Friday 24 February 2012

long time no cynicism...

Hard to believe my last blog was over a month ago now, how have you all coped? I do apologise but I'm afraid that is the cost of doing a degree. I lie, it's actually £30,000 of debt but I'll save that blog for when univeristy is over, I'm unemployed and watching re-runs of everything on Dave from morning til night. I'm a glass half empty kind of girl.

So I'm back at Univeristy and feel I should share a few of my experiences since returning.

1) The Elevator.

There are five floors in the main building so of course we have elevators, however, there is an unwritten rule that if your lecture is on the first or second floor, you should take a hike and go up the stairs... this is mostly because it makes a lot of fecking sense. I have encountered it many times, "idiot student" disobeying this rule and pressing the dreaded floor 1 or 2. The atmosphere changes when this happens. It's normally less than cosy anyway, we are all squeezed in so tightly, that under the right circumstances we can all merge and resemble an uglier Jabba the Hutt, this Jabba however holds a can of red bull and a packet of Pro-Plus.

Last week I get in the lift, the doors are about to close, when a girl, a generic "idiot student", gets in at the last minute and presses floor 1. We all look at each other with a vengeful rage in our eyes, but we refrain from chaining the precious princess and forcing her to be our slave.

"Idiot student" gets out at floor 1 to the tuts and evil eyes of the rest of us, but when the doors shut again, the lift doesn't move. We all stare at each other awkwardly hoping the lift hasn't broken down, we press all the buttons a few times to no avail. Awkward laughter prevails, suddenly the door opens up again, another person gets in... and presses floor 2. Thankfully the lift works as normal, but this isn't the end of the story. In the short time we were stranded on floor 1 I noticed something that I had forgotten about. While looking at other flustered students pressing all available buttons, I noticed the brand name of our elevators. With no word of a lie... that name is...

Schindlers Lifts.

I was smiling inside so much at this that "Idiot Student" number two did not get evils from me, I cannot speak for the rest of Jabba though.

2) The Fire Alarm

We have fire alarms, they are annoying in their own right, however, what makes it worse is the last few have rang while I've been in the library cafe, not during a lecture I dislike. There is a routine after hearing the fire alarm which is as follows:

- Ignore it and hope it stops
- Look around at your fellow peers, all who look as lost as you do
- Murmur to yourself or a friend something like "is this for real?"
- Have some sort of authoritative figure confirm it is for real
- pack your stuff up slowly and make your way outside to a court yard

*EXPLANATION OF UNI BUILDINGS*
(Between the library and the main building is a court yard,
an open air part where we congregate when a fire alarm persists)

What normally happens now is students cluster in this area waiting for the noise to stop. One particular time, my friend and I had been chatting over a coffee in the library, and had decided we wanted muffins, as soon as we went to make this thought a reality, the fire alarm had started and we had been forced out of place of education. For those of you who watch YouTube, it was like the Univeristy of Lincoln, my friend and I both shouting...

WE ARE TRYING TO LEARN!!!

After reaching the courtyard and being thoroughly annoyed we could not get a chocolate muffin, our eyes fell upon a small lady guarding two double doors. These double doors are just one of three entrances back into the library. This small lady stands in front of these doors, with a determined look, hands on hips with a face that says

"You've got another thing coming bitches if you want to come through these doors and study"

I had a sudden rush of wanting to charge at her, but resisted. Eventually the fire men came and confirmed that all along it was a false alarm. The angry lady moves from her spot and my friend and I manage to get back to the library cafe. After all of this, they didn't have any chocolate muffins.

Anyway... It's dawning on me slowly I have three months at most left at university, and despite the fire alarms and inappropriately named lifts, I'm really going to miss it.

So there's nothing left to do but enjoy every last minute of it.

Toodle Pip,

Sheila