So around a week ago, I was quietly minding my own business, going about my daily routine of doing some translation work in front of two screens, whilst trying to ignore the growing hunger pangs in my belly because I'm too lazy to get up and walk the 5ft into the kitchen (my bedroom is on the ground floor), something dramatic happened.
Imagine me (er, if you can from the one photo on my profile), sitting at my desk, typing away when suddenly CRASH. I hear this massive ruckus, a great cacophony of noise coming from just outside my door. Clearly something was wrong, but unfortunately, I am the worst person in the world to have with you in a crisis, because I have two steps to deal with it.
Step One: Act Completely Calm and Deny That Anything Has Happened.
In this scenario, this meant ignoring the noise and pretending that whoever was coming down the stairs had just dropped a glass or something on the floor. I blame this on the fact that the kitchen in my family home is poorly made, so things are always falling out at you and making lots of noise. However when I didn't hear any movement, I moved onto step two:
Step Two: PAAAAAANIIIIC
I then go into incredibly nervous, crazy, panicking Verity mode, so I rushed out of my bedroom to discover one of my housemate's girlfriends had slipped on the stairs and fallen onto her back. Luckily she was conscious and able to get herself up, so I called her boyfriend and an ambulance and she was fine in the end. However, my way to deal with this, was to repeatedly ask if she wanted an ambulance, follow her around everywhere "just in case", offer to help her get changed, shout at her when she closed her eyes in case she was falling asleep and forget to give the ambulance operator our town when giving our address. Apparently I expected the operator to absorb that information through osmosis or something.
All in all, an exciting start to my day, resulting in my first ever emergency call. (Although it did postpone my lunch for even longer than usual)
Monday 8 October 2012
Moving into Independent Life
Up until about a month ago, right at the beginning of my gap year, I had never moved bedroom, let alone house. I had always slept in the same bedroom, under the same roof, in the house my parents chose for their four children.
And now...
Well now I am all moved in and settled with my boyfriend. (And our three housemates.) And it's great, but I have to admit, there are some home comforts I miss. So, in no particular order, here are my top 5 least favourite things about independent living.
1. Cooking for myself. Now I'm no great chef and have no interest in cooking really, so when I'm in the house on my own and have to provide a meal for myself, it makes no difference if all I fancy is a sandwich, I will always wait until I am absolutely starving before tearing myself away from whatever I am doing, be it watching a film or working from home. It's a kind of laziness vicious circle that I can't break.
2. Ironing all my own clothes (and my boyfriend's). Now, in discussing with my boyfriend who would do which household chores, I, for some mad reason, volunteer to iron, partially because my boyfriend hates it, and partially because I thought it might be fun. That's right, fun. I thought it'd be a breeze, that I could pop on a TV programme and casually work my way through it. Reality: it's hard work, the clothes seem to come out worse than they started, I have no clue if I'm actually working our iron properly, it'd be too much faff to move our ironing board and it leaves me with a sore wrist.
3. Being "home alone". I've never been a big fan of this one, and I suppose it's not exclusive to independent living, but because of my situation, where I do a lot of work at home, work on the weekends, and all of my housemates and boyfriend have full-time jobs, I do find myself more frequently alone. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my own company, I have always been two faced about socialising - on the one hand, I love spending time with my friends, my family and in other social situations, such as participating in a play or my time spent at work, on the other hand, I can be a very solitary person and if I spend too much time in the company of people, I begin to feel antsy and need my own space. Therefore, the reason that I dislike being "home alone" is not because I feel lonely, but because I can be a very anxious person, and every little noise, flickering light or movement outside the house freaks me out a little, if I feeling down.
4. Getting myself up in the morning. Now that I don't have school to go to, nor do I have a full-time job, days when I am not working are incredibly difficult to get myself up in the morning. Especially now I don't have my mum-alarm clock to help. However my boyfriend is beginning to pester me in the morning to get up. :-)
5. Washing/Loading the dishwasher. Now, I actually don't mind either of these jobs to begin with but my main problem with them, is that they are jobs that require coming back to, which irritates me. I like jobs that once they are done, they are done and I don't have to go back to them. Whilst dishwashers and washing machines are incredible inventions that make menial tasks a lot easier, they still require more than one stage of work. So if someone could think of a washing machine that then dries the clothes, or a dishwasher that unloads itself, I would be most grateful. :-D
And now...
Well now I am all moved in and settled with my boyfriend. (And our three housemates.) And it's great, but I have to admit, there are some home comforts I miss. So, in no particular order, here are my top 5 least favourite things about independent living.
1. Cooking for myself. Now I'm no great chef and have no interest in cooking really, so when I'm in the house on my own and have to provide a meal for myself, it makes no difference if all I fancy is a sandwich, I will always wait until I am absolutely starving before tearing myself away from whatever I am doing, be it watching a film or working from home. It's a kind of laziness vicious circle that I can't break.
2. Ironing all my own clothes (and my boyfriend's). Now, in discussing with my boyfriend who would do which household chores, I, for some mad reason, volunteer to iron, partially because my boyfriend hates it, and partially because I thought it might be fun. That's right, fun. I thought it'd be a breeze, that I could pop on a TV programme and casually work my way through it. Reality: it's hard work, the clothes seem to come out worse than they started, I have no clue if I'm actually working our iron properly, it'd be too much faff to move our ironing board and it leaves me with a sore wrist.
3. Being "home alone". I've never been a big fan of this one, and I suppose it's not exclusive to independent living, but because of my situation, where I do a lot of work at home, work on the weekends, and all of my housemates and boyfriend have full-time jobs, I do find myself more frequently alone. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my own company, I have always been two faced about socialising - on the one hand, I love spending time with my friends, my family and in other social situations, such as participating in a play or my time spent at work, on the other hand, I can be a very solitary person and if I spend too much time in the company of people, I begin to feel antsy and need my own space. Therefore, the reason that I dislike being "home alone" is not because I feel lonely, but because I can be a very anxious person, and every little noise, flickering light or movement outside the house freaks me out a little, if I feeling down.
4. Getting myself up in the morning. Now that I don't have school to go to, nor do I have a full-time job, days when I am not working are incredibly difficult to get myself up in the morning. Especially now I don't have my mum-alarm clock to help. However my boyfriend is beginning to pester me in the morning to get up. :-)
5. Washing/Loading the dishwasher. Now, I actually don't mind either of these jobs to begin with but my main problem with them, is that they are jobs that require coming back to, which irritates me. I like jobs that once they are done, they are done and I don't have to go back to them. Whilst dishwashers and washing machines are incredible inventions that make menial tasks a lot easier, they still require more than one stage of work. So if someone could think of a washing machine that then dries the clothes, or a dishwasher that unloads itself, I would be most grateful. :-D
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