Why Blog? Why Now?

I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while and what better time to start than the beginning of a new adventure? Four and a half years ago I was 18 and moving out of my parents house for the first time.  I enrolled at a university about an hour and half away from home and moved into a dorm.  I wasn't thrilled about dorm life but freshman were required to live on campus.  So I filled out my housing application and crossed my fingers.  At the time the school had about 10 dorms that freshman girls could be assigned to.  There was only one where I REALLY didn't want to live. However, the odds were stacked against me (that particular dorm housed 900 freshman girls) and I was assigned to the dreaded traditional style dorm with teeny rooms, no privacy, strict rules about visitors, and community bathrooms.  Thus began my freshman year.

It wasn't that horrible but definitely not my ideal living arrangement so Sophomore year my roommate and I, along with two other friends got an apartment off campus.  Now that was more like it! I signed my first lease and foolishly thought of myself as such an adult.  Oh the curve balls life likes to hurl our way.  Things were changing for my family and I had to make some grown up decisions.  Take out supplemental loans and remain at the school I loved or swallow my pride, transfer to a college back in my hometown, and do what I never imagined...move back in with my parents.  I decided that since the degree I was seeking didn't promise a lucrative salary that incurring more debt was not in my best interest.  Move back home it was.  There was a brief adjustment period where I thought I was going to lose my ever loving mind but it passed and moving back in made me grow up more than moving out ever did.  Funny how that happens.

Anyway, fast forward 2 1/2 years and I'm 28 days away from earning my Bachelor's degree in Social Work and ready to move out again.  No big deal, that's the natural course of life right? Get a degree, get a job, move out, move on.  Not so much.  I have an opportunity to go to graduate school at the university where I first began college.  Hip hip hooray! Only problem...how am I going to be a full time student and have a full time job, pay the bills, and make it on my own?  Well I'll tell you how, I'm going to be a Resident Advisor (RA).  And so the process started over. Filled out a housing application, only this time as an RA, and crossed my fingers.  I was thrilled to learn I got the job but any guesses as to which dorm I was assigned?  That's right!  The same one I moved into 4 1/2 years ago.  Well if that's not full circle I don't know what is.  Anyway, being a 22 year old graduate student living among 18 year old freshman ought to be an interesting experience.  So I'm going to chronicle this new adventure in my life here.  Fasten your seat belts ladies and gentlemen, its going to be a bumpy ride.