Some Good News and Some Choices

I guess I'll start off by saying that the good news is that I got a $500 scholarship to go towards my exchange, which isn't half bad. ($500 > $0, so I guess I should be thrilled!) That said, I'm still looking at $10 000 CDN for the total trip. That's down to $9500 with this scholarship. But I also still have $21 000 CDN to pay off in student loans by next summer.

As for the choices I have to make? Well, I have to make a decision as to where I want to live while on my exchange. The university basically offers standard bedrooms (where you share a bathroom with four flatmates) and en-suite bedrooms (where you have a private bathroom).

Standard room = ~$3000 CDN
En-suite room = ~$4000 CDN

The difference is about $1000 CDN for the twenty or so weeks I'll be there... Obviously I should go for the standard room.

The problem is the thing about my skin (which I wrote about yesterday). I'm not particularly ashamed of my skin but washing my skin makes it quite red and ugly. Normally I have to wait until everybody is sleeping before I wash my face so I don't come out looking all red and blotchy. Having an en-suite bathroom would allow me to avoid that.

I once had this conversation with my mother, who simply said "Why don't you spend the money on clearing up your skin instead of make up and other band aid solutions?" As if that thought didn't occur to me! I have had prescriptions for my acne (which I stopped because of the medical side effects) and I've used Proactiv (but that made my skin dependent and eventually reacted strangely to it). I easily burn $20 to $30 a month on skincare products, trying to clear it up in the first place.

The reason why I am having a hard time choosing between a standard room and an en-suite room is that I find a lot of people can't look past my skin problems. They zone in on it and then stare. And there is nothing as annoying as knowing that somebody is staring at your breakouts and then they talk to you about it. My parents do it. My friends do it. What's worse yet is that people who don't know me will look past me because of my skin. In fact, I sometimes have trouble making friends with people who feel uncomfortable looking at my blotchy skin. I'm not joking. I don't hide because of my skin, but usually those guys who are all about good looking girls will just look away.

The en-suite bathroom option looks like a God-send because I'll be able to take off my make up in the privacy of my own room... I won't feel like waiting until everyone else is asleep to wash my face. Most importantly, I won't feel constrained. I won't feel like crap every morning and night, wondering which of my roommates are going to see my blemished skin and leave us both feeling uncomfortable.

But financially, I just can't justify it. $1000 CDN would be better spent elsewhere, like socializing or travelling or just something tangible.

To be honest, my deepest fear is that I won't be able to make lots of good friends while I'm on exchange--and if I'm spending nearly $10 000 CDN to go away for a few months, I truly hope that I'll make friends and have a good time. I'm just afraid that people won't want to be my friend because of my skin (which has happened before) or people will treat me differently because of my skin (which happens a lot to people with severe acne) or people will offer acne solutions/treatments (which has also happened, and I know they're trying to be nice, but those solutions never work and serve as painful reminders that that is what people see).

I know it sounds crazy that I'm saying that a $1000 private bathroom will allow me to make friends--but for anybody with severe acne, that kind of logic makes sense. If no one sees my poor skin, they won't be afraid to look me in the eye. There is a certain kind of pain I feel when people look at my skin instead of my eyes. And that's worth $1000 in itself.

I feel like crap.

What do I do?