Attitude of Gratitude V3#6 - My Roommate

(Yes I know I'm a day behind, I'll catch up, I promise)

This is a bit of a Pollyanna post. As a general rule, my roommate drives me nuts but these posts are about being positive and looking for the good so I'm going to list why she's a good roommate.

1. (and the most important) Having her here makes the price right. We're in a basement suite and it's not a fabulous space but it's not bad. It's quiet and well located. I could have the whole basement to myself but that would be prohibitively expensive. Putting up with a roommate is well worth "saving" almost $500 a month.

2. She's quiet and I don't have to talk to her if I don't want to. In the beginning she'd try and strike up conversation but as we both got into the school year and I started working (and therefore am not here often) we can go for days without seeing each other or talking. We're both here but we're so caught up in our own lives that it's not really that big a deal.

3. She's respectful of my stuff. She said something that annoyed me the other day and I started thinking about what I COULD have. I realized that having a roommate that you can trust, who doesn't touch my stuff, who cares for her own stuff, who shares her housewares, etc, is pretty darn good.

4. She's slightly OCD on the neatfreak side. I try not to let it bug me because again, it could be worse. I just get annoyed when I've *just* finished cooking dinner, I'm eating, and she's doing dishes. Maybe she likes doing dishes. I haven't asked her but I can't help but think "Leave them!!! I'll do them when I finish eating!" Now we know that I tend to err on the "leave them for a few days" side if I have my choice so knowing that it probably drives HER crazy if I leave dirty dishes around, is probably a good thing. Still, it's strange to feel like she's cleaning up after me. I guess I'm just not used to that.

5. She's also anal about making sure we have milk. For the most part we keep our groceries separate but we share milk. She starts panicking when we get down to the last bag (milk is sold in there one litre bags that you put into pitchers here) Personally I could go for a few days without milk IF we run out, but she'd have an anxiety attack, so we work to keep the milk at an acceptable level. (Hey, I work at Starbucks, we run out of certain types of milk all the time. It happens. It's not the end of the world!)

6. (I think most of my annoyance with her relates to the fact that she DOES have diagnosed "issues" and I have diagnosed impatience for such issues. Horrible and probably not something I should post on the interwebz but it's true.) One of the benefits of her "quirkiness" is that she will only use her own linens. That means that the brandnew towels that our landlord provided us with? I got both. And the comforter for her bed? I'm using it because my room is kind of cool at night. She brought all her own stuff. works for me!

7. Even though she has a boyfriend, I've only met him once and seen him around once when they stopped by before going somewhere. If they do spend time together, it's at his place. I am very thankful for that, considering any potential alternative!

8. She is a great resource. Okay, that's my way of saying "she's an annoying know-it-all". After hearing her talk about her parents I think it may be the way she's raised but one of the reasons I avoid having conversations with her is she acts like she knows EVERYTHING. She's native to the area so she "knows" what the weather is like. She knows the roads. She knows ALL about the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) (note the sarcasm). It gets tiresome especially since I'm obviously older than her (I don't know how old she is. I don't want to know how old she is.) So I generally just avoid conversation as much as possible.

9. She goes to UW (I go to WLU). Neighbouring schools but I am glad that she's there and I'm not. She has the typical UW/engineering superiority complex, but I don't really care. I'm not here to be an academic anyways.

10. She is "local". Her parents only live 1.5 hours away so she often goes home for the weekend. I am most thankful for that!!!