Germs, badgers and National Express

Bus journeys are notoriously delightful. The one I took to get home for Xmas was a beaut, complete with a token crying toddler and two girls sat right behind me who talked incessantly for the entire four and a half hours.

One of them (whose friend’s godfather wrote the music to Les Mis and is really rich and is throwing a party on Saturday, don’t you know) also coughed her way into the city. Great – a contagious illness is just what I wanted for Xmas. Best write to Santa and ask him to switch my DVDs and books for some Night Nurse and a fuck-off packet of Soothers. 

However, despite being gobby and germy, the girls did at least provide some entertainment, mostly in the form of ridiculous comments and brainless observations. Here are a few of my favourites:

“They’re so Shakespearean!”

“So Shakespearean. They’re totally still living in the 1850s.”

Half an hour after it started getting dark: “It’s getting dark, isn’t it?”

“Why won’t I meet your mum?”

“She’s in India.”

“Forever?”

“No, until Saturday...”

“Is Hayley the one I’ve met?”

“I don’t think so, why, who have you met?”

“Hayley...”

“We’re gonna have issues, aren’t we?” I think you already do, girls...

Thanks to my astounding ability to eavesdrop when bored and of course, the two unfortunate girls with a cog or ten loose, amusement was plentiful. Nevertheless, it got to the point where I couldn’t take any more and turned to my iPod for safety. The plan was to Jason Derulo myself back to London (yes, that can definitely be used as a verb) starting with ‘Watcha Say’ – quite fitting, really.

However, my hand ACCIDENTALLY slipped and I found myself listening to Beib’s ‘Eenie Meenie’, the first words to which are “She’s indecisive” with “She can’t decide” immediately after. Most unnecessary follow-up lyrics ever? Perhaps – which goes to show that ignorance is everywhere. And thank god! It makes the majority of the things I do and say much more acceptable. In fact, I used to think that the lyrics to ‘Eenie Meenie’ were “Catch a badger by its toe” and instead of feeling it necessary to look into this questionable concept, I carried on singing about badgers for more months than I care to admit...

How NOT to deal with problems in your house

Students are messy creatures. Our half-empty cans of cider clutter up the kitchen side, we leave food out until even the flies won’t go near it and the floor is so sticky that the journey from the door to the fridge takes the best part of half an hour. Cue a series of unwanted visitors – namely rats and mice…

In the 1700s, the chicas used to style their hair so that it towered three feet above their heads. Because it took such a long time to prepare, their hair was only let down three times a year and when it was, the various bugs that had been settled there for the past four months would come tumbling out. Consequently, out came the mice to get nomming. The servants would then whizz about catching the mice and skinning them while the ladies got busy with their eyebrow tweezers. Apparently, strips of soft mouse-skin make great replacements for eyebrows.

Rather than skinning the four-legged critters and gluing their fur to your face, it’s probably best to stick to the more modern method and blitz ‘em with mouse-traps and a sizeable lump of Cheddar. Excellent advice, I hear you say? There’s more where that came from:

Problem: The heating breaks. In December. Don't: drink 15 cups of tea in a bid to get warm - your bladder will burst. Do: Cancel naked Thursdays, penguin-huddle for warmth (see 'Frozen Planet' for the how-to)

Problem: You discover gone-off milk in the fridge. Don’t: claim Morrisons is too far away and proceed to ignore the yellow flakes that spray everywhere when you undo the lid, the solidified lumps that splash into your coffee and the accompanying putrid smell. Do: don the rubber gloves, struggle against your gag reflex and deposit offending item safely in the bin

Problem: The bin is now overflowing. Don’t: Take the bin out – gross! It smells and there’s a bottle of gone-off milk at the top. Do: Leave it on the side with that half-empty can of cider

Problem: Your neighbours have developed a sudden love of late-night DnB. Don’t: yell ‘EARTHQUAKE!’ when the walls start to move of their own accord. Do: glue valuable personal belongings to the shelves and retaliate by playing Justin Beiber at the highest possible volume (who knows, you may unwittingly create the next Glee-style mash-up)…

Campanology and singing cats: how to conquer procrastination

Apparently if you were bored in the 1700s, an acceptable way of entertaining yourself was to poke prisoners with sticks. Students, especially those in their first and second years, can end up with a fair amount of time to kill – especially around Christmas when work starts to wind down (or you completely lose any form of motivation). As poking inanimate objects at convicted criminals isn’t reeeally an option these days, I’ve constructed a short list of more feasible and productive activities to get stuck into on a lazy Sunday afternoon – that is, if your hangover permits you to get out of bed:

