Everyone thinks they know what it’s going to be like moving into Halls. We all have this idea that it’s going to be such a fantastic, liberating experience where we will have our own privacy and become a newly independent woman.Except, it doesn’t quite happen like that.
Being Social
If you’re like me and you’re incredibly lucky when it comes to the people on your corridor, you’ll soon realise that privacy does not exist. When you click with people that make it seem like you have known them for years, rather than a few weeks, and everyone wants to act like they’re at an everlasting sleepover, a closed bedroom door can become an obstacle. So, the trick is to do what we did – ‘borrow’ as many doorstops as you can find- whether it be bathroom, kitchen or laundry room, no doorstop is safe. It may have royally annoyed the cleaners but at least we’re now known for being the most sociable corridor….
Being a Domestic Goddess
When you’re in the laundry room and watching other people wash and dry their clothes as professionally as if they work with Dot from EastEnders, the best advice is to beg for someone’s help if you have no idea what to do. No one wants to be the first person to shrink their clothes – or turn them all pink. And please, please check the washing machine before you put a white wash on. It’s a nasty surprise to find out an hour later that someone had left a singular navy blue sock in there. A navy blue sock that has now ruined your life -not to mention the contents of your wardrobe.
Sticking Together
Accepting that offer of accommodation, without any real idea of who you’re going to be living, eating and partying with, is pretty daunting. Worse still, there’s the question of who you’ll be sharing a bathroom with. All I can say is that at times it can test the strength of your character, for example, pretending to be ok with the person who left a trail of destruction behind them in the shower or keeping your cool when the whole corridor is reprimanded for someone drunkenly pulling the hand wash dispenser off the wall. It really shows how far you’re willing to go to turn those strangers into your new best friends.
The Food
For the first few days it’s exciting to all queue up together, anticipating the quality of the food, however, there will be those people who insist on cutting in front because, even though you’ve been queueing for about 15 minutes, their “friend has saved them a place.” Typical. You may try to reassure yourself that you’re a nice person by letting them through, but you’ll soon realise that you’re actually just giving them a free pass to leave you with the salad mush and the dregs of the potato wedges. Not cool. The worst are the people who complain nonstop about the food. They don’t have enough choices. There aren’t enough vegetarian options. There are too many carbs. It’s never what they fancy. The chefs will never win and you’ll have to try your best to ignore the comments, or worse still, avoid turning into one of them because, let’s face it, the food does tend to go downhill after the first month.
How to dress
My favourite transformation so far is how our dress sense has evolved during our time in halls. At first, dinner was a place to make an impression, dressing really nice and having your makeup done so everyone could see how great you look….. and then it started to go downhill.
Now, we’re lucky to even make it to breakfast, and our outfit for dinner is leggings and a hoody which we then team with some oh-so-stylish fluffy slippers. Comfort first ladies, comfort first.
Edited by Georgina Varley.
Image sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10957093
http://www.mtv.com/news/1952118/mean-girls-day-october-3-fetch/