So another term is coming to an end and as my flat slowly empties I am yet again surrounded by, yes you guessed it, boxes of my crap. I never realised just how much stuff I own until I came to university, and now I have the wonderful task of packing it all up and moving it roughly 100 miles back to my house before,in a month, having to re-pack everything I feel like i have only just unpacked and carting it all back again. I'm telling you I don't know how students who travel home by train do it. I mean I certainly couldn't carry my Death Star (desktop computer) and television, plus all my clothes back on the train. I suppose I'm lucky my parents have a seven seater car (nicknamed 'the bus') to take all my stuff back in. I have also realised this term how very many clothes I own. I set myself a challenge, mainly because I was sick of going to the laundrette and finding all the washing machines broken, that I would see how long I could go without doing any washing. I made it a remarkable 5 weeks before I ran out of Bras and it was quite fun seeing what weird outfits came out of the experiment too. My point is, I feel like when you are at university you really need two sets of 'stuff', one for home and one for your university abode, because carting all of this stuff back and forth is simply exhausting. It also got me thinking about what packing up all my stuff for summer is going to be like too, I mean I'm going to have to pack up all my kitchen utensils and the few bits I do leave in my flat over the holidays usually making it even more of a job. It's funny but when I think about how bored I got of shopping for stuff before I came to university, I didn't know how important some of the things you take for granted as owning could be. For example my mum was adamant that I was to have a good quality wok before coming to university as she said (and she was right as usual) that the hob in my apartment wouldn't cool down as quickly as I needed it to and so she didn't want my food catching. A few weeks ago I went to a friends apartment and he actually burnt what he was cooking and had to throw it away due to a poor quality wok (nice one mum). I've been speaking to a few freshers who have been reading this blog via my Facebook and its nice to know that I'm able to pass on some advice that I didn't have and getting a good quality wok is definitely something I advise as they can be used to cook tons stuff that is relatively cheap to make. Here is a list of things I believe you should definitely have when planning on coming to university:
-A clothes horse (laundrette dryers don't always get the job done right)
-A printer (printing costs are sky high and going to the library to print isn't always convenient)
-A bottle opener (for opening 'sparkling water' ;-) )
-Posters and photos from home (personally my dorm room looks a little like a prison cell when the walls are bare)
-Hand wash equipment (sometimes you can avoid doing a big wash by hand washing a few bits)
-Frozen meals from home (having mum cook up some pasta sauce or Shepard's pie to stick in the freezer saves you cooking and money!)
-A budget book (it's really easy to waste money, keeping track is important so things don't get out of hand)
-A list of accommodation services and their phone numbers at hand in case of emergency (or some drunk guy passes out in front of your apartment door)
-Speakers (even cheap speakers do the job for parties or those all important 'who can be louder' competitions with the apartment upstairs)
-A toaster (not always provided though can be bought as a flat)
-A first aid kit and lots of flu remedy, Strepsils and cough medicine(Fresher's flu is a bitch, ask anyone!)
-An emergency fund! (This is perhaps the most important one, sometimes crap does happen, you lose a student card or your key which can cost up to £50 to replace.Having money set aside as a backup may seem less fun than spending it on a night out, but it could save your butt in the end!)
Anyhow, i know this has been more informative than fun but I feel like knowledge should be shared not hoarded and I wish someone had told me about this stuff! If any current students have advice or an item they couldn't have done without that I haven't thought of, then please feel free to comment.
Atargatis, now off to sleep in a fort made of boxes, over and out! XxxX
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