Pros and Cons of Living with Less People

Recently, our cozy little flat has undergone a reshuffle. Best friend, Best friend's girlfriend (who is also a friend) and four Chinchillas have moved out, leaving in their wake a lot of space. My girlfriend and myself have stayed behind in the belief that we can use this space. There are definite upsides and downsides to this scenario.

Pro: There is a lot more space.

Con: I miss my friends. Even though I could go for days without knowing if they were coming back or not, I knew that they were coming back at some point. Now I'm just left thinking "where the devil are they? They've been gone for ages this time!" and expecting to hear the key in the lock any moment. I'm probably never going to live with people like my departed friends again. Nobody can live with someone for any length of time in a harmonious manner, but we came pretty close for the most part, which is pretty impressive considering I've lived with my best friend for six years now.

Pro: I have a choice of three rooms to leave my stuff in.

Con: I have a choice of three rooms to try and find my stuff in.

Pro: It's quite quiet a lot of the time.

Con: It's quite quiet a lot of the time. This is excepting the as-yet unfinished unfurnished room in which just typing this is causing an echo. Equally, whereas before I could just write off funny noises as "probably chinchilla related", now I'm much more tuned in to what sounds like the undead trying to clumsily squeeze through our letterbox.

Pro: I'm on my own a lot more.

Con: ...You can probably see a pattern forming here. I'm on my own a lot more.


I know I remember my time in Manor House with fondness, but I also know that after two years we were pretty much ready to move out and another year together might have resulted in us being unable to be the relatively close friends we all are today. I also know that it's been different for the last two years living here as two couples, all four of us running on slightly differing schedules and with different priorities, but that's all it has been for me: Different. Not better, not worse, just different. I've been incredibly lucky with my friends and even luckier that I'm able to keep such people after living with them. I understand people normally move out whilst not actually talking to each other any more.

Additional Notes:
I've discovered that one of the cupboards in the hallway buzzes. There is some form of electrical thingy in there, so I've decided I'm not going to tune in to that frequency of noise anymore and just pretend I haven't noticed anything, hoping for the best in the process. I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not like a little electricity hurt anyone after all. Electricity is there to help you, not hurt you.

On a personal note, I'm delighted to see that after the one hundred and one problems that my friends have had sorting out their new place, they're finally starting to settle and showing all the hallmark signs of being incredibly happy with the place (I have seen it. It is fantastic.) and I will miss them a lot. They have been incredibly good, trustworthy, honest people and it's been a pleasure to live with them.

Back to Normal

After a brief stint of student-ship, I am now back to the treadmill of life and the setting is probably just one notch faster than is strictly comfortable at the moment, but that might just be because I’m not making the effort to keep up.

The things I have done

Over the last couple of months that things have been a little quiet here, I have knuckled down to revise for my law exams and taken them to varying degrees of success, leaving 99% of my course complete, putting me in the position of a fresh law graduate, with the crucial difference of actually having a day job.
I have also experimented in not drinking alcohol; an experiment that reached a natural conclusion of “yes, this isn’t a bad idea” before normal service swiftly resumed and I was reminded about what hangovers are like. Further tests have proved that no, the Erdinger I had a couple of months ago was not in fact off, that’s just what it does to you.
Also, in amongst my academic activities, I have started a couple of writing projects that may reach completion and that I hope to push out to a few places to see if my writingness is of a capable quality and goodness.


The things I have learnt

First of all, it is possible to enjoy something you have resented for a good six months. Towards the latter days of my law studies, I found myself utterly detesting all aspects of the subjects I had to study. Criminal Law is rather depressing, Equity and Trusts occasionally confusing, and Land Law…well, you try and read through your lease or mortgage agreement carefully, making notes of all the little clauses and provisions, and you can get a glimpse of what Land Law is like. However, towards the end during my revision, I found myself enthralled by the intricacies (with the possible exception of Land law) and found myself debating the merits of the criminal justice system with strangers on the tube.

I have also learnt that just because you like something, it doesn’t mean it can’t stress you out to an inordinate degree. I suppose anyone that’s been in a long term relationship could tell you the same thing. The exams that I took, in particular the first one, were the most terrifying I have ever had. I genuinely wasn’t sure if I could make it through them, because in my mind, I just hadn’t put the work in during the year. Normally I get by on minimal revision because I’ve paid attention and remembered stuff throughout the year, but this time I found myself doing it the other way round, or what most people would describe as “the normal way”.

Another thing I have picked up on is my ability to be more content when I think I’m working towards something. At some point, it became relatively clear to me that I wasn’t going to end up training as a lawyer fully and that I would find a different direction in life, but the mere act of going to my tutorials and lectures every week let my brain assume that I was doing something that would take me somewhere and that it didn’t have to worry about that anymore. In truth, I think this is probably what most people do; they don’t know where they’re going or what they’re going to do when they get there, but there brain assumes they must have got it figured out, because if they haven’t, then why the hell are they doing that-particular-thing-that-would-naturally-lead-to-that?

The direction to take from here
For the moment I am staying where I am and doing what I have been doing. How wise this is, I don’t know. How plausible anything else is, I also don’t know. I have however heard that now is a good time to go into politics, so who knows? The next time I wake up with a hangover, perhaps it will be off to the local recruiting station and signing up to the front line of whichever political argument is the flavour of the month.


