Advice for Myself: What Living In Halls Taught Me

     

     Having already moved out and lived pretty much alone before, I knew how to cook, work a washing machine, look after myself when ill, and all that other first time stuff already. This is a summary of the less practical skills and lessons living intensely close to new people in university halls taught me:

• I am not very considerate about the noise I make. I'm gonna cop out here and chalk this down to the fact that my deafness means I have never been unfortunate enough to be woken up or kept awake by someone else's noise. When I shared a room with my sister she was once blue in the face from coughing and had to be taken to hospital in an ambulance - I slept soundly through the whole thing. I had always thought I was quite a considerate person and so the realisation of this blind spot is something I'm going to work on - for fear of someone stabbing me as I noisily cook a three course meal and shower at 1am.
• I eat weird food. I had never really thought much about the food combinations and plates I put together, other than the fact that I liked them and that they were normal to me. If I don't feel like eating 'breakfast' food at breakfast time then I won't, I'll have a slice of pizza or leftovers of something I do feel like. I also learnt that I'm fascinated watching what other people cook and enjoy, I am a foodie at heart. 
• Everything will either be broken or will break at some point. Try not to get murdered by an unhinged window that seems to target your head on a daily basis, and use the moaning about how crap everything is as a way to bond with your flatmates. It works I promise.
• The pressure to be 'on' all the time is hard to escape. The first few weeks at university mean meeting new people all the time, and when you live with these new acquaintances it can be hard to turn off, breathe out and relax. There's a need to be your friendliest, funniest, freshest self but the outer shells fall away from everyone at some point so don't worry about shedding yours. You will embarrass yourself intensely with these people at some point, but it is a small price to pay for the laughter and support you get when you take down those walls.
• I don't really look after my stuff. Things like cutlery and mugs just seemed to go missing and I'd be lying if I tried to pretend that it's not just due to my own lack of concern for these things.
• It is not ridiculous to feel lonely when physically surrounded by people. In fact it's normal in a setting so consistently filled with noise, bodies and movement, to sometimes feel like all these things are happening around you rather than with you. 
• Someone will always be awake and you can choose to find this either annoying or comforting. Buy some earplugs for the nights you really do need to sleep, and embrace the novelty of being able to have a conversation with someone cooking a pie in the kitchen at 3am on the nights where you really can't. During my year at dance college I lived completely alone for three days every week and I would choose halls over that easily.
• No one knows what a fried cheese sandwich is! It's a better version of a grilled cheese sandwich that features in my earliest memories and everyone should know how to make them. Because one day you'll be crying vodka tears sat on the scratchy carpet of the hallway and one of your new found hall friends will hand you a fried cheese sandwich - perfectly crispy on the outside, molten cheese on the inside, and tiny pockets of grease dotted all over. It will soak up the vodka tears and cement your friendship for ever more, and it wouldn't be possible if you hadn't shared with them the joys of the fried cheese sandwich in the first place.
• Give people time. My friends had previously consisted of people with the same core interest as me (dance) or those with very similar values and lives to mine. There are so many new people to meet at university that it can be easy to dismiss people you don't instantly click with, and living in halls taught me that you can become really good friends with pretty much anyone given enough time, the right situations and a bit of kindness. A few days into my new living arrangements I told a friend "Everyone's quite quiet..". She brushed this off as nonsense - "There's no such thing as quiet people!". I didn't believe her, but I should have. You should give people time to be their best selves, and to trust you enough to want to be them. This is true when meeting anyone, but particularly in those first few weeks of unfamiliarity, because homesickness, fear and new found freedom are affecting everyone you meet.
• I've made the most wonderful friends that I really wouldn't have crossed paths with had we not been thrown in the same block of flats together. Before arriving at university I had wished the halls system was different, I didn't understand why they couldn't group up us by course, department, or some kind of match.com questionnaire, so that I could have some kind of reassurance that we all had at least one thing in common. Now I get it, making friends with (or just getting along with) people outside of your usual interests and comfort zones makes you a more varied, open minded and all together better person. I am so grateful the random accommodation system threw me with the people it did, because I cannot see a situation where I would have met them otherwise. 

Dedicated to the Highfield Massive x