Living in student accommodation is a strange and exciting experience. You’re living away from home, mostly, and everything is up to you. Suddenly there’s no Mum or Dad or family pet to do your ironing, washing and cooking – it’s all up to you. Personally I’m lucky enough to have parents who built me up as a man who can fend for himself. I don’t crawl across the floor in ragged clothes scraping the floor for traces of pot noodle, whilst crying because I don’t know how to hold an iron. So luckily enough I had the self-confidence and the resulting excitement inside me for when I arrived at my accommodation. I’d already had a set-back, I was placed in the student village, a few miles away from the actual university. This is alright – there’s a free bus service that takes you to the university. But, there are those who live literally 30 metres away from the university buildings – those who were lucky enough to be picked by whatever system the university has to allocate students to their new homes. That’s what annoyed me the most; but oh well – suck it up and move on. Life won’t be happy if all you do is moan – the glass is half full.
Arriving at my new house (or home – but I like to think that a house and a home are different things. A home being representative of family life and somewhere you’ve been for ages, a house being a building you simply live in) was very odd. After driving a couple of hours from my home in Surrey and having unpacked my case, the departure of my parents was quite sudden, and a big shock. When you first think of university life you conjure up imagery of parties, independent life and things like that. But personally I never realised the comfort I would miss when they left. But since then and in a short while I’ve learnt a lot about myself and how to live successfully on my own. I’ve even started eating salad.
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