» Menthol-Guy

For the past three days and three nights of my stay here in the beloved university, I’ve been residing in a single studio-type room with two naked beds (that is, without bedsheets and pillows), two cabinets, a comfort room and a wooden study table. The immaculately white room looked bland - devoid of any decoration, or any curtain or accessory that would make the room breathe life and feel like “home” even in the slightest sense of the word.

The landlady told me I shall wait for another roommate she randomly assigned to share the room with me, but it’s the third day of classes and I have not seen a shadow or a stuffed duffel bag on the other bed.

The first night was sad. I haven’t even thought of buying an electric fan, so I slept sweating like a pig - shifting positions, my duffel bag serving as a pillow. I kept wishing for a roommate to share the bland room, and its mere absence made the room monochromatic and lifeless. I kept texting for friends if they still have vacant beds on their own, but the plan was a failure.

The landlady told me the roommate either filed his LOA or found another dorm, but either way she was not yet contacted and was at that very moment completely unaware of the situation.

The second night was even sadder - my hopes are reaching the brim of desperation that might erupt when the desperation to hunt for a roommate are slowly becoming far from the reality. The friends I have messaged had all their rooms full, except for an orgmate who dorms at the upper campus (which is far from the alcoholic paradise of my beloved university, and it looks like partial suicide to me). I kept my fingers crossed for an inkling of hope. I bought my own toothpaste, my own supply of mineral water, borrowed an electric fan from some orgmate.

As someone puts it, it’s like “forcing an extrovert to be an introvert” - and the adjustment period looks depressing, but being the person who always treats things as phases with temporal shelf lives and expiration dates and best before seals, I considered it a phase.

I shoulder all the expenses since I’m the only one in the room, and it makes sense. I’m the only one using the bathroom, the only one who has the key to the room, the only one who even lives inside the room. And, having been spent my dormlife with dormmates and housemates who practically cracks out their jokes and shares their stories and religiously distribute the household chores and expenses, it was a painful adjustment.

The third night is about to begin later, and though these introvert thoughts have been running on my mind the way music is feeding my ears - deafening and confusing at the same time - I now hope not for a roommate, but for the adjustment phase to be over.

After all, nothing beats waking up on your own alarm clock.