of extensive conversations over text, but I forget that not everyone feels that way. Today, it has been exceedingly hard for me to deal with this and I find myself extremely offended when people send me succinct replies to my lengthy conversation starters. Someone also told me that this tendency that I have to start conversations with people over text is annoying. I can see how it can be seen easily as annoying because I'm very often more persistent than I should be in keeping a conversation going, but I was also hurt at the fact that instead of just politely informing me that they no longer wanted me to text them to have conversations, that I was annoying them.

Other than that, I think tomorrow at work I'm going to try to think of the decorations I want for my dorm room next year. Last year I didn't think about this at all and ended up just kind of throwing together a bunch of junk to put on the walls after some random weekend I went home. I'm not a huge crafter, but I plan on writing out and decorating a few quotes that get me going and are quirky as well as printing out a bunch of pictures to hang up. But who knows, maybe I'll go all Martha Stewart on this bitch.

Let's see how long I actually keep up this consistent posting thing,

Much Love,

Ranjini

Butterflies!

This week I've been focusing on my summer classes finishing up. Summer seems like it absolutely flew by but when I think about the things I did at the beginning of summer, they seem *so* far away. Even further behind that is the memory of my first few weeks of freshman year.

Every now and then, I have this vivid flashback of walking down Chalmers around 7 PM with my roommates and their dates in tow. The sun is shining and my skin feels warm. The sunshine literally feels like its touching my bones. The frat houses are blasting summery music and there are cute guys lounging around the front lawns in tank tops and douchey sunglasses. This scene cuts to a nighttime scene when we are walking around the same area. The sun is gone, but there is still just the right amount of warmth lingering in the air. We walk from frat house to frat house, timidly trying to experience some serious partying. And in my head it's a lot of fun. We danced and ran into people we thought we'd never see again and made fun of people getting too drunk and then went home to our cozy suite.

That's a nice memory to have and it gives me butterflies thinking that soon I'll get to do it all over again.

Except that it never actually happened...sooo...

In Champaign it's as hot as Chicago and most nights around 7 PM still feel humid and hot as hell. Seeing frat boys chilling outside their houses never makes me feel flirtatious and confident; it makes me self conscious and judged. The weather is nice on some nights, but it also gets chilly like any other place. Also it's strange how in this fantasy we never run into other groups of drunk people who inevitably make rude and lewd comments to any passersby groups. The actual parties that we went to sucked. Especially during welcome week, everyone in our group was too scared to actually try any alcohol, and when you find yourself trying to enjoy drunk, sweaty people crammed into a dirty living room with an unexplicably sticky floor, a drink can be your best friend.

Needless to say, I didn't really have a hands down awesome time partying it up at frat houses. I don't even think I went to more than maybe 3 parties. I have more cherished memories of doing things like crying at Titanic in 3D with my friends, playing road games while driving to mock trial competitions and even just random weeknights spent studying at the Ike.

But this one memory of this one night at a frat party keeps popping into my head and making me really excited to go back to Champaign...maybe I'm clairvoyant!

Love,

Ranjini

All My Life I've Been Good..

All I wanna do right now is talk to you. Sometimes we have these late night chats about life. They usually aren't related to us or anything, but somehow just talking seems like it might someday draw you into the attraction. Maybe you're thinking about me. Why can't I just follow my heart and tell you when I want to hang out with you or be okay with texting you first? You don't seem to care so why do I spend all my time just thinking about how each of my moves is going to affect things.

It doesn't matter. I need a new you.

Respect!

I know this person and they is not being very respectful right now. It isn't a big deal, but because no one is reading this anyways I might as well turn it into an online diary and if someone comes across it then maybe it will brighten their day to read about the shortcomings of this person.

So this person has a friend that has been their friend for a very long time. This friend is smart and the person is also smart. However, the person seems to believe that they are the smartest person to grace the earth and everyone needs to bow down in their presence. The person does not outwardly say this, but judging by the way that they post all of their school problems on Facebook and freak out about every little thing that happens to them, it's pretty clear that they have some sort of superiority complex. In addition, I can see that the person did not have many friends in high school. This is something new to me because I had great friends in high school and they helped shape me into the person that I am today, and they continue to do so. This person often talks about high school friends, but never in a good context. There always seem to be a variety of complaints, and eavesdropping (tsk tsk ranjini!) on their phone conversations never leaves me convinced that people actually like them. Probably because they are too concerned with themselves. (in real life..someone told me today that having a blog is pompous. it is I guess to have a whole website devoted to talking about myself and my thoughts, but it's okay because if I do my talking on here, i am more apt to notice when I'm hogging conversation in real life and I can temper that better)

Anyways this person has a friend and the friend came and asked for some homework help and the person flipped out and made it seem like it was the biggest sacrifice in the world for them to help the friend on the homework. The person may have things to do, but if they did not have time to help their friend, they could have just said so instead of making rude and angry comments making the friend feel like an idiot for not understanding what the person was trying to explain.

