Winter Semester

January

23 | Back to "Normal"

Monday, January 8, 2018

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Insanity:

Allowing Madison to make any important decisions for us.

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            I had made a drastic (or maybe not so drastic?) academic choice over my two-week-long Christmas break.

            I had decided to switch my major to Political Science instead of Creative Writing, since I figured there were probably more jobs in the field and I had always been interested in government and politics.

While I was absolutely thrilled about my switch to the Political Science major, I also felt as though I were missing out by not doing anything remotely related to the fact that I had loved to write since I was a kid. I had always assumed that writers could major in whatever they wanted, and just write on the side. But as I had progressed through my first semester of college, I realized that I wanted to delve more deeply into writing as a viable career choice alongside my campaign managing goals.

            I decided to add a minor to my already long list of commitments. Creative Writing switched from being my major to being my minor. But adding a minor helped me to recognize that I had other options, and other talents, to pursue.

            So, the first day of Winter semester brought my first-ever Creative Writing class along with it.

            It was a strange little class—only around eighteen students, and almost all of them seemed to be your stereotypical liberal arts kids. Soft-spoken, oddly dressed, and incredibly intelligent to the point that it made me feel like a kindergartener listening to them talk.

            I sat in the second row that day—the only day that I did so. The professor seemed great right off the bat: she had a no-nonsense way of speaking and conducting her class that made me sure this would not be a boring semester.

            She had us go around the room and introduce ourselves, since the class was so small. I gave my name, hometown and an interesting fact about me before we continued around the room. There were only two guys in the class: a guy named Jared and another one named Neil. I bring this up because Neil sat in the back corner of the class and was high-key glaring at me when I looked behind me while others introduced themselves. (1)

            This ended up being a good thing, since it intrigued me and made me move to the back of the class during every class period after the first one, since I wanted to know why this random—and honestly beautiful—guy was so angry.

            Moving back into the apartment also meant meeting the new roommate: Bella Zend seemed to be a perfectly fine roommate. She had long curly blonde hair and bright blue eyes and had greeted me laughing when I walked in the door screaming at Ashley about how much I had missed her.

            Bella seemed to have the most in common with Samantha: the two were already laughing and talking together without the rest of us—which in all honesty gave me relief. Samantha finding her own best friend in the apartment would probably lead to less mediations regarding including every single person in every single activity Ashley and I decided to do.

            But the thing I was most nervous about was still to come, and Ashley and I decided to bring it up with Madison that night.

            Ashley went into our room while I stayed in the living room with Paige, waiting for her to have a conversation with Madison. The girl liked Ashley far more than she liked me, so I figured we would have the greatest chance of success with our request if Ashley were the one to ask for it.

            She came back out into the living room about five minutes later, shaking her head.

            "She won't do it."

            I raised my eyebrows.

            "She won't do it?" I repeated, "Why not?"

            "She says it's too much of a hassle." Ashley replied, "And I explained things to her from my end—that Samantha was making me uncomfortable and that I thought they would get along better together than we did. And she literally looked me in the eyes and said, 'I know it's really bad for you right now, but I just don't feel like dealing with it.'"

            Paige and I both looked at her in alarm.

            "Well that's not selfish at all." I said quietly, hoping Madison wasn't listening with her ear pressed up against our bedroom wall, "I don't understand...Madison doesn't like me. Why wouldn't she want to live in a different room than me?"

            Ashley shrugged.

            "I don't know. Maybe you could talk to her about it?"

            As if on cue, Madison walked into the room right then, grabbing a snack from the fridge before sitting down on the couch next to Paige and looking up at Ashley and me.

            "Is everything alright, guys?"

            Ashley and I exchanged a look before I decided I couldn't really lose anything by asking the question.

            "Madison, why don't you think it would be a good idea to switch rooms?" I asked, "I mean, I'm not trying to be offensive at all here, but I think we can all agree that some people in the apartment get along with each other better than others, and you and Samantha get along really well. It would really make the semester happier for everyone, I think."

            Madison was silent for a moment before shaking her head, crossing her arms over her chest in a signal of defiance.

            "I'm not switching rooms. We're fine how we are, Morgan, and I don't want to deal with moving all of my stuff over."

            "What if Ashley and I moved it for you?" I asked, "You're pretty minimalist, I'm sure we could have it done within an hour. We could just do it on Saturday and then everything would be done."

            Madison rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch.

            "I'm not switching rooms. Sorry that you'll have to put up with being my roommate for a whole second semester, Morgan." She snapped before stalking out of the room and slamming our bedroom door shut.

            She was right, though. I would end up being very sorry that I had to put up with being her roommate for a whole second semester.

***

            "So, what's the problem?"

            Ashley and I sat down on the couch in Rebecca's apartment, making ourselves comfortable. We weren't exactly sure how to deal with the fact that Madison refused to switch rooms with us, but we also realized we had absolutely no idea if it were even allowed to do it in the first place.

            "Well, Ashley and I were kind of hoping we could have the same bedroom this semester." I started, "And we were wondering if it were allowed for maybe Madison and Ashley to switch bedrooms."

            Rebecca was quiet for a second before nodding.

            "It's allowed, yes." She said slowly, "But I mean...is there a reason for this switch? Why do you need to share a bedroom when you already share an apartment?"

            "We're both having a hard time getting along with our respective roommates." Ashley said, "Samantha tends to make comments about me, and I just constantly feel uncomfortable. And Madison and Morgan haven't really gotten along since the beginning."

            Rebecca was quiet. I was surprised that Ashley had mentioned any detail about Samantha; Rebecca and Samantha were pretty close. (2)

            "I see. Well, if Madison agrees to the switch, then I don't see why it can't happen."

            "So that's our second problem." I said, "We ran the idea past Madison and she wasn't on board with it."

            Rebecca nodded.

            "Well, what about Samantha? Would she switch with Morgan? Technically, you don't need to have Madison's approval for Samantha and Morgan to switch."

            I exchanged a glance with Ashley. We both knew Samantha wouldn't go for it—she knew too much about my issues with Madison to ever willingly room with the psychopath.

            "I don't think that would work out." Ashley said, "We kind of need Madison to agree to it."

            Rebecca thought for a second before speaking.

            "Alright. I could come over tomorrow and do individual mediations with the four of you...you know, trying to get the full picture of what's going on and see if we can get the room switch to happen."

            I shrugged.

            "It's worth a try."

            Ashley nodded her agreement.

            "Perfect," Rebecca nodded, "I'll stop by your apartment tomorrow night to see if we can get this sorted out for you girls."

            For the record, that was an absolutely atrocious idea.

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Theory:

We have a lot of faith in people and give way more 'second' chances than we should.

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(1) I'm sure he would like to point out that he was not actually glaring at me, but instead simply had a bad case of RBF.

(2) So close that Rebecca was a bit incapable of doing anything that Samantha didn't want.