August 15, 2008

domestic affairs

household learning, different curves for everyone. 

living with six other adults (and there's a difference between recently-moved-out 19-year-olds who think milk crates are the coolest and adults, notwithstanding that i think milk crates are pretty damn cool) can be a bit stressful when it comes to communication. we've got a big whiteboard, but of course not everything gets put up there. and seven people don't always agree on what 'enough notice' is, let alone when to have a house meeting. 

i think there's just way too many variables to make it easy, unless all roommates are really similar in culture (or maybe that general accord just makes it all the more difficult when disagreements arise). the more we live together, the more differences we realize we have. 

currently, we're feeling the pain of disparity in regards to household projects. some people care a lot about having a certain thing done, and others do not. i think the pain arises when there is no distinguishing between "yeah, that's a cool idea" and "yeah, i'll help with that". i know that personally, i sometimes want to contribute toward a project but end up feeling disenfranchised by character leaders (consciously or not) taking over the process. other times i never intended to help, as i don't really care. and then there are the times i wish someone would tell me what to do. rare, but they do happen. 

i tend to err on the side of finding smaller things to do on my own or contributing minimally to larger projects as a peon. when i put on my peon hat, i don't care what anything ends up looking like, i just put in an hour of labour and wander off.

how do we live? how do we live together?

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