unilife Archives - The Indelible Rambings of a Wadzi

unilife February 25, 2015

Dealing with Housemates

Bartholomew is a strange one. In fact he’s so strange that he has a very common name but has requested to be called Bartholomew in all future blog accounts of my time here at uni.
Then there’s Alfred. He literally aspires to become Alfred from the Batman comics. Go figure.
My other housemates are only just a little bit more normal… I lie. They aren’t normal. Not even a bit.
But we get on for the most part and that’s what counts.
But what do you do with housemates you can’t get along with?
Here’s my advice…

If you can’t beat them, join them.
Try getting to know them. My housemates last year like to pull pranks every now and again and sometimes it was just easier pretending to laugh it off. But sometimes it wasn’t;

Tell them how you feel.

I find this pretty challenging, or at least face to face, because I really like to be liked. I can be loud and I may even seem aggressive at times, but that’s only how I act with my good friends. I try to play it safe with other people and I try to avoid conflict. But sometimes you can’t do that. Bottling up your emotions is never a good idea because then you’ll get a weird Elsa Complex and then you’ll have to Let It Go and since you don’t have the voice of Idina Menzel, that won’t end well for ANYONE.

So I strongly advice messaging your housemates if you can’t communicate verbally with them coherently. Via text or via Facebook. Whatever works. Just let your voice be heard before you get really aggravated.

Make a cleaning rota.
… or do communal cleans when everyone is available.

Oh... How I despise cleaning. — Oh… How I despise cleaning.

Share communal costs to things like kitchen equipment.

Socialise together every now and again.

If the Avengers have time to socialise after saving the world, I'm sure you can too. — If the Avengers have time to socialise after saving the world, I’m sure you can too.

But for those of you get saddled with the crazies, you may want to consider asking the university for new housing.

unilife December 10, 2014

In Which I Ramble about my New Housemates

Note: This is an old post from my previous blog, dated 27/09/14

A house isn’t a home until you’ve made a bit of a mess of it. That’s what I told myself when I moved in on the 17th to stop me from whining so much as I mopped up the spilt decaf coffee on the floor. It wasn’t entirely untrue, but when a thunderstorm came over the night after I had just moved into Canterbury, I realised I didn’t have a Thunder Buddy. I was the only one who’d moved into the house. So I’m pretty sure the storm wasn’t at all intimidated when I sang the Thunder Song on my own.

By the 20th, Housemate 1 moved in. Housemate 2 followed a few days after.

So there I am on the 24th in the living room, writing this blog post on my laptop because a certain level of calm and happiness has emanated throughout my cynical facade.

I sit in companionable silence with two of my housemates in our living room. There is a distinct emptiness opposite me where the television would be, if we could afford one.

Housemate 1’s laptop purrs like a possessed cat as she goes about her business playing a game whilst Housemate 2 chews loudly on an apple, reading manga on her phone. Every now and then 1 and me burst into song, whilst 2 probably wonders why we’re so crazy. Not that she’s much more normal. And though we have no WiFi and no television, I think we’re pretty happy. (Yes, you can be happy without WiFi, it just doesn’t last very long!)

Every house or flat has it’s own dynamic. Let’s call Housemate 1 Hannah so she doesn’t strangle me in the middle of the night for deformation of character. Hannah is like the Mum of the house, and Housemate 2— let’s call her Suze— she’s like the younger sister. Not because she’s actually younger— even though she is— but because she got lost trying to get back home from uni today and Hannah had to get her. Hannah was joking that Suze was a troublesome daughter.

Fresher Year is great because you get to be introduced to such a variety of different people for the first time in your life, from all sorts of backgrounds. But lets face it, who you end up sharing Halls or a house on campus with is pretty much like the lottery. You just don’t stand a chance of winning.

I had reasonable housemates last year, and at first they were quite easy to get along with. Then two dropped out, a fire occurred and we got two new housemates. They. Changed. Everything.

A casual threat left outside my room

They were real pranksters for sure, and a bit too open about their sexual lives than I was comfortable with. But they were funny and sarcastic and I think the whole experience really taught me something. They taught me not to tell strangers you live with that write novels or they will forever attempt to steal your notebooks.

