Moving On or Moving Out?

As the year draws to an end, all of us scramble to turn in last minute papers and study for finals. For me, it is more about finishing the school year. It is about getting to go home and be with my family, boyfriend and friends. It also symbolizes a time of change for me. My family at home is getting ready to move to another city farther east, it means it will change my life drastically. I graduated from high school in my current city, met my boyfriend at school, and made many friends along the way. I will be finishing my second year of university and this year has been one filled with many ups and downs. I have grown as a person through all these experiences and learned more about myself.


Next year, I will be living in a different place with different people. My roommates and I are going in three different directions. I am staying in residence, but heading back to Alumni Hall to live with a friend from last year. Three of my roommates are moving into a house that was bought by one of their parents off campus. All of the boys in the downstairs are moving with them as well. The final roommate is moving to another house off campus with different people. I feel as though this will be a good move for me. I do love my roommates; they all have their own qualities that I've grown to love. However, it has been two years together and I think it is time for a change. I do feel as though we will all be friends for a very long time, but true friendship is tested by distance and absence. We will be separated from each other, but if we are truly friends, we will find our way together again. I have learned so much from them, and will take away many memories.


Blogging this semester has been an experience to say the least. At times, my blog has been an outlet for my frustrations living in this house. I only hope that this blog was enjoyable to read for all the readers. I will be taking a leave from blogging for the summer, because I won't have any roommates, other than my family. This summer will also be busy, with the move, a summer job, a slightly neglected boyfriend at home (things have been crazy lately), and many summer plans. I might perhaps start up again in September, with a new roommate and new experiences sure to come. If I don't continue this topic as a blog, I may start a new blog about something else. Either way, I wish all the best to my readers and to fellow members of 26-397, especially to those graduating from Windsor. Have a safe and happy summer!

Breakfast for Dinner

Each weekend in residence with my friends is usually spent watching them get intoxicated and sometimes do unintelligent things. These weekends aren't the most fair because there are a handful of us who don't drink like the others, so we usually feel left out. However, there are the odd weekends when we actually plan something to do together, usually a party of some kind. Our parties tend to have themes, mostly based on what the next holiday is. We did the Halloween party and the Christmas party, and celebrated birthdays together. In my opinion, the best party we had all year was our Pyjama Party.

As you may have guessed, it did involve wearing pyjamas. We also decided to have breakfast for dinner. My house hosted, and we had a pot luck breakfast. Many of us don't eat a proper breakfast each day, like eggs and bacon. We miss that so we made breakfast foods and ate them at 9:00 at night. There was so much food: pancakes, bacon, eggs, French toast, toast, hashbrowns, muffins and much more. It was like a buffet breakfast. We ate a lot of food, finishing off almost everything, and going through about four jugs of orange juice. It was nice because it involved people not having to drink to have a good time and it brought us all together. It was also a break from homework and midterm studying. After we finished cleaning up everything and digesting all that food, we played a game. It was a game that tested your knowledge of each other, so we had questions we had to answer and then we had to guess who gave each answer.

If you're looking for some kind of party or get together that doesn't involve alcohol, I suggest breakfast for dinner. It's a nice change and is also fun because everyone gets to contribute. It also adds the advantage of not having to get dressed all day.

Our Bacon and Eggs, Delicious!

The Baking Baby

As I've mentioned in the past, I share the same major as one of my roommates. She's in the Creative Writing program and I'm in the English Language and Literature program. We do share common classes though, and do enjoy spending time together. This year, she has been taking the publishing class offered in her program. Many of my fellow bloggers in 26-397 know my roommate from their publishing class. This is the same roommate that flooded the house over Thanksgiving weekend. During our last blogging workshop, two of my classmates asked me about my roommate's baby. I was very confused at first, I had no idea anyone was expecting in our house. It turns out they were referring to the baby doll that has taken residence in our house. I completely forgot about this strange little baby that had become part of our lives. Why I didn't think of this to write about before I don't know. It was definitely a highlight of the year.

My roommate found out about this strange phenomena called Baby Reborn ©. The basic premise of it is you get shipped parts of a baby doll that you need to assemble. You just don't assemble it, you have to paint it to look life like, by adding flesh tones and eyebrows and redness to the cheeks. The best part, at least in my opinion, is that every time you paint a new coat, you need to bake the baby. I know that sounds sick and twisted, but I'm not lying. You heat the oven and put the pieces of the baby on a baking sheet and bake it for 20 minutes. Eventually, you add hair and put the baby together, attaching all its limbs, and you have real-looking doll. Sounds creepy right? The thing actually looks real; it could pass as a baby. Things may not have been as creepy or weird, if it didn't take up space on the kitchen table. All these limbs on a baking sheet on the table and the head just looked terrifying. I support any hobbies my roommates want to take up, but this was one that just weirded me out. Just to add a little more amusement, our oven is very temperamental and likes to either cook too fast or too slow, there's never a medium. In order to prevent an overcooked baby, my roommate cooked downstairs at our neighbours in their oven. There were multiple times that people would walk by and see my roommate exiting and entering houses with parts of a baby on a baking sheet. Then there was the time she left for reading week and carried just the head outside with her to the car. It reminded us of those shrunken heads you see in ritual ceremonies.

I don't know what you can do with a baby doll after you've finished creating it, other than look at. It's not exactly the best toy to play with. I think staring at it for so long would trick my mind into believing that it may be real. It also costs a lot of money to create these dolls, because you have to pay for the body, the paints, the brushes, the glaze, and shipping and handling. It's not a cheap hobby that's for sure. This isn't the only baby she plans on creating either, she has already started to imagine what her next Baby Reborn© will look like. I don't think I could sleep in my bedroom with fake babies all around me. But if that's a hobby she wishes to take up, even if it is a creepy one, we're all supporting her in whatever baby she chooses next.