Everyone on the College Program lived together in housing located just outside Walt Disney World. Each apartment housed 2-8 people of the same sex and no, it wasn't free. I paid $98 in rent every week. I thought that since we paid rent, we would be able to do whatever we wanted within reason. But there were so many rules and restrictions.
No more than 15 people in one apartment at a time.
No air drying your laundry on your balcony.
Then, no going out on your balcony at all (they taped up my door with police tape)
No visitors after 1 am.
No guests sleeping in the apartment.
I lived with two other girls in the back of Chatham Square. Living in the corner was quieter, but it meant that every morning, when I was no doubt running late for my bus, I would be sprinting across half the complex over wet grass and concrete to reach the bus. More often than not, I would see my neighbour Tyson doing the exact same thing. "Can't talk, I'm going to miss my bus!" we would yell. The College Program buses stopped outside our complex and brought us to every part of Walt Disney World.
I shared my room with a Japanese girl. I had day shifts and she had overnight shifts, so we crossed paths only a few hours and day and it was almost like I had my own room. My other housemate was from New Zealand and she became one of my best friends, if not my best. We were both in our mid-twenties and wanted to lead a low-key quiet lifestyle, and we spent a lot of time together at home just hanging out, laughing like crazy and sharing our lives. She worked at Speedway in Magic Kingdom - one of the oldest and worst rides at Disney World, and she always came home with a funny story about a guest or work mate or how much she hated her job.
She was constantly frustrated about people not being able to understand her accent. Sometimes, I couldn't even understand her accent. She has the thickest Kiwi accent I have ever heard. Especially when she said the number "seven." Unfortunately, her job at Speedway required her to count off numbers to guests. This meant that she was saying "seven" a lot to mainly Americans and South Americans who would stare at her blankly and repeat the question. She eventually resigned to not speaking and holding out the number with her fingers instead. And of course, she was a size seven in shoes so whenever she visited the mall and asked for her size, she would have trouble requesting shoes. Her solution to this was online shopping. She also had many shifts starting at seven etc, so life was just hard for her.
One day, she walked in the door and exclaimed in bewilderment, "Did you know there's a channel on TV for black people?" She was referring to Black Entertainment TV, and yes that is a channel in Florida. She went on to explain how she had been watching TV in the break room and she started to notice that everyone on every show and commercial was black. "Don't you think that's a bit racist?" To my amusement, she tended to think out loud a lot. "I don't know how I feel about that. If I were black, I would think that was weird."
She was neat and I was not. During our first inspection week, she was determined to win the "White Glove" award for having a clean and tidy apartment. That was never going to happen, sorry.
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| This was what my house mate was like with her groceries. And sometimes me. And maybe everyone on the College Program after a trip to Walmart |
She ate frozen meals every day (they are only $1 from Walmart) because her boyfriend was a chef and used to cook for her every night at home. She didn't like rice so wouldn't eat anything I was cooking. She would only go grocery shopping once every couple of weeks, but would come back with a truck load of stuff that she would drag a long way from the bus stop back to our building and up three flights of stairs to our apartment. Frozen meals and an impressive collection of candy, was what she usually brought home. She was also a bit of an impulse buyer, often coming back with random items from Dollar Tree which appeared to be her favourite store because everything is a dollar. Most of the things she got were pretty nifty though. She would come home with gifts for me ranging from necklaces, to M&Ms to soft toys and my favourite: a toothbrush holder. It changed my life.
She was a great friend to me and I am so grateful that I was housed with such a quality person. I was probably uneasy about moving in with complete strangers and I have heard so many horror stories from friends on the program who had major housemate issues. But it was never like that for me. It was always comforting to know that if I ever had a rough day, I was always coming home to one of my favourite people. I miss you!
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