University

Most of the rooms are empty and cars are parked everywhere. That’s because today is the penultimate day of halls and everyone is leaving. Tomorrow at 10am all rooms should have been evacuated for the cleaning services to come and prepare the rooms for the summer groups. It feels like me like waiting for a plane, everything is packed and there’s not much to do until tonight’s party. The bedroom is cleaned and stuff is packed. It’s pretty quiet, many people leaving, everything is finished now. I’m looking forward to living in a more diverse part of London which will serve as a base for my job seeking. It’s going to be nice when, tomorrow, I have moved in to my new flat properly.

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](http://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/amusing.jpg “Usage for today”)Here is a reason for the Halls ISP to complain. today’s usage 862 when the limit is only 500 a day. Look at how much bandwidth I have remaining though. How am I going to get through 26 gigs in thee days I wonder.

Last night after visiting my new flat and getting to know one of the people that live there I came back to the bar in Halls to chat with friends but that didn’t last long as there was a lack of atmosphere. Everyone migrated to the field and that’s when it’d become more interesting. Whilst some people went to get firewood we broke some branches into more manageable pieces, got some newspaper, and started a fire. I love building up fires so I helped to encourage the flames and attempted to make the fire catch. After a few minutes it did and some people came with palettes and other flammable things onto the fire. We got a nice big flame going and the fire was so warm we had to be at least ten meters away. Some were drinking beers, others were drinking wine. I eventually went to get a coke because it’s too warm otherwise. Occasionally the grass would light due to the heat and start migrating away from the fire and I kept having to put those fragments of fire out. Occasionally the fire was so hot that there was nothing anyone sane would try to put out. At one point I saw the grass light in a few areas so ran towards there and stamped on it. My body created a little area of low pressure which meant the flame caressed my trousers. It didn’t combust but one or two people did yell a warning.  I walked away. It’s at about this time that I stopped maintaining the fire. It was burning very nicely. Eventually, the security guard came and asked who started the fire. “we don’t know” was the answer we gave, of course, after all, it was a team effort and we’ve finished the academic year anyway. He prowled around but there wasn’t much he could do alone. He would eventually call both the fire department and the police to come and take care of the fire. This was one of the amusing moments. The field is shaped in such a way that there are steep banks down which the fire truck could not come. As a result, we could see the fire fighters trying to work out a way to get to the fire and extinguish it. Eventually, they drove as close as they could before pulling out the fire hose and spraying the fire. Many people cheered this as fourty onlookers had gathered. A little later the police came and told us to go back into our rooms. Some people stayed on but I went home and eventually went to sleep. Nice way to mark the end of term and uni life.

tomk - Jul 1, 2007

Your right flat hunting is hard work, but there are loads of websites that flat listings so you don’t have to walk around, meet estate agents…you can do all of this from the comfort of your own home! If you want to go out and come back within 20 minutes then look for flats to rent in central london! Hope the above helps! :)

There are a lot of people currently in need of a new identity due to their university lives coming to an end and I am one of them. Today I went flat hunting and there are a few things I found out about myself. The first of these is that I really don’t want to live in a box room. I went into a room today and it was so small I would soon hate living there. Another truth is that I have lived with one wall to a kitchen in the place where I am living for the past three years. What this means is that when the last person is chatting in the corridor is chatting in the corridor I will hear it. When the first person wakes up and goes to the kitchen and moves things I will hear it. The net effect is napping, as would wildlife in order to survive. I don’t want the landlord living in the same house. There is something wrong with a landlord living in the house, mainly they have authority and ownership. If you throw a party they will come but charge you later for the damage. If they leave all the lights on you will foot the power bill. If they get sky you will also pay the bill. If you enjoy going out then you will not take as much advantage of these things. I want to be further from the living room. The living room is the worst place to live next too. Of course I love being sociable. Had I not been banned from the local bar I would have gone there every day for three years, almost, due to my friends being there. Recently I’ve been out two or three times in two weeks. Some level of passion died in me when my ban occurred. I want to be where it all happens. I want to be closer to the centre of town where I can walk to where things are going on. I want to be free to go out without having the consideration of “can I handle a 45 minute ride on a London nightbus”. There are a number of things I would like from a flat. One of these is having space. I want to have enough space to store my possessions and keep the floor as tidy as possible. I want a clean kitchen and I want some space in the fridge if possible. I want to make friends with those I move in and see that they are living interesting and diverse lives. I do not want unimaginative idiots who think only of getting drunk (to be distinguished from going out every night to be sociable. They’re two different things). I want to be close to a few shops so that I may go shopping and actually want the food that is on offer. I want to look forward to dropping by and finding a diversity of meals I can prepare. I want to be able to lock my door, I want good plumbing, none of that bath dripping down into the kitchen as I’ve experienced. I don’t want a tile floor on wooden floor boards. Wood moves and tiles don’t bend that way. Overall I want to find a flat that would feel like home. I want somewhere where I have a few friends, where I can be social if I want to but when I want isolation and if I need sleep for an early morning job I can. I’m looking forward to finding a new house and the life it will bring with it.

Nights in halls are like nights out in the Savannah. Since the drunk party sound coming through walls is a given that’s the sound of crickets and frogs. It’s constantly there and theoretically you should eventually learn to sleep through it over time. Of course it’s not quite constant enough. Then you’ve got the sound of banging and shuffling from the kitchen. Now that sound is the thunder storms and rain that will come over and wake you, soak you and make you wish you had a friendly cave to crawl into for shelter. The third one are lions and hyenas, high up on the food chain and the most nefarious to your health should you not be careful. That’s the argumentative drunks often found before day break. With these there’s nothing you can do but make sure you’ve found somewhere safe to hide away, grin and bear it. Overall what these three elements mean is one thing, that a proper night of sleep is less likely than snow on the beaches of the South Coast of England.

