I woke up this morning, hit the alarm button, rolled over endless time in the bed before I realized I was finally dorming at Mercy. Before dragging myself out of the comfortable tiny-bed, I sat down in the living room to absorb everything occurring in my life so far. As I stepped into the sofa to relax, thoughts of my experience in dorming at the hotel began to circulate in my head.

Once the outside of the window was clear and I was able to see through, I started to look up at the sky and memories of the Bronx came up to my mind. Followed up by a bunch of questions.

Why am I here? Why did I leave my house? Is this worth it? Why my roommates are so annoying? Why? I was forcing myself to be enrolled in the dorms because I thought life will be more easy.

About few weeks ago, I began this crazy journey of forming at Mercy. First time dorming, I was so exited. After being commuting to different campuses for four years, I decided it was time to move on and try out something different to do so before the spring semester began. After a few emails with my PACT mentor, I finally made a decision I was going to dorm in the spring 2016 semester. This decision at the time was great! Or so I thought.

My family and friends were excited except my mom, obviously. I felt like I was taking a higher step into adulthood and being independent in all the aspect from my mom for once. I am in my last semester and I really wanted to be prepared for the real world. Now I would have to live with roommates that I never met before, text my adaptation skills as well as being patient and to tolerate different personalities as well. Because the cost of the residence department was expensive I have to think ahead to make all the financial payments affordable and so i did. I decided to organize my time better because working as a part-time employee at a retail store and now doing an internship at FOX my life at the hotel will be very busy and less- enjoyable. Money was essential and life was extraordinary. That was until I actually started dorming at the hotel.

Time after time, I began to realize that forming probably was not the best choice. I felt trapped and alone.

As a guest, I was expected to sing an inventory report program, stating that If you break something in the room you have to pay it from your pocket. No pressure! or in other words, you break it you pay it. I was also very forced to adapt to this new environment, everyone here knows each other except for me and it was and still a little be of a night mare.

At times, I don’t feel that bad because I knew some friends at the hotel and they would make me laugh and have a good time in my first experience at dorming. one of them was like, “Lets get loud and make this last semester the loudest one!!!” One of my other friends even yelled at me, in a good way because he felt I might need a little push just to get enthusiastic, as well have asked, would you like fun on top of that? On top of all that body, I just felt like i was lost but them I was screaming “Let’s get loud!!!” I was smiling because of them after felling that i didn’t fit in because of my roommates. I guess it’s safe to say I was from a different background from them all, which shouldn’t matter, but it did. I felt uncomfortable and further more, I hated my room and if it wasn’t for my other friends I don’t know what I would do.

At times, I thought are these people (my roommates) are here to do homework and learn or to be partying and saying sh*t all the time. They make me hate partying I didn’t even wanted to hear that word again never again. So what was the reason for me of deciding to dorm? This is the question that brought me this column today.

As I stood up from the couch and make my way to the kitchen to get some water, three minutes away, I pulled out my cell phone and I opened up the notes app. I then scroll down for 5 seconds until I saw a post saying “ Things I wanna learn from dorming this semester.” I have listed five things be more mature, be independent, get experience, learn to work with people and apply that in the real life, then I was blaming myself how did I forgot about this notes and the meaning behind it. I never felt so relieved in my life. I felt so much weight lifted off my shoulders. And then I reinstalled my five central focus into the present and no matter how difficult it is we should never quit.

Thankfully, I still had my friends which I appreciate to have, This experience taught me, that you should never take any opportunities in life for granted, everything good or bad has a meaning in your growth to become an adult and sometimes bad choices are not always as bad as they looked.
And then ironically, my thoughts became much clearer.