$200 down the drain?

College... they say college is the best time of your life. A lot of your greatest memories will happen here. I do think that's true but I am only a freshman in college and I have more to come. Anyways, I go to Central Michigan University. I started school in August. The incoming freshman had the chance to come to the campus a week early for this program called leadership safari. I decided to do it because two of my good friends I've known since elementary school were doing it, Amani and Amaris. I convinced my roommate to do it as well. The primary reason behind me doing leadership safari would probably be because I had the chance to move in a week early and I wanted to get to know my roommate a little bit better. During leadership safari, some girls I went to high school with were there as well and I decided to hang out, just to see what it'd be like around them. One of these girls I've known her since middle school, lets name her Maria. Maria and I never really talked to each other that much because she had her group of friends and so did I. I never really hung out with her group of friends and I don't really hang out with that many white people but as I gotten older I do have me some good white friends I could talk to. As we got to high school, her name would come up in a lot of drama and it wasn't always the prettiest of things going on between her and her "friends." Before I came to college, my close friends told me not to interact with her that much because she causes a lot of mess. I heard what they were saying but I'm not the type of person to judge a book by it's cover, so I decided to hang out with her and her roommates for a while. Her other roommate, lets name her Paris. Paris and I have known each other since high school as well and the only thing that connected us was journalism. We had the same journalism teacher, she wrote for the school newspaper and I wrote for the yearbook. When me and her found out we were going to the same school, we were pretty excited about it. I thought it would've been cool to hang out with her someplace else other than high school. Being there for four years and being surrounded by the same people gets pretty boring. We found out that we were going to be living in the same residential hall as well. As the school year went on, August was over and classes had already begun, September rolled around and I was just starting to get a grip on things, or so I thought. I would go to Maria and Paris dorm from time to time and I even became pretty cool with their other roommates. We all would go out sometimes, eat lunch together, and even take spontaneous trips to Ihop at 2 a.m. But this random Friday night I decided to stay in and spend some time to myself and do some online shopping. All this online shopping made me a little hungry, so I decided to order something to eat. I only had $150 left. I wasn't that worried about my money because I was going to head back home the next week to complete an assignment for one of my classes. Now, the only way I had $150 was one 100$ bill and a 50$ bill. Big baller, I know. I decided to ask both of my roommates if they happened to have change and they didn't. The next people I decided to ask were Maria and Paris. I didn't bother texting them because we became so cool with each other to the point where I could just walk in their room and all they would say to me is hey. I walked to their dorm and open the door and it was dark but their were bottles of alcohol all over the floor. Me being me, I didn't pay it any attention because I don't like to get in the middle of other people's business and I only came for change. I asked Maria and Paris if they happened to have change for a fifty and they said no. After I realized no one had change, I decided to stay in their room and just chat and crack jokes, They were talking to me as they getting ready to go out. One of their next door neighbors comes in their room with drinks, asking everyone if they want to take shots. Everyone says yeah and he asks me. Me not thinking I say yeah and take a shot. After I stayed in their room for a while, I decided it was nothing left for me to do here and I decided to leave. But right as soon as I opened the door, one of the RA's met me there. I slightly opened the door but I opened it wide enough for her to see the alcohol on the floor. After I come out of the room, me and her greet each other and I tell her I only came to get change for 50$ then I asked her if she happened to have change. She told me to go to the front desk and ask. She told me she seen the alcohol as well and she have to report it. I thought "Okay, you have to do your job and I only came for change. So I'm in the clear right?" Wrong. I went back upstairs and told my roommate what happened and I called one of my close friends, Julian. I told him everything that had happened. He just told me to keep any evidence I had of texting them or hanging out with them because I could possibly get in trouble for this situation. I decided to go to the front desk and ask if they had change for a 50, that was impossible because Paris, Maria, their roommates, and the boy next door was at the front desk getting in trouble. I just went back to my dorm and decided to go back later. I go back to the front desk, it's all cleared and I asked if they had change for a 50 and they didn't. The place I decided to order food from, they had change for a 50. (If only I asked them first) I ordered from