The person needs to find a better outlet for anger because I have seen it taken out on this friend too often, but I know it isn't my place to say anything because they have been friends for a long time and if anything, it would be really strange given my relationship to both of them for me to stick up for the friend. I don't see how the friend hasn't gotten fed up!

I feel better now. I'll go to bed.

In a sec.

In regards to my other problem...is it completely insane for me to just put myself out there? To make my feelings known so that even if you don't feel the same way right now you at least are aware of them when you're ready to start thinking about these things? Is it going to make things awkward if I were to just tell you?

All I know is whenever you're not texting me, I'm just thinking about things that I could potentially text you. It's hard to restrain myself. I know you say you're oblivious, but even you should be able to pick up on signals this clear.

Okay now that's all I have to say.

Love,

Ranjini

#badfeeling

Its awful when youre completely consumed by an idea that you know is not rational and you're propelled by the hope that something's going to change for sure and that dream will become a reality.

And then someone tells you that their mind is made up and that dream will never become a reality.

And then you realize that their mind has been made up all along and you've been the only one over thinking and fantasizing.

I first posted this without the love ranjini. I doubt anyone's even freaking reading this and if they are I doubt they'd care that I didn't sign it like i usually do but here's me always looking for freaking hope like a dumbass and here's the hope that one day lots of people will read this and then maybe someone will care that I didn't sign it properly.

Love,

Ranjini

Nostalgia

Little kids (meaning high school seniors) are coming to me asking for advice about how to make the best of their experience freshman year. Honestly, the best advice I could give would be to live an awesome life and continue being awesome throughout freshman year. I look back on my time spent at home and it's cheesy but I can literally picture exact moments when I know that I should have done something different; but then I realize that in the end, I am a product of all the things that have happened to me and being able to look back on all those times when I should have done something else makes me into the type of decision maker that I am today.

Last week I was thinking about how I am not any type of definable person who can look at her life and be like BAM I was the athlete or I was the mathlete. But I guess all I can say is that I've been fortunate. Things that have happened in my life have happened in a way that have shaped me into a person that I like and I realize now that I have never had to work very hard for the things that have happened.

Maybe this doesn't make sense, but I'm going to be late to work. I say I hate it, but really, it isnt bad at all.

Fortunately yours,

Ranjini

Fortunately yours is a stupid way to end a post.

Love,

Ranjini

Define Me

Lately I've been super self conscious about the type of person that I am. I feel like everyone that I meet has some amazing back story that leads them to who they are today and above it all, they are able to point to one thing that makes them absolutely spectacular and call it the capstone to their life. As the title of my blog suggests, I often feel nothing but average in many respects and couldn't dream of ever finding my one thing in life that really defines who I am.

I'm not the super organized girl focused on interior design who's room always looks perfect.
I'm not the girl whos been in a relationship for 27483 years and is half of the worlds cutest couple.
I'm not the most outgoing girl in the room who'll come up and talk to you without some shy eye contact first.
In not the activist who lives every day for a great cause and knows exactly what she wants to devote her life to.
I'm not the health freak who eats healthy and works out regularly and feels comfortable with how her body is.
I'm not girl who wrote the book on street smarts and has connections upon connections with people.

But I'd really like to be all or any of those. Just something.

Completely unrelated, but what is with people and getting into relationships these days? Spring is in the air and therefore "love" is in the air, but I just feel like everyone and their dog has a boyfriend or girlfriend right now! I can't stand couple talk all of a sudden and what I used to think was cute now absolutely disgusts me. I don't want to hear anything else about someone's glorious six year long relationship. I don't want to hear about someone else's 1672nd one night stand. I just want to hang out with my friends.

I wonder if anyone's even reading this haha,

Love,

Ranjini

Milkshakes melt, People Change

This past week in college has been one of the most unexpectedly difficult weeks I've had since I've been at school. Getting rid of a part of me means learning to embrace other parts of myself. I'm really trying to take this time to focus on my new job, getting really good grades, sticking to a workout routine and just overall become the mature and independent girl that I wanted to become in college.

It's really hardddddd. I've never been in this kind of a situation before and while the extra time is liberating, it's stifling because I find myself drawn to doing the same things I used to do before this week when I know that I should be trying different things.

Let's find something else to completely throw myself into; I need a new time consuming hobby


Let's get through it.

Love,

Ranjini