The Housing Debacle: Frustration Ensues

I have been living with my parents, who also happen to live a solid thirty minutes from the ASU campus. It's not bad living there we get along most of the time but I am twenty and it's time that I live out in Tempe by my campus. I was going to move the July before my junior year but I decided to wait until my friends [we'll call them KM and Tina Fey] lease was up in November so we could all live together. It happened to be convenient to move in with Ryan [KM's older brother] until his roommate decided to buy a house, it was a huge bullet to bite and therefore he wouldn't be moving out until January. This proved to only be complicated for me.

Since KM and Tina Fey had to find a place to live come November we started looking at four bedroom houses to move into. We looked at a total of six. Father of KM is a Realtor and he "helped us" get into different houses. If by helped us I mean told KM to find the houses, call the landlords, and set up the appointments. After three good hours of searching we found one acceptable house. Tina Fey and I really liked it, but I could tell KM was hesitant. She tends to be easier to read than a book and this book was titled "I Want To Move Into Ryan's House". The other houses were less than sub-par. One particular house, located on the corner of a busy, main street, had a crooked terrace and dead cockroaches in the garage. I didn't even want to step inside but we had made the guy come back to show us around, it was only polite. We all agreed this was a "definite no". Another of the houses had a glass front door and gold flaked, glass tiles lining the hallways. The rooms were forest green, pale purple, and black. There were more colors in this house than in a Crayola box. We decided to call it quits and head back to base camp to discuss our findings.

Once inside I could tell immediately that the following conversation was not going to end well. I knew KM and Tina really wanted to move into Ryan's house and I can't really blame them saying that I did too, until I found out that there would not be a room for me to live in. At Ryan's there would be no lease, which is great because KM wanted to go on a study abroad and frankly so did I but it was highly unlikely I would ever get to go on one. So, the only thing holding KM and Tina Fey from moving into Ryan's was, me. We made a pro/con list that looked something like this:

house on stanley (a.k.a. Ryan's)

pros: no lease, pool

cons: sam cannot move in until Dec/Jan

house on fairmont

pros: cute

cons: lease, (and one other thing I cannot currently remember)

Now do you see why I feel like I'm the "con" of this entire situation?

It was the most uncomfortable situation of my life. I was sitting in Ryan's house with him, KM, Tina Fey, Sister of KM, Father of KM, and Douche [the roommate that refused to move out in November] arguing over how it's unfair that "I will be the one who has to wait until January to move" and "If they just want to live with Ryan don't let me stop it from happening." All the while they are falsely reassuring me that they "do want to live with me" and that "I shouldn't feel like I'm the only negative of moving in." It was pathetic and ugly. I wanted to get up, walk out the door and just refuse to deal with the situation. But we all know nothing good ever comes of that.

It's times like this that make me question peoples motives. The true human nature of those you thought you knew best. This is why I sometimes feel like people don't like me around, or are not really my friends. This perhaps is why I am incapable of forming strong bonds with others. I left Ryan's house that day frustrated and disappointed with KM and Tina Fey, questioning their intentions and if we should even bother continuing with our friendship. Needless-to-say, it did not set a good tone for the rest of the evening. I will not be hanging out with them tonight.

The Most Important Decision of My Life

Two words. Law. School. I am on the ledge and it's time to take the plunge or step down and admit defeat. However, I do not condone defeat. I fight like hell to keep it at bay and it is precisely that fire festering inside me that has led me to where I am now, studying for the LSAT. A little confused? Let me start from the beginning:

My name is Samantha Plant and I had a picturesque, American family upbringing. I grew up in Chandler, Arizona [born in Colorado] in a typical four bedroom house on a street named Pleasant. See, I told you, a very Beaver Cleaver childhood. Except I was never quite the perfect, typical American daughter. When I was younger, about six or seven I guess, I would sit in my bedroom with my dolls but instead of playing "house" my bedroom was set up like a court room. I would take turns prosecuting and defending various toys on trial for larceny, manslaughter, murder 1, etc. Instead of putting the plastic baby in the plastic carseat located in the back seat of the plastic pink Barbie minivan and driving of to "school" the minivan was used as "exhibit one" in Ken's hit and run trial. I would watch Law and Order with my grandpa to foster ideas for my next moot court session. Surprising? It shouldn't be. As I previously stated I was not your typical child.

There was a boy who lived across the street from me, he may have been slightly older than me, I forget. But he was the best to play with because we would play "cops and robbers" with his friends. They would catch and drag the "criminal" back to his garage where I would act as lawyer pleading said "criminal"s defense. Justice coursed through my veins, it felt natural to me. That all began to change as time went on. I moved away from that house on Pleasant and into a similar four bedroom house in Mesa. I entered into fifth grade and, following stereotypes, hung with a large gaggle of girls. We did our hair and makeup and listened to Spice Girls. I had become the American teenager.

I was always good at school, smart I guess. In second grade I was tested and placed into the "gifted and talented" classes. Looking back now the title "gifted and talented" is quite a bit offensive. Are they trying to say that kids in regular classes are neither talented nor gifted? Furthermore, what does that say about their views on the special needs kids? Anyway, I was only placed into these "superior" classes because my mom wouldn't let the school bump me up two whole grade levels. These classes were fun though and they kept my attention. It was refreshing to have someone expect more from you than anyone else ever has. I excelled through the rest of my grade school years. I was in AP classes, president of several clubs, and was on the dance team.

Then I started college. I was convinced that my path in life was to do something involving medicine. Maybe not med school, but something revolving around the world of biology. After all in high school I loved my science classes most, so why wouldn't that translate to my college years? Wrong. After my first semester I found myself dreading class but I thought "Well, science was never meant to be easy and as long as I am doing well in it I should suck it up and keep going."

Sophomore year rolled around and in August I found myself sitting in a huge lecture hall wanting to hurl my guts out at the thought of starting organic chemistry. That semester I tried, and I nearly failed. I hated science, and not because I wasn't doing well with o-chem (I heard from many people that it takes two or three times to [verbatim] "kick it's ass") it was because I had lost my passion for learning. I hated going to class and I found any excuse to skip it if I could. It was the end of my sophomore year and before registering for the follow semesters classes I decided to sit down and have a heart to heart with myself. The conversation in my head went something like this:

Sam 1: "Well mom and dad are so excited that I am going to study medicine and they are paying for college."

Sam 2: "Are you happy?"

Sam 1: "Not at all, but you can't love everything you do. Right? Maybe after I suffer through this and go to graduate school I will start to like it more."

Sam 2: "Sometimes I don't know who you are. Your parents may be paying for this but they also raised you to stand up for what you feel, and do what it right for you. Continuing on this path isn't going to lead you anywhere besides sitting alone in your house, depressed, and a college drop out."

College drop out. That was all I needed to hear myself say. I felt sick again. It was finally time that I make a decision and do what makes me happy, not what makes everyone else happy. I had taken an ethics class and a justice class. I loved them both. So I decided that I would sign up for a semester of justice classes and see where that led me. Worst that could happen is I find out I don't like that either and have wasted a semester, in retrospect it's not the worst idea I've ever had. So, this summer I did just that. I registered for a full eighteen credit hours of justice studies classes. And that my friends brings us back to where I am now. Preparing for the LSATs.

As a side note: I have never loved learning more. Everyday I wake up excited for class and I feel this intense urge deep in my gut, wanting. Wanting to know everything about everything and to take in as much of life as I possibly can. Life is copacetic and I have never been happier.