Upon receiving the letter of acceptance into a renowned residential school, I not only jumped with joy but

at the same time I broke into tears that I never felt before. Why? This is because not only I felt very happy but at the same time also I could not accept the idea of sharing a hostel room with a total stranger after this. Well, I soon discovered that my fears were totally unfounded. Having a very great and awesome roommate that has taught me the qualities of tolerance, diplomacy, consideration for others and also much more good moral values. Firstly, I learnt to be tolerant with my roommate. For instance, I have always dislike sleeping with the lights are turned on. However, my ideal roommate, Dina, would have them being turned on till as late as three a.m. in the morning whereby at that time I would be sleeping tightly and having my great time with my sweet dreams. Initially, it was unbearable for me, I would toss and turn in my bed, not being able to sleep with the lights being turned on in the middle of the night like that. Slowly, I learnt to adapt to sleeping in a lighted room which now is my permanent room with my new roommate. Another problem was my strong dislike of the smell of petai and tempoyak, which are types of traditional foods from the village. Much to my dismay, it was Dinas favourite food which she always eats in her hometown. She would come back from her trip home with lots of petai and a container of tempoyak to the room. To add more to my dismay again, the strong smell of those two terrible foods would permeate the air in our room. Much as I took offence to the smell, I nevertheless put up with it every time she ate her meal inside the room with me around. Indeed, these two incidents have taught me the pure meaning of tolerance in order to maintain an atmosphere of goodwill and friendship. Apart from that, I also learnt to be a more diplomatic person when things displeased me. One of Dinas habits that greatly angered me was her lack of concern for the cleanliness of our room. One very great and beautiful morning, suddenly I woke up to see ants by the thousands crawling along the window ledge. I make a decision to trace the ants food trail and I am very shocked with my founding. Tracing the ants food trail, I was disgusted at the sight of the discarded remains of crumbling, mouldy biscuits on Dinas shelf. I drew a line on this: anything but ants or cockroaches in the room. I pointed out the virtue of cleanliness to her and teasingly told her I did not wish to have ants as my roommates as well. Another cause for displeasure was Dinas habit of leaving the fan on at its full blast even though we were not in the room at that time. Her reason was because she wanted to dry her clothes in the room as she is lazy to dry it outside the room when so many times her clothes have been stolen she said. This makes our room full of clothes-line where they were stretched

haphazardly from one corner to another corner, creating an unsightly spectacle. However, I managed to persuaded her to abide by the adage Waste not, want not and suggested that her clothes would smell fresher in a sunnier and more airy surrounding. Soon, I learnt that pointing out another persons weak points in a tactful way did wonders for both Dinas and I. Lastly, since both of us were from different racial and religious backgrounds, I also learnt to be considerate. For instance, I made sure that I did not bring food that might offend her. Knowing that certain food is a religious taboo to Dinas, I curbed my longing for them. Dinas appreciated my good gesture. She often brought me home-cooked food whenever she came back from her trip home. Another problem was that my friends would drop by my room whilst Dinas was praying. I realised the inappropriacy of their visits. Thus, I put up a no entry sign to make sure that she had some privacy during her prayers. All these make us a very ideal roommate and also making our friendship ever better and stronger than before this. From all my experiences coping around with my ideal roommate who is before this a very complete stranger to me makes me wonder what type of person can be an ideal roommate? I think the answer depends on person to person. Your ideal roommate depends on your nature so you can't go together if you do not have similarity in your basic traits. If you are serious and laborious student then certainly a carefree person can't be an ideal roommate. On the other side of coin, you can enjoy your every moment when you share your basic characteristics. Take this situation for example, if two friends believe that we should enjoy every moment in our lives then they can join together in movie, disco, dance and much more. Besides this, the understandable nature of a person is another important criterion for an ideal roommate. If your roommate does not understand your problem then it will creates a problem. Lets say you need a peaceful environment for the study and your roommate does not understand your nature and read aloud while studying then how can you live together? Of course, you need to change your roommate if he or she does not heed to your request. Next a roommate should be amicable, helpful and should not be fussy. If your roommate complains about every minor detail then you certainly can't develop good relation with him. For the aforementioned reasons, an ideal roommate should be a congenial, trustworthy, and considerate person. Living with a complete stranger like Dina before this gave me a difficulty and troublesome at the first time, but I think with a good partner like her, we will together overcome every obstacles in our student life. (1080 Words)