Seriously?
As I'm sure you've read, things have been moving along at a fast pace and we've all survived midterms. I am guilty of being a delinquent blogger and I'm truly sorry for the absence of posts. My intention will be to catch up with multiple topics so you continue to get a feel for life in the program. I promise: none of my posts will be about OSU football.
When you enter the program, one of the considerations many of you will need to make is whether or not you want to find a roommate. My opinion: go for it. Sure, it can be risky but there are several tools available to help you find a roommate within the program. Rooming with a stranger becomes much less risky when you know you'll have classes with the person for an entire year. Worst case scenario: you don't find a lot in common, you live under the same roof, and your expenses are cut in half. Best scenario: you make a new friend, you have someone to study and commiserate with, and your expenses are cut in half. Either way, it's not a bad deal.
Resource-wise, you want to connect with your incoming class on Facebook and possibly LinkedIn. Beyond that, there is a Google group for graduate housing and OSU has an off-campus housing site that provides leads on housing as well as your search for a roommate. I found my roommate via Facebook . . . or maybe I should say he found me on Facebook.
Some days I consider myself to be the luckiest person in the world because I honestly do have a great roommate. He's from France and is part of the shared program Fisher has with Audencia. Having an international student as a roommate has serious perks. Not a single day goes by that I don't learn something new . . . and the culture differences make life really interesting.
You'll soon find: it doesn't take much to amuse me. Within the first couple of weeks, my roomie observed that there are a few words that play a major part in my day-to-day vocabulary and, evidently, their overuse was surprising. My three most overused words are: hilarious, "ish", and seriously. Needless to say, I was amused. 
Admittedly, I use hilarious all the time and am quite aware of my dependence on the word. I'm not sure when it crept into my vocabulary but it has definitely been in heavy-rotation for quite some time. Hopefully someone comes up with a word equally as fitting that can replace hilarious. I'd love to move on.
"ish" really isn't a word but it is a way of describing the accuracy of a situation, attribute or thing. My use of it was the first time my roommate had ever heard it. He immediately questioned it which forced me into an explanation. Think about that for a moment . . . you try explaining what "ish", cranky, or grouchy mean to someone that's never heard of them before. Go on, do it. See? Not as easy as you thought, is it?
Get asked for a definition for the twentieth time in one afternoon and you're reply may be: "Seriously?" Or have someone cut you off in traffic and almost cause an accident . . . "Seriously!" Well, I was able to explain this overuse to my roomie very easily: Grey's Anatomy. I'm amazed at how much our culture and everyday lingo is influenced by TV. Case in point:
