I thought I would because I've visited with my friends so many times before, but now that I'm actually here it's finally true. I'm away from my parents, it's so great. I live with three great girls in my suite and we're so popular here. I've always been a socially outgoing person, but now I feel like it's going to work. there are always large numbers of people in our living room, bringing in food or beer to contribute to our refrigerator; everyone munches from it. and it's OK. the RA told us about this girl in another room who got so upset because her roommate ate her store bought cookies without asking; she called her mom and was so upset. I'm so glad its not like that here. we all contribute and all consume. But it's not like there's always noise and party's here. only when we all decide. if one person wants to read or study or sleep, we're really considerate. I hope that lasts, I'm pretty sure it will. At our building there are many foreign exchange students which is always a plus because, come on, who minds a foreign accent every once in a while. this guy from Belgium and this one from England are always watching TV in our room, which is another amusing thing: we don't have cable, or an antenna, or a VCR, so we only get FOX Channel 7. We sit around and watch whatever's on. in one way it's good because we don't have arguments over which channel to watch. maybe simplicity is  the root of compromise. We had a floor meeting the other night here and they discussed some issues that had come up. it was so funny because almost all of them referred to our room's shananagans. This one guy came here from where he lives in a house to use the laundry (he's one of our friends- our referring to my roommate and I we've been friends since 2nd grad, long time, huh? ) anyway, he dropped like half a box of laundry detergent on the stairwell and no one noticed for a week. the RA got mad and cleaned it up herself, but it was amusing because he doesn't even live here. another thing was the "stolen furniture" incident. we are given this loveseat-type couch in our suite's living room that can maybe seat 3 people if you're lucky. and in the lobby of the 3rd floor in front of the elevator there are 2 large couches that just block the pathway, no one ever sits in them, and they could probably seat 5 or 6. so when no one was around, my suitemate and I and 3 other people that happened to b in our room at the time helped us move our dinky little couch into the lobby which is down the hall and around a corner. we hauled the large couch down the way and we had to tilt it sideways and temporarily knock off some of the ceiling tiles just to make it in the doorway without banging down the door across from us. now we have a nice couch that is well used and the RA's are threatening to do a room check to find it. why?  its going to more use. It's all kind of a double standard anyway. The head RA is always in our room hanging out and drinking our beer. he has a crush on me so he always brings us stuff and won't mention the couch to the others and lets us into the cafeteria at night. it's pretty funny, one night the night guard knocked on our door because someone had made a noise complaint. we opened the door and the guard stood in the threshold and the head RA stood behind the door quietly while we got reprimanded. it probably wouldn't have been in his best interests to b seen in there. He's only 20, but the building is changing management, so right now he's the head guy. its odd. I'm 18. finally. I could be in a management position at the pool I lifeguard at in the summers, next summer. it seems odd that I'm really an adult. when you're a kid u never think that you're ever going to get to the point where you decide when to come home and when to do this and what to do in this situation, type thing. its like the transition from high school to college really is that much of a change in that you're independent. it feels so good to finally b independent, financially, physically, emotionally. its wonderful responsibility. I am responsible for watching my budget, if I don't, no one will bail me out (well that's probably not true but you know). I guess I'm trying out freedom on borrowed wings, I can always have that security blanket if I want, but I don't want. I want to be independent. I am right now, I hope to stay that way