But Fresher Year is in the past and I am now a slightly more experienced Second Year. (Sorry, Americans. We don’t do that whole “Sophomore”, “Junior”, “Senior” thing that you do. It is literally just First Year through to Third Year for most courses.) One of the greatest perks of Second Year is choosing housemates and I think I may have just won the lottery.

And even if something changes, at least with a double bed in my room I know no one will be bothered enough to move it to the kitchen this year as a prank.

The housemates you choose to live with can just be people who you were willing enough to share the cost of a decent house. At one point last year I thought I would be happy if I never had to interact with my housemates again. But I can’t deal with that kind of isolation. Hopefully your housemates will become like the family you actually chose. You can sit in a room eating dinner whilst ignoring each other on your laptops and smartphones, just like your real parental units at home.

In other news, Housemate 5 moved in today and brought a board of Scrabble. Why must he tear apart this fragile family unit with his boring competitive game?

Uncategorized December 7, 2014

Summer = Purgatory?

Note: This is an old post I’m transferred from my old Blogger account

Summer holidays have always been encompassed by disappointing weather and dithering about whilst simultaneously attempting to convince myself that doing nothing for a whole month was what I really wanted. A longer holiday than usual might have been a dream come true for my former self, but now that I’ve experience the wonders of independecne from my parents, going back under their roof might as well have been purgatory.

At least I had Snapchat as a means of escapism.

A third year Computer Science friend of mine, recently graduated, told me that I’d want to pull out my own hair within two weeks. He was wrong. I want to pull out my little sister’s hair within only a few days.

Mind you, I didn’t do absolutley nothing during the holiday. I participated in CampNaNo in July and “won” after writing 35,000 words; secured a voluntary job in August and went to Bournemouth and Leeds Castle with my family; caught up with some old friends; and found a way to combine my love of CS and writing.

Family time is still important, regardless of age. My family went out on a weekend to Bournemouth. They were having some sort of celebration/ military fair type thing, hence the tank.

Who doesn’t love a good firework display? Add a bit of live music and dinner at a restaraunt, and it made for a really good night with the family unit.

So why the bitching? I missed the uni life.

They don’t warn you how much you will miss being at university. All your educational life, you’ve been counting down the days to summer. And why not? Most everybody else seems to have gone abroad, or to some other sort of trip. Whether it was Soul Survivor, the Duke of Edinburgh, or The Challenge, everyone else is having more fun than you. And if you never felt that way, then you were probably the rich bastard I was always jealous of.

The number one problem with parents is usually curfews. Now, granted that you actually have somewhere to be (I know I never did), this had different repercussions for different people. But once you’ve experienced the freedom of living away from parents, there really is no going back. It’s like trying to shove the toothpaste back in the tube. It ain’t happening.

Except it does. Slowly. But then the toothpaste is never the same again.

When I got back home I didn’t ask for permission to go out. I told them I was going out. (Unless I needed money from then, in which case, I needed to warn them further in advance.)

My parents never spoke to me about alcohol. It was an unspoken rule. Don’t drink. Ever. I was underage so they figured I wouldn’t, and I didn’t. Yeah, I’m just that boring. So when my friend called me at the last minute, asking if I wanted to go to the pub sometime in July, I wasn’t certain I’d be allowed, but I was 18, dammit! I was ready to hold my ground.

I don’t know if any of these restrictions apply to you, but I think we can all agree as young adults, that parents can be really boring and stuffy at times. My life had gone from society meetings and house parties to cooking dinner being the highlight of my day.

Don’t do what I did. Don’t wait forever to think up of alternative options for that summer job you applied to. Make something of your holiday. Something you can be proud to write on your CV, or even something you can just rememeber fondly– future employers be damned!

Summer holidays needn’t be a limbo state as you await the next year at uni. Get a job or start a new hobby. Further your studies in your own time. If you make something of it, it needn’t be a state of purgatory.

I’m just glad all the moaning about wanting to come back to uni was worth it.

They tell me Second Year is harder. I guess I’ll find out just how much harder it is.