For the last four months, kids have been asking me where I live and I reply with a simple (insert room number here). Apparently, when students ask that they mean where are you from. To which I would reply, “I’m homeless, but normally I’m from Arkansas.”

Now, one may question the fact on whether or not I was actually homeless. To me, I was. Right before school started, my family lost our house to something that was beyond our reach: a stupid landlord and a thing called foreclosure. We won’t go into that, but my mom and my sisters moved in with my mom’s boyfriend thus putting me with no where to go but my dorm room.

Over the semester I have endured countless jokes like, “Save your change for the homeless girl.” Or, my favorite, my newspaper teacher making me a cardboard sign that said, “Will cover track for food.”

Even better, I had to sit on the side of the road holding that sign so everyone could take pictures. I’ll admit it was hilarious, but a little disheartening.

I know that my experience has not been as bad as other people, but for me it truly was a learning experience. I’ve realized that home is really what you make it, or where you make it. Home is not where your materialistic possessions are because if that were true “home sweet home” would be three storage buildings out on Arkansas Highway 59.

To quote Cross Canadian Ragweed, “Home is where your love is. The rest, the rest is all in your head.”

Moral of the story is, don’t pick on the homeless people, you never know when it could be you.