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Saturday 30 March 2013

The Beauties (and the Beasts) of Living With Other People


Most people at uni live with other students sharing lives, loves and bills.  The beauty of living with your mates at uni is the constant company, similar interests and always having someone nearby to play with when the deadlines are piling up and the procrastinating begins.  Last year I was the 9th person living in an 8 person house (it’s a long story) and this year we downsized to a 6 bedroom house, 3 boys and 3 girls.  This, I feel, is the perfect combination – everyone takes their own roles in a student family, ours consists of a Mum (me), a Dad and posse of ‘children’.  We are the all biggest kids but these roles take their place in particular on a sunny day when the BBQs come out.  I will be in the kitchen preparing all the food and doing the Mum things, while the Dad is outside sparking up the barbeque and the perpetually dirty dishes are being washed by the kids.  


There is always someone to talk to, games to be played (our particular favourite at the minute is Monopoly, cool I know) and inside jokes to be had.  By living in a house with your mates, you are sure to find friends for life.  These are people you couldn’t get to know any better if you tried and who know you so well your belief in magic isn’t even questioned.  Someone like me who could be considered a ‘feeder’ (by definition someone who gets a lot of enjoyment from feeding others) has the perfect audience of tasters to try out my latest cake.


If you are lucky enough to live in a house with people who study the same subject as you, you have fallen on your feet.  Without living with people studying PR as well I would be lost with the all the upcoming deadlines and recommended reading.


Although I would never want to live another way, we have even half jokingly talked about all living together forever in a massive house until we grow old, there are a few negative factors.  Things go missing quite a lot in our house.  My hairbrush for example disappeared a few months ago and I have resorted to using a brush I thought was my housemates until she admitted she had thought it was mine, and we came to the conclusion we both had been using a brush that came with the house.  Gross.  There is the occasional pube spider lurking in the bathroom – I’d rather not know who and where that came from.    In some houses, there is a food thief.  A friend of mine had the majority of their Bolognese (meant for a few more meals) sneakily scoffed over night.


As the final semester comes to an end, for some of us it’s come to the sad time we have all been dreading since first year.  Uni is over.  O-V-E-R.  This is a genuine tragedy. Some of us will be moving on to proper jobs and being proper grown ups or there will be a few, like my friends and I, who will be staying in Leeds and living the dream. 

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