Ill still. Blergh.

I have to go into uni today to pay my tuition fees, no matter how I feel. The deadline is today, and the opening times for the finance office fail. Not sure I'll get to lectures, but given that I have to go in, I might. Extra weight from notebooks might decide me against that, though. Still fevering, and have decided to attribute Wednesday's health to my obscene luck, which knew I wanted to do to LARP (It often gives me what I want rather than what I need). As I'll be going out, may as well stop by Costcutter for milk and cheese and 'shrooms - I keep feeling guilty for drinking milk, given that I haven't left the house for shopping in a week, now. OTOH, milk is heavy. Custard pots, too. Need more fat. And breakfast food. And chocky. Mmm, chocky. Broth? Yesterday my eating was three crackers with cheese, and a tin of chicken broth. And then sleep took hours, because my head was spinning and there were people outside my door so I couldn't relax myself and sleep. Tonight I think I shall lock my door and have three cups of water rather than two, because then I don't need to worry about things. Except not waking up and no-one being able to get to me. But that's why I like having a Steve with me while I'm not well. Steve got sent away. I think I will have to say 'no' to housemates saying that 'guests can only stay 7 days out of every month' thing, because if they'd said that before I signed the contract, I wouldn't have signed the contract. I asked if there was any guest policy, and just got told that one housemate's girlfriend was staying for a month. I get that people don't want to share space with someone they didn't agree to, but they didn't agree to me, really, and Steve-visits, frequent Steve-visits, comes along with me being a housemate, and that's why I asked how they felt about guests. Because if Steve couldn't stay with me here (particularly if there is a time when he gets a job here and there is a wait on moving into a real house), then I would have found another living place.

Also, most of you guys are awesome. Really awesome. ...I should go and go to the tuition fees before our lecture starts, so I can say 'I will go to the lecture' or 'I won't go to the lecture because I'm too ill' rather than have it decided because I'm too late. Will have to walk, maybe. Um.Or change from long skirt to trousers to can cycle. Why does not eating make me feel sick? I had tea...

Expectations of a student house

Do I have a skewed expectation of shared housing? I'd think my experience would have been fairly general

In my first year, I was in halls with five to eight people on my floor sharing my kitchen (including Steve), depending on whether Sherry and her boyfriend were staying in her room or his, and whether Kat was at her parent's house. We generally socialised in our rooms or were 'out', we all cooked in the kitchen (except Horen) and ate in the kitchen (except Sherry), and socialisation in the 'communal' area was pretty much limited to 'let us have small talk while we cook/eat'.

Second year, I was in a titchy four bed house with two of those floor-mates and Steve, with three Physicists and one of their floormates next door. With those two floormates, we carried on more or less as before - those of us with tutoral work tended to do some of it in the living room a little more than we had, but socialisation generally happened either in next door's living room (it was large enough for all eight of us to play a board game or whatever), or in one or other of the bedrooms. We occasionally did a communal meal - stir fry, or a roast dinner, or corned beef hash.

Over the summer, I was in a house where everyone was paying for their room and use of the kitchen/bathroom/living room, all on different lets. We had a mix of people who would eat in the living room or in their bedroom - in general, depending on whether the person could carry the food safely to their room. Sometimes there would be more than one person in the living room, and a small amount of chat would occur, or someone would have the telly on (there was the awesome once when me and Claudia were critiquing Sharpe). Not often, though. And the house was often silent by eleven-ish. I think Hannah had someone who wasn't her boyfriend over once for beer and pizza, and I hardly heard a peep from them.

This is possibly why I'm not coping so well with this house. My housemates are friendly together, and socialise, with great enthusiasm, in the communal area (which is right outside my bedroom, rather than downstairs or across the walkway). I'm just not used to this. I'm also not cool with the idea (or rather, the reality) of multiple extra people suddenly being in the house, even if they're friends, for film-watching or whatever all at once - a couple of people who turn up on the sometimes and are quiet and there to visit someone, sure, but events occurring right outside my bedroom, when I don't get any say in the matter? Yuck.

I guess I'm used to the idea of a shared house being a place to sleep and cook and work if you're lucky, rather than all this socialness happening at all hours.