One of my biggest fears – feeling like the old lady of my course, hall, uni… – has not realised at all. The others don’t look and act all that childish, really.
But there was this one moment… We were having a ‘getting to know everyone in your house’ party in the common room organised by the wardens. Yes, wardens. Rumour has it that Cryfield (our hall of residence) was modelled after a Swedish women’s prison, so it would make sense that we have wardens as well. But they’re cool; they even provided drinks and nibbles (which for some reason is still the funniest word) for the party. And games. In one of those we had to form a queue according to our birthday. I found a guy who had the same birthday as me.
‘The 13th? Friday the 13th, right?’ he eagerly asked.
Uh, no. Because turns out he was born three years later than me. Holy fuck. Definitely felt old then.
Quite surprisingly, I’m getting loads of compliments on my (too short) hair. The strangest one was definitely ‘it looks really soft’. And she wasn’t even drunk. But the truly strange part is the idea of liking the appearance of a stranger, and just telling them. With no ulterior motive. That doesn’t usually happen in Estonia, does it?
It’s basically impossible to attempt to establish yourself as Nordic, when you have Lithuanian and Polish people on your corridor telling you, ‘Eastern Europe, yeah!’ Oh, well. What I really want, though, is for my Estonian friends to come visit. Mostly because now this one Lithuanian guy is considered to be God on all the floors of our building because of his drinking abilities, which are, to be frank, painfully average. Honestly, I wonder if even I could drink him under the table, if I wasn’t worried about the kind of reputation it would get me. I wouldn’t want to be the crazy Eastern European person who seems immune to alcohol. The Brits even wondered if the Lithuanian bloke could be a ghost of a former student who died of alcohol poisoning, roaming the corridors, continuing his drinking days. FFS. That's nothing.
Around 16 rather messy people to a normal-sized kitchen means that every morning it looks like a battle zone. No joke. Except for the mornings when the cleaners come and it has to be cleaned (because how could the cleaners possibly clean of the room isn’t clean enough?). If it isn’t, they could punish us by locking the kitchen – so we’d all starve to death, presumably.
Not that we’d starve, though. The kitchen’s mostly used to make grilled cheese sandwiches and heating up ready-meals anyway. Plus, there are the 2 in 1 blessings and curses of Domino’s delivering pizza until 5 am, and the burger and kebab van parked between Cryfield and the Students Union at night.
Everyone seems to be having one quiet night a week when they catch up on their TV shows (Dexter, Weeds, Glee, The Inbetweeners and An Idiot Abroad in my case). And all the other nights we’re sitting in the common room playing Ring of Fire. Or Arrogance, but I’ve personally never felt the desire to play that particular game.
Pour some of your drink in the pint glass in the middle of the table and guess if the next card is higher or lower than the one on top. If you’re right, it’s the next person’s turn. If you’re wrong, you have to drink the contents of the glass. Which might be anything: beer + cider + alcopops + wine + vodka + whiskey… As far as I’ve seen, the one who has to drink the whole glass, gets totally fucked up, and then is sick (sometimes on themselves). I honestly don’t see the appeal. But Ring of Fire is fun. We actually took the ‘never have I ever’ part out of the game, because after a couple of nights it just got boring.
But there was this one moment… We were having a ‘getting to know everyone in your house’ party in the common room organised by the wardens. Yes, wardens. Rumour has it that Cryfield (our hall of residence) was modelled after a Swedish women’s prison, so it would make sense that we have wardens as well. But they’re cool; they even provided drinks and nibbles (which for some reason is still the funniest word) for the party. And games. In one of those we had to form a queue according to our birthday. I found a guy who had the same birthday as me.
‘The 13th? Friday the 13th, right?’ he eagerly asked.
Uh, no. Because turns out he was born three years later than me. Holy fuck. Definitely felt old then.
Quite surprisingly, I’m getting loads of compliments on my (too short) hair. The strangest one was definitely ‘it looks really soft’. And she wasn’t even drunk. But the truly strange part is the idea of liking the appearance of a stranger, and just telling them. With no ulterior motive. That doesn’t usually happen in Estonia, does it?
It’s basically impossible to attempt to establish yourself as Nordic, when you have Lithuanian and Polish people on your corridor telling you, ‘Eastern Europe, yeah!’ Oh, well. What I really want, though, is for my Estonian friends to come visit. Mostly because now this one Lithuanian guy is considered to be God on all the floors of our building because of his drinking abilities, which are, to be frank, painfully average. Honestly, I wonder if even I could drink him under the table, if I wasn’t worried about the kind of reputation it would get me. I wouldn’t want to be the crazy Eastern European person who seems immune to alcohol. The Brits even wondered if the Lithuanian bloke could be a ghost of a former student who died of alcohol poisoning, roaming the corridors, continuing his drinking days. FFS. That's nothing.
Around 16 rather messy people to a normal-sized kitchen means that every morning it looks like a battle zone. No joke. Except for the mornings when the cleaners come and it has to be cleaned (because how could the cleaners possibly clean of the room isn’t clean enough?). If it isn’t, they could punish us by locking the kitchen – so we’d all starve to death, presumably.
Not that we’d starve, though. The kitchen’s mostly used to make grilled cheese sandwiches and heating up ready-meals anyway. Plus, there are the 2 in 1 blessings and curses of Domino’s delivering pizza until 5 am, and the burger and kebab van parked between Cryfield and the Students Union at night.
Everyone seems to be having one quiet night a week when they catch up on their TV shows (Dexter, Weeds, Glee, The Inbetweeners and An Idiot Abroad in my case). And all the other nights we’re sitting in the common room playing Ring of Fire. Or Arrogance, but I’ve personally never felt the desire to play that particular game.
Pour some of your drink in the pint glass in the middle of the table and guess if the next card is higher or lower than the one on top. If you’re right, it’s the next person’s turn. If you’re wrong, you have to drink the contents of the glass. Which might be anything: beer + cider + alcopops + wine + vodka + whiskey… As far as I’ve seen, the one who has to drink the whole glass, gets totally fucked up, and then is sick (sometimes on themselves). I honestly don’t see the appeal. But Ring of Fire is fun. We actually took the ‘never have I ever’ part out of the game, because after a couple of nights it just got boring.
Yeah, pretty much everything has been revealed, including all sorts of fantasies and fetishes. One in particular led to the guys making a pact that none of them would ever get off with any of the others. And so the girls had to make that as well as a way of retaliation.
I really love how we’ve already given out loads of nicknames (and that I don’t have any):
LitMike (short for Lithuanian Mike (short for Mindaugas))
Balderdash (because Povilas was far too difficult to remember at first)
Irish Luke (see, it’s funny because Luc’s actually Swiss. He just sounds Irish)
The One Who Threw Up First
The One Who Threw Up Second
etc.
I really love how we’ve already given out loads of nicknames (and that I don’t have any):
LitMike (short for Lithuanian Mike (short for Mindaugas))
Balderdash (because Povilas was far too difficult to remember at first)
Irish Luke (see, it’s funny because Luc’s actually Swiss. He just sounds Irish)
The One Who Threw Up First
The One Who Threw Up Second
etc.
But there’s more to uni life than parties – apparently. I only have about 10 hours of lectures and seminars a week, but I’m expected to do 40-50 hours of independent work. Which means sitting in my room or the library and reading. And writing. And translating verses in Middle English into Modern English. Ouch. Should actually get back to that.Bye, darlings! Hope you're enjoying life as much as I am.
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