Today is the anniversary of the day that I finally packed up all my belongings and headed off in my little car out along the highway towards Indiana.  It's absolutely mind-boggling to believe that a year has actually gone by so quickly.  Although I feel very settled into my apartment and my life here in Indiana, it's hard to imagine that I've gone through everything that one year has to offer a person.  I've seen all four seasons (including the snow).  I've experienced all the holidays and birthdays with both new and some old friends.  What is important to me is that I still feel a very strong attachment to my good friends that I left behind in Florida, even though many of them now are beginning there own journeys away from the Florida panhandle.  I'm sure that by the time another year or two has passed, a lot of us with be strewn around the country or even the world all doing our own thing though hopefully still keeping the others in our lives as best as possible.  The anniversary that today marks reminds me of one of the most important financial things that I had to deal with when moving to a new place.  Forget about dealing with changing the addresses on credit cards and bank statements. Forget about the new driver's license and insurance (although doing the driver's license thing was a doozy!).  The most important thing that most students and anyone for that matter enter into is their financial obligation to the place that they live.  Whether it's a mortgage, rent, or in my case a lease, this financial obligation to either a bank, a company, or some person allows us to have one of the most important human necessities; shelter.  Tomorrow my new lease begins, and truth be told, I'm having mixed emotions about the fact that my roommate and I decided to resign.  I suppose that when the apartment complex management asked us about resigning it was back in March of this year.  Five months ahead of time seems like a really long stretch to start thinking about what you're going to be doing the following Fall.  I remember that it was right before Spring break when they asked, and I recall thinking that resigning a lease was the last thing on my mind.  I just wanted to get out of town for a little bit of a break from the hustle of my second semester of graduate school.  We waited a little while but then decided to resign the lease.  It seems that as soon as we signed, things went a little down hill at our apartment complex.  All of the sudden things didn't get done as quickly, messages didn't get delivered to the proper place, and the facilities generally deteriorated.  I imagine that the management supposes that they can get away with that sort of stuff because they know that they've got you legally bound to them for another year of your life.  The problem that I had and still continue to have is that this minor deterioration has continued somewhat, and I don't really know who the right person is to talk to about it.  The property manager and her assistant, who I had thought were pretty reliable, have turned out to be very friendly though the requests for work orders and whatnot just don't seem to get done.  I recall specifically a work order that I phoned in back in January that just finally got taken care of last week since there was no record of the six times I called, left messages, or visited the office to ask questions or follow up.  Pretty curious if you ask me.  Either way, we're here in the same apartment for another year, and I think that it's going to be OK.  It's relatively inexpensive, lots of things are included, the management is at least pleasant, and you really can't beat the location for getting back and forth to school.  On top of that...I just hate moving!