A community of sorts!

Living in a community is like living in one very large family with no mother or father, so generally, in the community there are no rules and no instructions, except it is expected that the community members would show compassion and care for one another, be pleasant with one another and above all show a little respect for one another, and if one does not feel like doing all these, nobody would care, they can choose to keep to themselves, and that by itself should not bother anybody in the community, because such actions are not hurting anybody else.  The kind of community I am talking about is not really the kind of community that we are otherwise used to, but is a very small community of sorts.

The community I am referring to is the student community that is living in at the Chateau.  Both students from WVU and GSU have met and live together as one family with same interests, going to school and getting that knowledge that brought us to France in the first place.  The reason we are all in college, is to make a difference in our lives and acquire skills that shall carry us for the rest of our lives.  Long after college work is over, we all expect, at some point, to acquire jobs in varied fields and in those fields, we shall meet and work amongst people we never met before, and there again, our living in a community roles will come to play once more.  They say, a habit is a disease, and some habits can follow us to our graves, but if we correct some of the habits we pick a long the way, we can learn to live better in a communal world.  What I do not understand is that this community of sorts, live and act like everybody for themselves and have the "don't care attitude", all I can say to this is, "the world is round, and somebody you meet today, might be the same person you might meet in the future at a job or at another community" things we do now, might come to haunt us later in our lives, nobody knows where our different educational skills will lead us.  So having said this, my only concern is the communal kitchen that we share.  I have observed people cook, eat and live the kitchen in undesirable state.  Dishes are piled high in the only two sinks with food on them for days on end, so I ask myself, if this was somebody's own home, would they really leave dishes with food for days in the sink?  I want to think in the negative, but what I have seen so far, leaves a lot to be desired.

It is a shame that if one uses a pot to cook cannot simply wash it so that the next person can have a clean pot to use, if they wish to cook in that particular pot.  Other times, people eat, make a mess on the communal table, and just leave, like hey wait a minute, who do you expect to clean that mess?  It is simple common sense that whenever one uses a communal item, glass, spoon, fork, knife or plate, these are not yours and hence should be cleaned immediately before existing the kitchen, but it bothers me to see people put their dirty dishes in the sink and comfortably leave the kitchen.  Enough said about this, let us continue in pursuit of our happiness minding and caring for the communal places we share. - Caroline