Dear Future Roommate
Now it’s April, and the torment of waiting for acceptance letters is over, millions of graduating seniors around the world are facing their next problem: picking a roommate. Asking someone to be your roommate is like asking them out on a 15-16 week long date. They’ll be the person you’ll spend most of your time with your first year, even though the only impression you’ll get from them before you two actually meet will be from what they tell you and what you can figure out by stalking their social media accounts. Since your future roommate will be your first friend on campus, it is important to give them a good impression of yourself to make sure you two are compatible; you also might want to mention what kind of a roommate you’ll be.
The easiest way to get your message across would be to write an open letter to your future roommate, and post it on your college’s roommate selection page (which the upperclassmen have probably already set up). Here’s mine:
Dear Future Roommate,
First and foremost, my name is Tanvi. I’m sometimes called ‘sinv over cosv’ because I’m a math nerd who (embarrassingly) finds that really funny.
If you are a neat freak, know I will clean up after myself, I promise. But if you are a walking mess, know I will probably start cleaning up after you (cue my mama bear instinct). On the subject of our dorm room, since we aren’t allowed to paint our walls, I plan on bringing in a bunch of posters, paintings, photographs and other forms of wall décor. I can’t stand the idea of plain, white walls, and I’m guessing, neither can you. So ,be sure to bring a multitude of wall décor things and Command Strips so we don’t get in trouble for ruining that beautiful, dust covered drywall we have to deal with.
I have the annoying/awesome habit of blasting music, but I have headphones, so I’ll use them if you need to study or just don’t want to listen to my weird music. By weird, I mean, all over the place. Like, one minute I’ll be listening to something really mainstream, and then the next song on my playlist will be alternative rock, or alternative pop, or alternative hip hop (yes, alternative hip hop is a thing), and then the next song will be some random K-pop song, and then some classical music or something; essentially everything and anything other than Selena Gomez. You might go insane after a while, but you might start to like the music, in which case I’ll be like your walking Spotify app (and your music savior).
I like to sleep. But that doesn’t mean I go to sleep at 10 P.M. every night. It means that I could probably sleep through just about anything. So don’t worry about waking me up when you are studying at 3 A.M, even though I’ll probably be awake then too, either studying, reading, or catching up on TV shows. Even though I like to sleep, don’t hesitate to wake me up in moments of crisis. That means that when you are awake at 4 A.M. reading a book or watching a movie or TV show, and your favorite character dies, you can drag me out of bed so I can console you because I understand how traumatic that can be; I won’t mind if you spoil the entire plot line for me. But I also expect you to do the same for me if I am ever in that situation (which I probably won’t be in because I have watched/read Game of Thrones and understand that building an emotional attachment to a fictional character is a bad idea, especially the week before finals).
Style-wise, I’d describe myself as a pajama pant enthusiast. I’ve spent ten years of my life competitively swimming, and have learned that it is much easier to put on pajamas than skinny jeans after 6 A.M. morning practice. I could live in pajamas all of the time, but because of the pressures of societal conventions, I do own real pants (jeans, mostly), so, don’t worry, I will not go to class wearing pajamas (unless you do that, in which case #PajamaBuddies4Lyfe, and, we should plan to get matching onesies). If you are the polar opposite, meaning, you like dressing up and wouldn’t dare be seen in the same shirt twice in two weeks, you can try to convert me, but beware, others have tried, and failed.
I am a dog person, and I’ll probably miss my dog more than I’ll miss my parents while I’m at college. My dog’s name is Khushi, which means ‘happy’, and she is the sweetest Golden Doodle you’ll ever see and hopefully meet (my plan to sneak her on to campus is currently in the works). Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll be terribly homesick, so much so that I may even start to miss my younger brother. But I’m sure that I’ll form a family at school with you and all of the other kids we’ll meet.
I’m a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do, but if there is a spider, you are on your own.
I like to make puns. And I will probably think of puns in the most inappropriate times, in which case I will either say the pun and embarrass myself or laugh to myself and again, embarrass myself.
I’ll probably be studying Computer Science, but if you need help writing an English paper (*cue the FRIENDS theme song*), I’ll be there for you.
And finally, I really, REALLY, like chocolate. (“Because there is no heartbreak that chocolate cannot fix” –Sarah Kay).
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(“OK, there’s a few heartbreaks that chocolate can’t fix” –Sarah Kay).
-sin(v)/cos(v)
(Image via.)