The Dragon's Keep

a little nit-picky, aren't we?

I think I've finally hit the breaking point with my roommate Viola. She's from the Ukraine, and so communication is sometimes a bit difficult, but this is more than just that. For instance, she's just a bit too pushy sometimes. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, because I know her heart is in the right place, but for crying out loud, when I say I don't want to do something, I have my reasons and pushing me will only make me grumpy, whether I finally give in or not! A good example of this is the one class, an online class, that she took this semester. In order for her to get an A, she had to recruit a certain number of people to participate with her in 8 spiritual discussions throughout the semester. Naturally, she turned to us, her roomies, as a first option. She asked if I would take part in it, and I politely refused because I've already done it several times, and I really didn't want to do it all over again. But she just kept pushing, and so I kept politely explaining to her that I'd already done it more than once, and really didn't feel like doing it anymore, until finally she had to go and give me the guilt trip over it being a wonderful experience and I'm her roomie and yadda yadda yadda. I could see she wouldn't take "no" for an answer, so I eventually gave in and did it. Again. Now, I don't mind the easy A now that all's said and done, but the bottom line is she is constantly, albeit subtlely, pushing and shoving and making me feel guilty over stupid things!


Take tonight for another example. We have "white glove" clean checks in my dorm this weekend because next weekend is General Conference and the weekend after that we're going home. There are four "jobs" in the apartment, and four of us, and since I had some free time tonight, I wanted to get a head start on things. Not wanting to just take the easiest job and leave the hardest stuff for everyone else, I chose to scrub down the bathroom. I have plans tomorrow night, so I wanted to get my part done so I can go hang out with Lindsey and still get a good night's rest so I can do homework on Saturday and Sunday. Anyway, I got it all scrubbed down nice, except for the floor and my room, which I'll do tomorrow so that they stay nice for the actual check on Saturday morning. Then Viola walked in, and I apologized for the mess from all the stuff I pulled out of the bathroom so I could clean all the surfaces, at which point she looked all upset. She told me they had decided to draw the jobs out of a hat, so to speak, and wondered why I hadn't waited. I told her I didn't know about that decision, and that I wanted to get a jump on things and not be up all night tomorrow. She went on to say that the reason they had made that decision was so that no one could just claim the easiest job and leave everyone else with the hard stuff. I told her that's why I chose to do the bathroom, and she was like "well yes, but that's an easy job." Excuse me, what? Yeah, she really said that. And you know what? I'm over it. I'm just sick of her making me feel inferior. She has major issues that would take too long for me to go into, and that would just be sinking to her level. So I'm over it. I've ranted, it's out of my system, done. Let her be the stuck-up brat she chooses to be.

posted by Erin Duncan @ 10:38 PM