• Get your Mr. Kipling on and bake. If nothing else, your flat mates will love you for it. Plus, freshly-baked cookies make an excellent apology gift for the neighbours if your house party got a little wild the night before. If you progress from fairy cakes to fancy meals and get stuck for inspiration, http://www.whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/ is always a winner

• Get yourself out and about in Leeds. This may come as a shock, but there are things to do other than drinking. Visit the free city museum, dig out your camera and get snapping – there are tons of interesting buildings and sculptures scattered about. Plus, the next time someone asks you what Leeds is like, you’ll have more to say than, “Well, it has great nightlife…”

• Join a club or society. There’s heaps for you to choose from so you’re bound to find something, plus you aren’t obliged to go every week – perfect if an Otley Run crops up or you’ve forgotten an important deadline

• If a friend’s birthday is coming up, why not get creative and make their card/present instead of buying it? From photo albums portraying them before and after nights out to homemade birthday muffins, anything hand-crafted will go down a treat.

For those looking for something more unique, why not try:

• Reading tea leaves. Throw on a pair of gold earrings, a couple of bangles and one of the living room curtains (or failing this, your bed sheet) and you’re good to go. Just don’t do a Professor Trelawney and tell all your friends they’re going to die

• Bell-ringing. Those bells don’t ring themselves

• Yodeling. Although this may counteract some of the neighbourly goodwill you established earlier with the baking

Things that will threaten productivity and should be avoided at all costs:

• Twitter and Facebook. ‘Nuff said.
• Youtube – with over 48 hours of new videos being uploaded every minute, this truly is a procrastiner’s heaven
• StumbleUpon – the Internet’s take on Pringles; you just can’t stop stumbling
• Nyan Cat – especially the ten hour version
• 9gag.com – highly addictive and pure comic genius

So, be it painting or palm-reading, what are you waiting for – hop to it! After a quick look at Twitter, of course…

Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before Going to Leeds Uni

Over the summer, four spooky things happened to me, all of the same nature. One day, I was chatting with my mum in the car and I wondered out loud why the moon was never big, red and as low in the sky as it is when you go abroad. That night, the moon was big and red. A couple of days later I drove past an old friend’s house and wondered how he was; that evening he randomly turned up at my front door. Not long after that, I went to another friend’s house and we started reminiscing about this guy we both used to fancy who worked in the summer activities week we helped out at when we were younger; the next day he parked his car alongside mine in town.

I only wish I’d been in possession of this apparent clairvoyance before going to uni. It might have saved me a lot of time and embarrassment knowing beforehand that:

-The word ‘lecture’ shares a suffix with ‘torture’ for a reason. Unless you are abnormally interested in the difference between and colon and a semi colon or the ins and outs of linear algebra, you will be checking the clock every five minutes, doodling your name and wondering whether the girl sitting next to you has green hair out of choice or as a consequence of a drunken forfeit

-Arriving late to lectures – not cool. No matter how horrendous it is actually responding to your alarm clock, it beats the impossibly loud creak of the auditorium door, 400 pairs of curious eyes on you and having to scuttle to one of the last few available seats, which are either right at the back which only prolongs the pain as people watch you until you have sat down, or right at the front meaning that you have to endure the glare of the lecturer whose class you disturbed for the next 40 minutes

-The Union bars open at 11am. Large glass of wine to go with your sausage and bacon butty after a difficult morning? Absolutely! It’s not alcoholism, it’s student living

-Knowing how to cook can come in handy – pesto pasta gets boring very quickly. Plus, using the orange juice in your vodka and orange as a vitamin source probably isn’t too healthy

-You should be prepared for seminars. Unless you are particularly adept at ad-lib and can do so with 15 expectant faces looking your way, do the preparation questions!

