Living away from home

By Nabil Habib (NDChronicle.Com)

Summer is here again, schools closed their gate for summer vacations and students all over are busy looking forward to the life in next class. Some have applied and got admitted in higher studies. Some are leaving home to start their hostel life. One of my cousins has left to begin her hostel life and I wanted to tell her a lot of things. After eight years in hostel, I discovered five things that kept me in good stead all these years in hostel and even after that.

•Roommates are family. Yes, good or bad, you have to live with them. Choosing our room partners is not something that all get to do when we first embark on life away from home. So, as luck would have it, we might be saddled with the best or the worst. Since a fair chance is that your room partner will not be an angel, you better keep your mouth shut, close your brain to creating any more whines and complaints and think of ways to make the best out of your situation. Do not, I repeat, do not crib about a person you live with before others. Talking about finding better ways to spend with such a nightmare with someone who might give you good advice is not bitching, so discuss – but never complain and whine.

•Find joy in small things. Life away from home is about hardships and read it with upper-case in ‘H-A-R-D’. Every few minutes you will be reminded of things that you took for granted at home – your Mom sorting out your laundry, your sister cleaning up your room, your brother taking care of a missed chore on his way home. Here you find yourself doing it all by yourself, without any time to enjoy life, or even ‘stand and stare’ as a poet once put it. The best solution is to revel in your (and your room-mates’) ineptness and laugh at the ways you manage your crazy routine. Keep your spirits high and in no time you will be full of tales to tell your family.

•Stay in touch. Yes, do tell tales of your exploits to your family. Call them up, chat with them online or visit them as often as you can. Do not lose touch with them. Even if you have managed to get over your homesickness, your mother and father will always miss you. Have fun, take care of yourself and tell this to your family. Keep them updated about your life. They will want to know every little detail (though understandably you might not want to tell every detail) and any information about you is a joy to them. So, even if you are busy, take out time to bring that smile on your and your parent’s face of hearing a loved one’s voice from afar.

•Always keep in mind your priority. You have gone away from home for studies. If not for studies, then to earn a living. Never forget this in the heat of the moment. Everything else comes second to this idea and if anything interferes with this, then you better skip it. Suppose you live in a hell-hole near your college. You can shift to a heavenly room that is an hour away from your college. If the travel will kill too much of your time and energy, better live in the hell-hole. Save time, money, energy and every faculty of your brain for your prime purpose – studies (or whatever that you have left the comforts of your home for). Schedule your life according to this rule, and you will not regret the days spent in hostel – neither will your parents, and that counts!

•Be responsible – even if you are small, or too big. Suppose you are one of those child prodigies who have achieved all you could in your hometown and are now out to harness higher studies. You are younger, smaller than most and so you are entitled to special privileges? No. Be responsible and forget any special entitlements. Do not expect and you will not be disappointed. Be responsible about your actions, your well-being, your belongings – your existence and your time. A kid of five can be responsible (of what little he owns or does in life), you are surely older than that!
Follow these tenets and work hard to make some of your own (that can be shared with others without embarrassment). Then full of experiences that you could not have gathered at home and after your stint away from home, you and your parents will be so proud!