I live with Mo, Gr, and Ra. Mo works two jobs: nannying during the week and working at PB on the weekends. She has worked at PB for a couple of years and she is pretty much perfect for that job, although she wishes more straight boys worked there/in the vicinity. She also babysits occasionally on the weekends, particularly for her sister.

Gr works at the museum here at school and at Pear. Gr is pretty perfect for Pear as well. She gets tired of customer service, like all other sane people, but she likes it. She plays Guitar Hero in the breakroom during her lunch.

Ra works at the Writing Center at school. She is especially gifted in the areas of philosophy and communication. She also goes all over the state on weekends with her boyfriend and they judge debate tournaments, since they are brilliant debaters. Next semester she is waking up at the asscrack of dawn to go tutor kids thirty minutes away and making quite a bit of money in the process.

I work in the Writing Center as well. I am good at grammar, sarcasm, and acting aloof. I am technically a nanny during the week, but have been regulated to three hours a week, no kids, and lots of laundry and groceries. I also work at the gym on Saturdays and babysit a few families fairly regularly. I am good at shopping for rich people and scanning ID cards when people arrive at the gym. Incidentally, once we had a five year old kid doing my exact job at the gym and he was pretty awesome at it. I vote they hire him but buy a bigger chair, which they will be able to afford because he will work for free until his attention span runs out.

Mo, Ra, Gr and I live in a room that is impeccably clean. This had not always been the case. Gr and Mo had to stage a couple of interventions and I had to get over my feelings of inadequacy and mellowness (in order to return to my natural control-freak self), but now our room is gorgeous. Spotless. You will be able to eat off the floor when we implement our radically awesome Chore List soon. The only things missing are animals, but unfortunately I am not up for sneaking more rats into my home and then having to find them different homes when they are discovered, so we are currently petless. (Also I moved my fridge into my room recently and it looks very nice, if I do so say myself.)

We watch a lot of TV. Gr and Ra are TV-watchers. Actually, they are more TV-listeners. Ra hates it when it's quiet and always has to have some sort of distraction going on, which is usually Bravo reality shows or House. Gr is deaf and so when she escapes the room (as she does when we watch Jon and Kate Plus Eight), we can always hear her show blaring. It's cute because our TV is louder. Mo and I prefer to listen to music, but she is more partial to the TV than I am. Ironic, because I actually own the TV, and it is quite a nice TV, designed for me to have it for roundabout a decade. I like to watch movies. Mo is my let's-watch-guy-shows friend. Although she and Gr have populated our TV stand with DVDs almost exclusively of the rom-com variety (which I used to enjoy making fun of, but they don't hold with that so I usually just sit there quietly and loathe it to myself and telepathically to Ra), she loves The Boondock Saints. Last year, we watched it three days in a row. It was awesome. I miss having people who know what the Terminator movies are all about. I don't like gruesome movies, but sometimes I just need to see Keanu Reeves kick Mr. Smith's ass instead of macking on someone at a lake house.

We never go anywhere. We are all pretty antisocial and all our closest friends live less than ten feet away. We are working on this. Mo is moving out next semester and I do not know what our living arrangements will be, what with that realization and RA positions (today I realized how good it was that I didn't get that position last year) and me trying to get out of my housing contract. So we'll see.

We like indirect lighting and turn the florescents on only for cooking or Al opening presents. We have three lamps in our main room and at least one in each of our closet-rooms. My favorite lighting is my Christmas string lights. They are pretty awesome, although when I'm going to sleep I have to lean over the end of my bed and stretch towards the wall to rip the plug out of the socket. Other than that oversight, they are groovy.

I decorate our room when people have birthdays with my birthday sign. The first time I put it up, Ra's mom saw it from the outside and thought someone was pregnant. Although the sign does have letters on bib-like felt, it does in fact say Happy Birthday to people who are already legal citizens. I love birthdays and holidays so I always try to make their birthdays special. I made Ra an Oreo/pudding/frosting cake that gave us all headaches and I bought Mo two-bite cupcakes for hers. I bought candles for both of them and have probably already misplaced Ra's. Gr thinks I am somewhat contradictory in this sense because I am not a traditonal person, but my mom always made me feel special on my birthday and I try to pass that on to the people in my life.

Christmas is coming up and although we procrastinate on almost everything else, we are not present-buying procrastinators. I am not sure about the gift-status of everyone in the suite, but my educated guess is that everyone knows what she is getting almost every single person on her list, it if isn't already bought, wrapped, and stuck in an Anthropologie bag under her bed. I am looking forward to our gift swap immensely.

All of my suitemates are in a sorority, and I finally joined a fraternity this fall. I really like it--it is much more low-key than their sorority and I have a lot of fun with my pledge sisters and brother. We are planning a party for our bigs right now and I am taking charge. I like taking charge because I am anal. I am going to make my big sister's gift and I think it will be very cute.

Speaking of being anal, I am no longer allowing myself to ride with other people in their cars if I am paying attnetion to their driving. I always think we are going to crash because I am not in control. I know that does not say good things about my unfortunate desire to control things around me, but there you go. I usually have to shut my eyes or pretend that I have my own brake.

Gr drives a silver Golf and it suits her quite well. Ra drives an old white Honda, but it usually drives her--crazy, that is. She is getting used to this whole driving business, and in this city, that is commendable. Mo's car is a 2 door silver Honda. She likes it except for the 2 door part. I drive a Scion xA and it is my dream car, although I know to never buy a car with black seats again. I often have wet dogs in my car and you can tell from the nose marks. I park like a fiend in that car. It is Yaris-sized.

Like our dorm.