Menna's Joint and ate a sub, I continued the rest of my night and thought everything was over. Sunday night roll around and I receive and email from my hall director asking if I could come in for a meeting to discuss what happened. I realized someone must've told her I was there and I was drinking in Maria and Paris room. In the email, she told me if I missed our meeting, she'd send me straight to the student code of conduct. I didn't know what that was and I didn't want to find out. But, one of the things the student code of conduct do is hold students accountable for breaking any one of the schools codes or violating a policy. Which I had broken several. She scheduled us to have our meeting on that Wednesday but that was the day I was going back home for an assignment for my introduction to education class. I called her the next day asking if we could have the meeting earlier and she told me at that moment that we could have it in an hour. I was sweating, pacing, and I felt like my stomach was in my ass. Before I knew it, it was time for me to have my meeting. During the meeting everything went smoothly, she asked me to tell her everything that happened, and I did. But it came to a point where she asked me, did I drink any alcohol, that was when time froze and it was just me, an angel on my right shoulder, and the devil on my left. I came clean and told her, I did have something to drink. She told me that I was going to have a meeting with the student code of conduct anyways and she also told me that she valued my honesty. A couple of days passed and it was time for me to go home. It didn't feel right going home because the only thing I had on my mind was "What's going to happen during my meeting with the student code of conduct?" I was embarrassed to tell both of my parents because I didn't know what they'd think of me and I didn't know what they would say. I told them both but I left out the part about me drinking. During my trip back home I spent time with my family, caught up with some friends and even got to chat with some of my old high school teachers. When I mentioned the situation to my mom, she was livid and she told me that I need to stop hanging out with Maria and Paris. Now, if my mom tells me to do something, best believe, I'll do it. I get back to school and I'm a nervous wreck because my meeting with the student code of conduct is coming up. The day I was scheduled to have ended up getting rescheduled. And the next scheduled date was rescheduled. I'm pretty sure my meeting was rescheduled three times.

The day for my meeting comes and it's early in the morning before my first class. The meeting max took fifteen minutes. The person interviewing me just asked me how I was doing and we went over what happened again. He asked me a couple of questions like "Are you 21?" and "Did you tell your parents everything?" I told him I'm not 21 and I didn't tell my mom the full story. He told me that I should because he'll be sending a letter home. Boom. I'm dead. Or so I thought. He also told me that I have to take a rehabilitation class and I have to pay a fine of $200. Great. So I'm dead, my moms going to bring me back to life, and kill me again. I waited to cry until I got back to my dorm. I started crying to my roommate and she told me everything would be okay. I called my friend Julian and he just told me everything would be okay, he told me I did make a mistake but I learned from it and it's not going to happen again. He was absolutely right. The first person I called was my dad, he was disappointed but he told me to take care of the situation and get back to focusing on my grades. I decided to wait a little later to tell my mom because this was a storm I wanted to be a little prepared for. I told her while she was at work (sorry mom <3) and she was pissed, she just told me that I should've told her everything from the beginning. She told me that I'd take care of the entire situation and not to let nothing like this happen again. As everything started to get back normal, I would see Maria and Paris in the hallway and I'd roll my eyes at them or mumble under my breath and then I realized that, me being angry at them isn't benefiting me and I can't hold other people responsible for a mistake I made. After I realized that, I felt as if I've grown just a little. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way for it to actually get through to you and I learned that you don't have to get out of your comfort zone for other people. And you shouldn't drink under the age of 21 and on a college campus you fool! If you're ever stuck in a situation like this then don't have anything to drink. You never know what people could do the drinks you consume and we live in a world where you can't trust people with drinks. Also if you're in a dorm and this happens to you, leave immediately and report it. I could understand you not wanting to report your friends but it's better for you to tell the situation other than having someone else who possibly consumed a lot of alcohol and you didn't and that person gets you in trouble as well. And you owning to your mistake would be very mature but it might be very hard. What I realized was that I wasn't going to force myself to make friends my first year of college, they'd gravitate towards me. The time you spend with yourself is the best time you'd ever have, so embrace it and love yourself because the older you get, you're going to wish you could spend time yourself.