Dearest roommates,

Listen. I’m really worried about you guys. By the amount of repulsive, dirty dishes that is eternally stacked in our kitchen sink, I can tell something is wrong. The fact that I’m the only one out of the four girls that live here who has the time to scrub clean the grimey forks and greasy, Ramen-stained pans makes me think that you are seriously overwhelmed. You’re too preoccupied with homework to clean one single dish, and that is excruciatingly concerning.

By the look of the leaning tower of post pizza-eating plates, you guys are well over-booked. You know you have too much on your plate (metaphorically; I’m talking about schoolwork, not the aforementioned serving of Giordano’s) when you aboslutely cannot take 5 seconds out of your day to clean your cereal bowl. Really, 5 seconds. I timed it. It takes a person 5 seconds to clean a bowl.

Now, I totally understand. The dishes make it clear that you are swamped with feverishly writing, proofeading, and editing carefully constructed papers, e-mailing your questions and concerns to your professors, contacting fellow classmates and teacher’s assistants to discuss course materials, utilizing professors’ office hours and every other available class resource AND calling your parents nightly to discuss your daily struggles in coursework as well as to seek advice on how to resist peer pressure at social gatherings. You’re not alone. But even with all that, I can still find those couple seconds in my day to sponge the remnants of my Lean Cuisine off of my eating utensils.

John, Anthony, Nick, Frank, Michael, and Robbie’s frequent late night visits make it obvious that you are up well into the night frantically collaborating on group projects. Also, seeing that you guys don’t emerge from your rooms until the mid-afternoon definitely relays the message that you spend all of your waking morning hours affixed to your laptops typing up lab reports and critical analyses of literature. And for those reasons, I respect you, but your dedication is downright scary.

As long as I consistently see the signs that you are overwhelmed and over-working, I am more than willing to do the dishes. I will help you out in any ways that I can. Garbage? Sure. I’ll continue taking that out too; that’s fine. Anything. I just want you guys to try to take a break; you’re going to burn yourselves out. Try to put the pencils down for just a minute; you’re frightening me. Please.

Love, Joanie

p.s. If you guys ever need to talk, I’m here for you.