Life in Leeds #2

After a long day out and about I like to come home and change straight into my pyjamas. Replacing zips and buttons with elasticated cotton and jersey is an every day kind of bliss. But when the fire alarm unexpectedly starts trumpeting in its full glory, in a student hall where you don’t know anyone yet, a social nightmare begins to play out. No-one, especially not complete strangers, needs to know that I sport last year’s Primark fleece Christmas-themed pyjamas to bed in September. What’s more, strangers certainly don’t need to find themselves being introduced to me sans any form of tinted moisturizer. I’d go as far as saying that this sort of thing might top my list of worst possible social scenarios.

However, Leeds isn’t being too kind to me when it comes to social engagements. So this is exactly what happened to me last week. Hounded outside by an alarm that felt like a troll was hammering on my eardrums with a bone-club, I made it to the first floor landing before the raucous was replaced by a patronizing automated female voice that reminded me that “in cases of fire one should exit the building”. As if anyone but the demonically possessed could remain inside the building given the blaring siren.

Once outside it begins to dawn on me that it’s night-time, and that given it’s night-time it is cold. Not ‘nippy’ either. We’re talking full on, northern, galacial cold. And you know what I’ve gone and done (or more specifically, not done) I haven’t picked up a jacket and I’m not wearing shoes. I felt like some sot of cave woman who’s stumbled through time into polite, accessorized company. My immediate reaction is not humour, which in retrospect would have transformed my state from tragic to endearing, no. I was just quietly angry; I was angry at the incompetent cook or reckless smoker who had engendered this social disaster. And if you didn’t already know, anger isn’t much of a social lubricant among polite society. Thus, my first meeting with all my new neighbours was entirely wasted on me. When you don’t know more than three people in a city it pays to be chilled out, even if you’re freezing cold, braless and in snowman pyjamas.

....and since I finished writing this post the entire situation has happened AGAIN. Angry caps-lock. But at least I remembered shoes this time. I guess this is where I cut to the moral of the story- life is all about learning and growing, but mostly about remembering to wear shoes.

Life in Leeds #1

This is a new lifestyle post series that I'm going to be writing throughout my final year at University. I'll be writing about anything interesting, especially if it is embarrassing or funny, that happens to me. Hopefully these posts will be entertaining for you to read. Or if you're also at university then maybe they'll help remind you that everyone has issues and gets embarrassed but that the most important thing about life is to be happy, even if that means laughing at ourselves from time to time. I would love to hear your feedback on these posts, whether it is you telling me how you can relate to them or letting me know (hopefully politely) if you don't like them. 

On September 16^th I moved back to Leeds to undertake my final year at University (my “lets postpone getting a job” postgraduate degree). With the vast majority of my close friends having left Leeds, and knowing first hand the reality of Leeds’ student accommodation shit-storm, I opted for university run housing.

Now, university housing isn’t all bad but my previous experience was awful. As a literature student being housed with four, verging upon alcoholic, scientists in my freshers year was not exactly my cup of tea. The difference between what I did on a day to day basis, especially how and when I studied, to what they did on a daily basis was huge and I felt very misunderstood and left out. Two years after living through it I was incredibly wary about returning to a university flat where I wouldn’t know anyone.

Turns out that this year I’m the dick in my flat. Everything was going so perfectly (the flat is gorgeous, it’s really close to university and the flatmates I’ve met so far are really lovely) and then I go and spoil it all by completely forgetting one of the girls’ names. We’ve all been there at one point or another but most people don’t forget the names of people they live with.

Instead of facing this problem head on (it really is just too embarrassing)  I’m going to casually suggest we add one another on Facebook. Or better yet haunt the mailbox we share as a flat until a letter or parcel arrives addressed to that one name I don’t know… Seriously guys, I’m embarrassed. Freshers, don’t make the same mistake as me. Write that stuff down as soon as you can and then you can’t forget it.