In the last twenty four hours I have come to realise that no one understands student housing unless they've actually been through it. I'm not trying to be rude or exclude anyone* but it really is true. And yet I still plan to blog about it, maybe so that you will understand or maybe because it's caused the sorry state our house is in now where no one wants to be in it. Everyone hates housing, I'm sure I've not met anyone who relishes those wonderful housing discussions that start at the end of the Autumn term of the first year and continue year upon year for as long as you stay in student housing or with housemates. It is not unusual for someone to say they don't get on with one or all of their housemates. So with the annual housing discussion coming up, I wasn't particularly looking forward to it. I had rather hoped by this point of living together, we'd have reached the point where we could be honest and not take things personally, but it turns out I was wrong to hope that. Every housing discussion to date has ended in storming off or someone in tears. It makes everyone involved feel, quite frankly, crap and ends up with everyone in their room, the door firmly closed. I'm not entirely sure what locking ourselves in our rooms does, but since we can't sit down and discuss it, I'm sure it's a darn sight better than being in one person's way. So, yesterday was the housing discussion to top them all. No one wanted to sit down to it because, well with our track record, who would? Just when we thought we had reached the end, the finishing line in a marathon or the the peak of a mountain**, one final suggestion was made. Then came the silence. You know that silence that occurs when everyone who has to answer thinks the same thing but doesn't ever intend to say it out loud. The silence in which everyone knows you could cut the tension with a knife. The silence that made something deep inside me realise that this housing discussion was going to end just like all the others before it. Once again, I was wrong. It was worse. It didn't just end in a storming out. It ended in a huge argument, a storming out complete with locking of bedroom door and at least three out of the four parties involved, in tears. It ended with those three getting hardly any sleep and still feeling crap today. It ended with the same three deliberately spending the whole day out of the house so as not to have to deal with it. It ended with one letter being written, one text being sent and the returning of everything ever borrowed.


*If I was still at camp, someone would have yelled "targeting!" by now...
**These metaphors are not stupid, it really is like running a marathon, every bit as draining and stressful.

I want to say a big huge thank you to Gilly & Mike for taking me under their wing at stupid o'clock last night. I really do appreciate it. xx