Day by day I see how I progress in maturity and realize how important it is to take care of business and have everything I need in the future. I am seeing what it means and knowing how it feels to make my own decisions without my parents. I am more dependent on myself in terms paying my own way outside of tuition cause that is what parents are supposed to do (pun intended). My goal is to depend on them less and less as time moves along considering they have three of my siblings and themselves  to still provide for. Boy the end of my sophomore year I plan to have little to no fall backs on them providing me with extra money I can provide for myself. This will help me get used to things early on and manage my money better and later being completley used to this by time I am 20( I will be turning 19 on December 3rd). It's definetly  a  good idea to have a financial foundation and plan to know what you want to do for the fututre in terms of individuality!

Here is to anyone with a roommate situation:  I want to start off first by saying you should never address the situation in a negative way. Try talking to family members to get their perspective on the situation. You should never be demanding to your roommate if there is a problem that needs to be changed or addressed, i.e if you take take the garbage out more than they do, clean up more than they do etc. You should always consider finding an alternative before you address the problem. Not even just from family members, you could also consider talking to other friends who are in residents halls as well to see what type of approaches they would take. It is not at all easy living with a stranger, which leaves me to say that could be the least of your worries. Everyone wants to pick someone that know to room with: not your best friend but someone who you have more than likely went to school with and have things in common with. Everything could be going great the first month or so, until you run into problems when one of you has to get up for classes earlier than the other right? On your end this could become quite irritating if she/he is turning on the lights when you are still sleeping, plays music when you don't want to hear it, or has people over when you are studying. Do not wait until you are completely fed up to address the problem. This will lead to more problems and creates unwanted tension, awkwardness and more than likely bad results an overall bad experience which could ruin your relationship with the person as a whole. Always remain respectful, and address the situation in that manner. Again, you can have a preference, ask or recommend but never demand or tell them something thinking that it will fix the situation because it isn't going to fix the problem!

Today marks my first full month of my freshman year, college experience went well. I have enjoyed the freedom and responsibility of making my own decisions. I have met so many people and encountered a group of people that turned out to be very great and close friends of mine. I have a found them to be very entertaining yet a supportive group who I see myself growing with. They are all looking to achieve an ultimate goal which makes my freshman year an even  better experience, because I am surrounding myself with positive influences early on and working with a diligent group of people. I will say that I have been a little homesick because I am leaving behind two sisters and a brother. In the beginning before I left for school, I was so eager to leave because our household was so crazy. My brother and sister would always wake up at seven in the morning screaming and running around, playing with each other. I could never get the full amount of sleep I wanted. Now, being away at school I re have realized just how much I actually missed being waken up to all of the ruckus. I have been balancing my work study accordingly and still be able to have time for fun!