Living Rich

Paying for college is expensive, with many students scrambling for every last bit of financial aid that they can get. Some people may work jobs to make ends meet while still maintaining status as full time students, others may be figuring out how they're going to pay back that lump sum of money they've borrowed. When we think of people attending university, we may conjure images of poor college students making their living off of ramen noodles and yesterday's leftovers. Yet, even though perhaps we are poor (money wise), it shouldn't stop us from having rich and fulfilling experiences throughout university.

Although many things in life would be easier if we all had money, there are a lot things that money can't buy. I know that half the fun of my college experience has been making do with what I had. Within the course of the last month, I've been able to work on my craftsmanship skills by fixing various broken objects in my dorm room using nothing more than everyday household objects.

For starters, my roommate didn't have a way to hang her full length mirror on the door. This was easily solved as I proceeded to plaster the borders with nothing but duct tape. Little did we know, this would only be the beginning of several things in our room that would be duct taped. She also happened to have a whiteboard that she no longer had the velcro strips for, and voila! Duct tape did the trick. Broken plastic hangers? Duct tape! Her boyfriend's broken glasses? No problem! Duct tape! Okay well, I didn't use duct tape. I used electrical tape because it was black and matched his frames. She happened to also break her curling iron, something that came apart and would not clamp together anymore. I considered duct tape, but a paper clip did a better job.

My roommate and I have shared many good laughs over these innovative creations. I doubt we would have tried such creative ways to fix these things if we had the money to purchase brand new ones or "proper" materials to resolve their problems. There are things that aren't tangible, and these experiences are just some of them.