By Kevin T, staff writer
Living in a one room apartment is rough. Being part of a family of 4 (but really 3 because my sister is away at college), living in a small tight room, many problems may appear such as lack of storage space and no personal space.
Right as I open the door, I have a shelf tight against the wall where a bunch of stuff such as shoes, paperworks and medicine are put on. If I look directly into the center of the room, a bunk bed where I sleep on the top and my parents on the bottom take up a majority of the space. A bathroom and the kitchen are side by side on the right side of the door, filled to the brim with things and little walk space in it. A plank of wood screwed to the wall is what I would call my desk; it is at the foot of the bunk bed.
Having such a small space comes with many inconveniences. One of the main difficulties I have is trying to sit down on my chair and doing homework on my small table. I only have a small space to work on my laptop since the desk is full of different things that my family puts down. My desk is full of letters, chargers, fruits, and a lot of things you would find around a house, but not all on one desk. I also have a hard time when I write since I don’t have an actual flat surface to write on.
On top of that, I’m also stuck having to listen to my dad on a call with his friends. Not only do I have to deal with my dad’s ranting and laughing, but I can also hear my dad’s loud friends through the speaker of his phone.
When I am able to concentrate on doing homework, I have a lot of paper and material to lay out, but I can only put it on my lap and cycle through all of them one by one slowly to finish my school work. Since my desk is right in the middle of a walkway, I also have to slide in and out into the desk in order to let my family get what they need. Constantly being interrupted by my family members non-stop makes me lose focus way too easily.
When I finally get some free time after my school work, I don’t even get to play games or watch TV shows by myself. Instead, my parents are huddled over me, asking what I am doing while giving me weird looks. They’re always looking at what I am doing for some reason and whatever is on my screen makes my parents worried, which requires me to explain to them that I won’t be the person on the screen.
Privacy is something that’s also hard to come by too. I work out every other day and trying to do it infront of my parents is the most embarrassing thing there is. I don’t know if it is just me, but exercising in front of parents makes me feel fuzzy inside and just plain embarrassed. Another thing that is pretty similar is the lack of personal space I get in a one room apartment. I will always see my parents right behind me looking at what I am doing on my phone and laptop; not only does that scare me a lot, it also makes me super paranoid about what I am looking at on my screen.
Although there are a lot of annoying things with living in a one room apartment, I wouldn’t trade it with any other experiences. Living in a one room apartment has made my family a lot closer and together. I enjoy their close presence to me and how I can find them with a turn of my head. It makes me feel happy that they are there.