-There’s a bridge between Edward Boyle and the Roger Stevens building – who knew?! Oh, everyone? Just me then…

-Mastering the art of napping is essential. Spanish-ifying yourself and taking a little siesta during the day is a great way to recharge your batteries after an early start (or after doing nothing for the two hours you’ve been awake has completely worn you out)

-Budgeting is a must. Something I still haven’t mastered despite being in my final year, shown by the fact that when my brother did a budget spreadsheet for me over summer, I had a grand total of £10 a week to live on. Hello, bank of mum, long time no…oh wait

-The walls in student residences are paper thin. You may end up hearing a lot more than you want to such as Skype conversations, TV programmes, snoring and other – ahem – bed related activities. One word: earplugs

-You age 20 years in just one year at uni. Although we were going out three nights in a row during first year, in second year we find ourselves wondering how we did it as it becomes almost physically impossible

Hopefully this has rung a few bells and not just encouraged you to squander all your lecture time doodling or indulge in early morning drinking. While you mull this over, my clairvoyance skills and I shall be on our way to platform 9 and ¾…

Noisy Sandwiches and Gender Confusion

Geeky as it sounds, the reason I decided to come to Leeds uni in the first place was because of the Brotherton library. I was awestruck by its atmosphere, the beautiful interior design and its sheer size. Now of course, these things are completely taken for granted and all I see before me is the impossible number of shelves brimming with dusty books which have to be read. Added to which, after reading the creepy ghost stories from last week’s issue the majority of my time will now be productively spent freaking out instead of writing notes, let alone admiring the fancy bits of architecture. So, taking my former feelings for the classiest library on campus into account, and in the spirit of it being the Brotherton’s birthday and all, I shall leave the old fellow in peace and direct my ire towards sidekick Eddy B.

-The toilets are laid out in the most confusing way possible so that no one knows which is the male and which is the female toilet until the last second. The other day I started walking up one of the mini-corridors to the toilet only to see a guy walk out of the door. Thinking quickly in order to save myself any embarrassment, I pretended that I was headed for the lift opposite the toilet door and stood there waiting for him to get out of sight so that I could scuttle out and scoot round to the other side of Level 10. However, just before he’d left my peripheral vision the lift doors opened. Thank you, Sod’s law. With about four pairs of eyes on me, I was consequently forced to get into the lift and get transported very unwillingly back down to Level 9, where of course there are no toilets, meaning that I had to plod my way back up the stairs feeling like a bit of a plonker

-You are forced to choose between piercing the silence with either the crackle of a sandwich wrapper or your rumbling stomach

-I always put my student card the wrong way up at the entrance barriers. Yes, still

-I was informed whilst on my year abroad that there were beanbags in the library? I don’t see no beanbags. Gutted is not the word

-It is SO cold in there! Have they really resorted to literally freezing us to our seats in order to make us do work? What actually happens however is that I have to wear so many jumpers just to keep my body temperature at normal level that by the time I’m finished layering up I can barely move. Arms forced outwards penguin-style, not really the most practical situation for writing

-When your phone starts buzzing, you have to peg it from your window seat up the steps, dart your way strategically in and out of bookshelves, zoom out the doors and power walk until you reach a phone zone. By which time the person on the other end has hung up

So, a typical visit to Eddy B: After ten minutes of struggling to even get into the library I am sat on an uncomfortable chair with about ten missed calls, starving, wearing five jumpers and too worried to go to the loo lest I find myself in front of a urinal. This is not exactly a success, nor does it bode too well for final year studies…

Kids and grown-ups love it so: ‘flashing’ in lectures and being an accidental racist

Warning: This article does not contain reference to nudity.

Many a strange thing happened last week. Firstly, it was HOT! The streets of Leeds were filled with people sauntering around in shorts, ice cream in hand, sunglasses on face. I actually overheard someone asking their friend whether they could stop in the shade for a minute. Have I come back to the right university…or country? I have also been donning the shades this week, not in order to protect myself from any rays of sunshine that manage to force their way through the thick grey cloud, but from the surprisingly sharp-edged autumn leaves that are being whizzed around in a rather disorderly fashion by what can only be described as gale-force winds. (Admittedly the situation was not quite as bad as a particularly windy day in my second year, where I had to cling onto a lamp-post to prevent myself from being blown away. No, really.)

Secondly – although perhaps this is more ironic than strange –I have been allocated the highest shelf in the fridge despite being the shortest person in the flat. I have never spent as much time on my tiptoes as I have this week. Screw journalism – clearly by the end of the year I shall be pirouetting my way into the Royal Ballet School.

Thirdly, a fellow student decided to take photos – with flash – during one of our lectures. Of the lecture hall. Whoever knew the whitewashed walls and glaringly bright electric lighting courtesy of the prison-like Roger Stevens building could invoke such spontaneous artistic inspiration?

