The Not So Fabulous Student Life

I've been back in Exter for less than a week and already student life has become the norm again. It's amazing how quickly you forget about the existence of ironed clothes, general warmth, and a kitchen floor that isn't so sticky it pulls the socks off your feet. And now that the winds outside are up to 100mph and something as simple as the walk to campus has become a nightmare in its own right, I've begun to realise just how un-glamorous student life can be.

1. Student Housing.
When I was in first year I lived in brand new student accommodation that, while luxurious compared with some of the rooms I've seen at the likes of Swansea and Cardiff, was in no way worth the £123 a week I paid to live there. But it was warm and comfortable. Yes, our cleaner used to spend her shift sat at our dining room table, eating our biscuits and insulting us if we walked in instead of actually doing any kind of cleaning, but that was as bad as it got.
When I left campus I entered the world of deposit-snatching landlords, 'house' snails, broadband scams, arguments about when it's acceptable to turn the heat up (apparently, in some cases, only when you can literally see your own breath) and various other student housing delights.
Last year my room had no window. It led onto a badly constructed extension that clearly wasn't up to any kind of building code. It let in the rain and there were weeds growing in it. There was no natural daylight in the room itself...or air.

This year our house is a great improvement. It's bigger, the housemate to bathroom ratio is fantastic, my room has two whole windows and space for my clothes in the cupboard. But we have damp. And, as this seemingly never-ending downpour continues, it's not getting any better. When I got back last week and opened my wardrobe, my shoes had grown a layer of mould. I had to scrape a living entity off my favourite red Mary Janes. The estate agent did not understand my despair.


2. A Ridiculous Life.
It would be a lie to say that ridiculous things only happen to me in Exeter. If you read about my trip to Europe last summer then you will be well aware that it makes no difference where in the world I am. I just attract stupid scenarios. But living at university offers up a whole new realm of possibilities for me to get myself into trouble.

The first time I ever went to the uni
library I was drunk...and wearing
hotpants.

On the weekend I popped across the road to the corner shop. It's conveniently placed right opposite our house, next to the Thai 'Massage Parlour' (which isn't fooling anyone, by the way). I left the door on the latch, only to find when I got back that I'd been locked out. Our doorbell was broken. I banged the door until I thought I might inadvertently punch right through it but, as is one of the fun novelties of student living, someone had music on and no one heard.
It was cold and wet. I had nothing to hand but my purse and a tin of chopped tomatoes. My very will to live was fast slipping from me at the point. I pushed past the shrubs to get around to the side of the house. The gate was locked.
So I scaled the pointed fence. It's a good two feet taller than me and my cowboy boots were of no use in trying to get a decent foothold. Halfway over, shivering, hair frizzy, butt in the air, a man walked up the lane next to the house.
"Just...trying to get back into my house."
He looked in no way surprised to see me crawling my way across a seven foot wall. Has living in such close proximity to students made Exeter residents immune to this kind of thing or do I just give off the vibe that this kind of thing is part of my day to day life?


3. Grunge, Grime, and Tiny Nervous Breakdowns.

In first year we brought a random
cat into our kitchen.

Student houses are disgusting because, generally speaking, students are disgusting. That's why landlords turn the other way when there are indoor snails, indoor weeds, and indoor mould (even when it's on my shoes). Forget dissertations and presentations, the biggest stress in a student's life is usually the kitchen and the fear of what kind of diseases may be lurking there.
Since I first lived in my comfy little flat, kitchens have been a nightmare. Back then it was the guy who would leave his saucepans unwashed for so long he had to throw them out. Now it's the nightmare of having six people share a teeny tiny kitchen...and leaving their stuff unwashed for so long that they maybe should consider throwing it out.
I've gotten into a great habit of washing, drying and putting away my dishes as soon as I'm done with them, mostly because I don't like the idea of them touching the surfaces. In fact, my parents were pleasantly surprised when I went home last week and did the dishes in an almost paranoid way. Yes, dirty kitchens are annoying, but I had no idea how much it irritated me until the other night when my subconscious decided to join the party...in a big way.
It was a normal, quiet evening. I was a normal, quiet human being. Kirsty and I were in the kitchen and I was just washing up a mug.
"The kitchen looks so much better, doesn't it?" Said Kirsty. "I've noticed it doesn't stress you out so much anymore."
"No," I said (still a normal, quiet human being). "I just let it all go over my head now. I try not to think about it too much. But," (still normal and quiet) "one thing that does annoy me is this whole draining board thing. We never have any dry tea towels and then, when we do, people use them to create a second draining board." (This is where normal and quiet started to ebb away). "I mean, we don't need two draining boards. We don't even technically need the one if people would just dry their dishes, but they seem to insist on using it as some kind of communal storage unit! And then, when this storage unit, which isn't even meant to be a storage unit, is full, they make another one instead of emptying the first?! And how do they do that? They use the only dry tea towel in the house so that even if anyone actually did want to dry their dishes, they couldn't! But clearly no one does anyway because otherwise we wouldn't need two draining boards for them to store all their crap on!! But maybe I DO want to dry my dishes and now I can't because of this stupid second draining board thing!"
Normal and quiet had well and truly left the building. Kirsty just stared at me.
"But, yeah...apart from that I think I've really chilled out about the whole kitchen thing..."
Kirsty quickly removed all of her kitchenware from the draining board.


So those are just a couple of examples from the last week I thought would highlight some of the more...challenging aspects of student living. As well as these there's the mountain of Dominoes boxes, the battle of who will take out the bins, library fines, attempting to navigate the amory building (you will not understand the horror until you've tried), student loans not covering the high price of alcohol in Exeter, Student Finance Wales in general, MLA citations, the way Arena smells like feet...oh good grief, I'm having another 'draining board moment'.

But, despite the grim realities of student life, we are some of the few people who can drink midweek without being judged, lay in bed until 2pm, leave the house in whatever happens to be clean and pretend we're being 'hipster' and generally enjoy all the perks of independent living without the drag of having a job. And, most importantly, at the end of term you always get to return to your parents house, where it's dry and clean and the wall is only 2 foot tall if you ever need to scale it.