Since I left Switzerland after doing some work on the 21st of February I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep for 85 days. That’s a long time. I wish there was a soundproof chamber into which I could go. What if I designed and built a soundproof bed? Wouldn’t be that complicated.

As the title indicates I’ve upgraded to the new version of WordPress and I’m trying it now. I’ll have to see what the great features are in this version. I know that they were having some last-minute problems with tags but we’ll see whether they resolved those. Aside from changing browser today I also started looking for an apartment as I am so tired of the noise made by drink fueled students. I’m not against drinking but I am against the noise they make every single day that they are at home. Why not have a bottle of wine between friends and chat for hours. Why does everyone have to lose grip on reality? Is life that terrible for them? Back to the upbeat stuff. Flat hunting as a solitary person is great for a number of reasons, firstly complete freedom. You have the freedom to live anywhere that interests you, without taking other people into consideration. Of course, I do look at everything according to tube lines and distance. The closer to the center I can be better. Another consideration, of course, is to find people whose company I enjoy living with. A good home is a perfect place from which to cope with the struggle that job hunting will be in the next few weeks and months, as they flow by. There are three flats that I am already scheduled to visit and I may look for a few more during the day tomorrow. The more I visit the more informed the decision. The first phone call is always the hardest. I was struggling so much in fact that I forgot about one flat and started sending out two or three e-mails in the hope that through the writing of applications I would clarify within my mind what it is I wanted to communicate. That served me well. Within three phone calls, I had already summoned far more courage and I’ll keep looking whilst I have the time. I need to draw up a list of the things that are important to me for when I get to the flat, to make sure not to forget something that would influence my enjoyment of this new phase in my life. I’ve got till the second but if I’ve got an agreement by the second of June I’ll be much happier. –I wrote this post whilst listening to Chopin. Second time in as many days that I listen to this. A change in personality or expectations? Time will decide.

It’s only 130am therefore it’s not that late but I want to sleep and there is something that has been hindering this effort particularly strongly for the past three nights. Drunken people with no pitch or tone control when singing using their lungs and voice projection to full pelt. It’s not that I’m against partying but I do believe in making noise during the day or away from habitations during the day. I would love to see the same thing happen in London as in Switzerland. Laws that forbid noise after 10pm. On a second note here are ways future halls and student accomodation may be improved to make a full night of sleep possible. 1. Cupboards that don’t slam. When you’re living by a kitchen one of the most annoying sounds is hearing others close cupboards 2. Solid doors that don’t bang. The main door to the complex is loud. Every time it closes you hear it. The doors to the flat make noise when you open them. 3. Silent locks. The sound of a key pulling the latch is loud when background sounds are inexistent 4. Soundproofed walls. being able to hear what’s going on next door is not always pleasant. 5. Proper windows. When you’ve got idiots outside yelling at other idiots you’ll hear the entire conversation. That’s not what you want. 6. A system of fines rather than bans. People get far more annoyed and take far more seriously a financial loss than a ban.  With a ban you may end up in a nice house or flat where you live in better conditions. 7. Smart fire alarms. You’ve got security so if a fire is activated check the area with a heat camera. If there’s nothing out of the ordinary just go and clear the alarm after a visual check 8. Free high quality headphones. Rather than have loud music blearing from every room why not provide students with nice headphones which they can use to hear their music in dolby digital surround sound… 9. A noise fuse. The idea behind this device is simple. If you exceed a certain noise level all power is cut to the area where the noise levels are too high. In so doing disturbances would be far more limited. 10.  Quiet furniture. When you’ve got a concrete floor with no padding and chairs with no padding any shift of the furniture results in a lot of noise. Provide a quiet surface and life may be livable. I’m tired of other people’s noise. I’d love for them to become reasonable and start being quiet. Once every two weeks is fine, but not every single day. Not all of us enjoy drinking at night and doing nothing during the day. Not all of us appreciate bad singing either. Anyway worst case scenario I have another two weeks without sleep. Best case scenario. New flat within a few days.

I’m suffering from complete apathy for fire alarms. I really hate them. I’ve been hearing idiots make noise till 3 am but thought that I could attempt sleeping. Wrong at 0340 AM there was noise, then for at least 20 minutes at four am. Now it’s 5:52 and I’m awake but this time due to the ineffective fire alarm. I might go so far as to say pointless and potentially dangerous fire alarm. A fire alarm that makes you clasp your ears to dull the pain of how loud they are is going to prevent you from getting out of bed and to safety. A fire alarm is designed to instill fear, not pain. Fear makes you rush. This fire alarm just angers me and wonder which moron set it off this time. Rather than fire alarms, an outdated warning system should have flashing lights or a twitter-like system. It could say something like “Fire in block L”, or “smoke detected in Block P” but unconfirmed as of yet. It could say “device fault”.  It could also say “Fire in Kitchen” which did occur two days ago. A few months ago it was a candle in a room burning through onto a towel and potentially turning a small problem into a life-threatening situation. None of these matters. If I hear an alarm my first thought is “Who’s the idiot that set it off”, not “ah, maybe I should evacuate”.