Portrait Essay (Final)

"Adjusting"
Samantha is my best friend, and we have been for about a year now. We met through friends of friends, and we instantly hit it off. It was before our senior year that we clicked, and she made it the best year ever. When I was trying to decide whether to go to University of Southern Mississippi or Louisiana State University, Samantha had her mind all set on Louisiana State University. It concerned me because I wanted our friendship to last as long as it could. In the end, I decided to go to Louisiana State University but for various reasons.
She is probably one of the shortest people on campus and has a gymnast body. Her brown, shoulder length hair is usually half up and half down with her bangs pushed to the side. She is about five feet tall, eighteen years old, always has a smile on her face, and always wears a piece of yellow yarn around her wrist. Her personality is what drew me to her. It can be joking, serious, nice, catty, caring of her friends and family, and strong like a football player. Whenever we are together all we can do is laugh until our abs hurt. She can make my day go from bad to good. She loves to have a good time, but then when it is needed to be serious-she can be. We both love having girl talk and going out to a bar to have a good time.
We started college on Monday, August 25th and by the end of the week, Samantha was overwhelmed. She was having a hard time leaving high school, saying good bye to her friends that were going to a separate university or still in high school, and especially her family. She was becoming an adult and has to learn to live on her own now. Samantha made it through the first week of college, and she soon learned how this so called college life worked. Also, she learned that majority of the work and homework was done online-something completely opposite than high school. Being a college student, she told me one day that, "I wish I could be in college and do high school work still!"
When Samantha and I were picking our dorms to live in, we decided not to be roommates strictly because we thought it would put a damper on our friendship. We picked to live in Broussard Hall, and Samantha did random roommate. I had another friend that I went to middle school with that was living in Broussard, so we decided to live together. Samantha moved into the dorms and she met her roommate, Elena, and I got worried because I thought I was going to lose my best friend to her roommate. Elena and Samantha got along great, but I think she felt the same way I did when Morgan and I got along so good too. We worked it out so that we spent time with each other at least once or twice a week. Doing so, we drifted back to the way we were before we moved up to college.
Back in high school, Samantha was used to having each one of her classes back to back. She now had to adjust to having a class once a week or even going to a class three times a week. Also, having a three hour break between some classes was difficult for her because she didn't know what to do, so she would find something to occupy her time with. Sometimes if she had an hour break she would go to the LSU bookstore and shop around, but she had to be careful on how much money she spent. Living without her parents meant she had to pay for some of her own stuff and lived on a budget. Also, that meant going grocery shopping, which I think everyone under the age of thirty dreads. Samantha and I usually go grocery shopping together, but I'll walk down each aisle and throw random things into the cart. After I do so, I'll hear Samantha behind me yelling, "Erin! What are you doing, you can't just get random groceries now," basically sounding like my mother.
Each class she was enrolled in had online homework, and Samantha wasn't used to having to do hardly any work in class and then go home to do tons of online homework. Samantha's computer hardly worked, and when it worked it seemed to be in the laundry room. She never got any kind of internet in her room even though she had an Ethernet cord. So, whenever she had to do homework she had to go to the laundry room. Also, going to the Math Lab was a hard thing for her to do because she started class early and then ended kind of late.
In the end, Samantha transitioned to college eventually. She found time to fit everything into her busy schedule except for our friendship. We both have two separate groups of friends. We drifted a lot when I got into a sorority and Samantha met new people in her classes. It sucks to have lost a best friend, but I know that I can always count on her to be there for me when I need her and she knows I'd always be there for her. We both have gone our own ways in our lives, but maybe that's what was in store for our friendship. We still have lunch or get dinner about once or twice a week. Sometimes we will get the girls together and go out on the town of Baton Rouge, but also known as Tigerland. Even though college has changed us, we still are good friends', just not best friends.