Hello friends, I’m Faith, I’m 18 and I am here to share a little bit about my gap year experience. For me that happens to be with Dynamy. I’ve been here since September and boy do I have some stories to share. For the purpose of this blog I’m going to be sharing what living in the apartments is like. The amazing experiences and the challenges that have come with moving away from home. Stories of apartment shenanigans, leaky ceilings, and dish gremlins. Now the mention of those probably leave you with a lot of questions. Don’t worry all shall be answered in due time.

Ha, anyways let’s get started. I grew up an only child so you can probably imagine what an adjustment it’s been to move in with 5 other girls. On top of our house there are three floors, the first floor has an apartment with 6 guys. The middle floor, my floor, has all 6 of us girls, and the top floor has 5 guys. So I am around a lot more of my peers than I am used to being around. Our floor seemed to become like the meet up hub, where people from all floors would conjugate. Now don’t get me wrong I actually quite like it, I do spend a lot of time in my room with my roommate Jo but I like knowing that people are around. I wasn’t super social back home so it got lonely and now that isn’t an issue. It’s nice to go sit in the kitchen and just chat with people, laugh with people.

Another huge plus I’ve enjoyed is the freedom. Freedom in the simple tasks like going to get my own groceries. Going on walks with my roommates through Worcester whether it be to a coffee shop or the basketball courts. I really just get to feel like a young adult. But alas with freedom comes responsibilities. Some responsibilities are more unexpected than others- like… well leaky ceilings! It was just me and one of my other roommates who were home, she came to me and told me the ceiling was leaking. I was like what do you mean the ceiling is leaking, and then I looked and well- it was! I had to solve a problem in a way I hadn’t imagined before coming here, I grabbed a towel and a bucket and put it down. The leak just kept getting bigger and bigger as cups and bowls piled up on the towel trying to contain it. This problem has now been resolved and the ceiling is leaking no more. Haha, this may seem like a really random small event but for me it once again fed into really feeling like a young adult.

Now of course nothing can be all fun and games. A big problem we’ve had on my floor is setting boundaries and expectations. Although this challenge is what I am most grateful for because it’s some of the experience that I need to work on and well that’s the whole reason I’m here to grow. It’s been a process to start to learn each other’s grooves. Once again we are all different people with different lifestyles and different backgrounds so before we started communicating there were a lot of issues. One of the big things is the expectations when it comes to hygiene and cleanliness which is even more important now with COVID. Some of us here, myself included, have the expectations that people in common spaces need to clean up after themselves. While others in the apartment can be a little more lax. One of the best examples I have of this is within the kitchen, specifically the sink. Dishes. It’s quite interesting because all of these dishes seem to pile up but when asking around nobody claims them. So we have come to the conclusion that there must be some mystery seventh roommate, I have named him George, he is the dish gremlin that lives under our sink. While we all like to joke about this and we have some good laughs this is a genuine problem that we are still working through. I do feel that with my specific apartment we will be able too, we all are willing to listen to each other and work with one another which is a relief.

These situations have been great learning experiences because I had to set boundaries and at first I let it slide but eventually I spoke up. That’s one of the things I am loving about Dynamy, certain skills that you wouldn’t necessarily think needs to be taught but it’s so so SO important. I’ve learned and continue to learn to problem solve and I am beyond excited to continue to grow as this year goes on.