A number of embarrassing moments have also befallen me of late to complement these oddities. In the main reception of the School of English, I pondered aloud over the whereabouts of a particular room and the conversation went as follows:

Me – “My tutor said it was at the top of the stairs of this building, but which staircase did he mean?”
Cue baffled member of staff plus accompanying head-scratch – “Which house number?”
Me – “House 9”
Member of staff – “Yeah, this is house 10…”

The same day, I also had difficulty finding the Michael Sadler building AND the way back to my flat. I have definitely been away from Leeds for too long. Later that day, module change request form in hand, I ambled into the Student Support Office (I got lost on my way there too) and handed it across the desk to one of the admin staff, who asked me to wait for a few minutes while she sorted out the other module change forms, “otherwise you could end up doing Asian studies” she said. “Oh God, that would be awful!” I replied, only half-joking. Only then did I look up and see that she was wearing a head scarf. By the time I’d removed my foot from my mouth it was just too late.

From this you may deduce that it has been a strange and embarrassing week. Au contraire – it’s actually been pretty decent. Thanks to a good bit of badgering I managed to get myself a nice new mattress to replace the original one which had somehow acquired a suspicious red stain (prior to my arrival, might I add). I say ‘somehow’ as if I want to know…I don’t. Added to this happy achievement, I am also starting to learn French again and I had one of those squidgy Haribo love hearts for the first time in months. Oh, the small things in life…

So, despite the peculiarities of the past week and the moments that made me want to dig my words out of people’s ears and ram them back down my throat, I have concluded: ça ne fait rien – life’s too short to focus on the bad stuff. Focus on the Haribo instead.

Old Habits Die Hard

Packing up the car for university is never a fun task. From running out of space before you’re even halfway through the painful process to realising that little bit too late that you’ve accidentally plonked a heavy box on top of one filled with all sorts of fragile components, it is a nightmare from start to finish. To make matters worse, my mum is already slightly put out that she has to drive from London to Leeds one weekend to drop me off and then to Nottingham the next for my brother.


“I can’t believe you’ve managed to fill the entire car”, she says to me, as we stand on the driveway contemplating the clutter that fills the boot. Bearing in mind it is a Ford Focus Estate, it is rather an achievement. “Do you really need everything in there?”

“Absolutely”, I insist. “I can’t think of a single thing I’ve packed that I’m not going to use.”

We set off, and as we join the motorway – where the three hour journey that lies ahead of us really begins – my mum sighs. I act quickly and put on a Shania Twain CD so that within minutes we are both considerably cheered up and bellowing out the lyrics to ‘Man, I Feel Like a Woman’ at the top of our lungs. During the lull between the end of this song and the next, we hear a sort of clicking noise coming from the back of the car.

“What’s that noise?” my mum asks, beginning to tap her fingers on the steering wheel to ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’. I turn around, and clock the culprit.

“It’s the trigger clasp of my exercise mat knocking against something or other.”

The music is promptly turned down (shame, as the song suits the situation wonderfully well) and I get one of her famous ‘looks’. “And when was the last time you used that, exactly?”

I look away, mumbling something unintelligible whilst pursing my lips in a thoughtful manner in a bid to make it look as though it may have been recently. What I am really doing, of course, is counting back the months. Then I notice what the clasp is swinging against: one of the fifteen pairs of shoes I have packed, on top of which are several throw cushions. Are these items really necessary? Doubtful. But then I am not known for travelling light – last year I flew out to Spain on my year abroad with two suitcases and came back with four.

We finally arrive in Leeds, and it becomes difficult to contain my glee. Having spent three months at home in the country, where the most exciting thing to happen over summer was the annual Scout jumble sale, I am raring to get back to the buzzing city life in Leeds. Moreover, it is a chance for a fresh start: to get fit, work harder and be more productive in my spare time. At the back of my mind however, I know that there is a strong likelihood that all of this positive thinking is Exercise-Mat Syndrome. I will probably not get fit, I will probably not work harder and I will most likely be considerably unproductive in my spare time, spending it down the pub or on my laptop playing Mahjong Titans.

There is one box left in the car. I transport it to my room, ignoring for the umpteenth time the four flights of stairs and instead using the lift. I place it conveniently in the middle of my floor and stand there looking at it, wishing in a ridiculous manner that the items would vault their cardboard confines and arrange themselves on my shelves in an orderly fashion. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse my laptop. I open up a game of Mahjong.