Additional Notes

Saying something like “I suppose anyone that’s been in a long term relationship could tell you the same thing” is a really good way for me to find out if my girlfriend does actually read this…

I’ve actually missed writing in this. I probably need to work on my blog-ability though. Having read a few blogs of late, I can see that slightly shorter posts are probably the way to go. My long pointless rambling style means very few people make it down this far.

If you made it this far by the way, thanks and congratulations! You win!

Getting on With Things the Easy Way

I find I’m treading the same old ground a little bit here, what with previous discussions, but I really do think I’ve hit on something that’s the key to getting things done.

The trick appears to be to do the thing that you need to do. There’s nothing clever about it, you just start working on the thing that you want to work on until it’s finished. It’s a little bit like getting up in the morning in that if you just get straight up without thinking about it, you have less problems than if you start playing the “just five more minutes” game and putting it off.

As a quick example, yesterday evening I had a small task to finish off for a project that I’m working on for a friend. My plan was to come home, relax a little bit and then start working on it, but instead, I cut out the relaxing bit and just started working on it and it’s clear to see that had I not started immediately, I probably wouldn’t have got it done at all and the evening would have been a complete write off.

There is almost always an easy solution to any problem. If you want to lose weight, the best thing to do is to eat less. If you want to learn something new, then start learning something new. If you want to be more physically fit, start doing some exercise. If you want a new job, look for a new job. It really is as simple as that.

I used to live with someone who would complain about how much work he had to do, but still managed to spend a good two hours avoiding it and complaining. This is a trap we all fall into at some point and he’s not the only one of my friends guilty of it, he was just the best at it. The bottom line has to be that if you have lots of time to complain, you clearly aren’t rushed off your feet.

We all make far too many excuses for ourselves and allow ourselves pitiful reasoning when putting off things we purportedly want to do. Of course, it’s not easy to get around to the solution, it takes willpower and a little bit of extra energy and effort, but the solution itself is easy. I used to go sailing every Sunday and always despised setting up for a session, but once I was actually out on the water, I loved it. This is like everything in life, if you can make the effort to launch yourself into something, you’ll probably enjoy it once you’re actually doing it.


Additional Notes:

It’s funny, the more I talk about being productive, the more I feel like I’m trying to make excuses for myself. I once read that the internet is where you will find the largest number of procrastinators. Blogs are not the safe haven you may think they are. After all, the whole time that I’m discussing productivity, I am not in actual fact being productive.

Now, dynamic moaning is an indication of a busy person. This is where someone is running around constantly babbling and complaining. It is however one of the signs that appear just before an acute nervous breakdown, so it’s certainly not something one should practice.

The actual project that I’ve been working on I’ll mention in more detail when it’s released, needless to say it’s something I’m very excited about and something that has been a huge amount of fun to do. To give you some clues as to what it is not, it is nothing academic, nothing that will further my career as it stands and nothing preachy, just sheer fun.

Noise Pollution and how to Deal with Noise

As a student, you often find yourself living with people that are very tolerant of background noise and late nights. Sometimes it takes a while to realise that 11PM is actually quite late for most people in the real world and that maybe that isn’t the best time to be doing anything too noisy. I know this, you know this, everyone knows this, but just occasionally we all forget. I was reminded a couple of days ago after butchering a plastic drum kit a little bit later than would be considered civilized.

We are very lucky with our flat in that it is incredibly sound proof. Only certain sounds carry, such as an incessant slightly non-rhythmic tapping. I know that we have only really ever heard the occasional over enthusiastic drum and bass track from downstairs, a clarinet, a dog barking and if it’s really late and really quiet, the bathroom from upstairs. After being pulled up on my inept drumming, I panicked a little and asked around with the other neighbors and it turns out they’ve had the same experiences and no significant sound seems to travel, aside from the family that lives next to the lift and can hear it whirring and clunking away, or at least the people inside swearing in frustration when it frequently breaks down.

The last flat that I lived in was much worse. At this point I was still living a much more student-like existence and Matt and I were regularly only retiring for the evening at 4AM. In this flat, just walking around was enough to incur the wrath of our hapless Italian neighbours downstairs, and beyond midnight, I found myself having to creep around in my socks trying to make as little noise as possible. To an outsider, it must have looked like I had serious mental problems, walking around on tip toes in my own home.

This all really boils down to the adaptation thing again that I find myself talking about a lot. It’s important to remember to be considerate of those around you and you must also remember that people are essentially good, something I’ve also discussed recently, and they will be reasonable. Obviously some people will be rude about demanding you to stop making noise, but I suppose the reason for that is that they’ve probably put up with it for too long in the hope that it might stop and then driven themselves to a breaking point.

If you have too much noise, don’t be scared to mention it and don’t let yourself get angry; most of the time the individual making the noise doesn’t realise how much it will carry and will feel absolutely terrible about having caused an annoyance. The flipside of that is that if you’re making too much noise, be reasonable and apologise and remember that chances are, they won’t be too angry and will be truly relieved if you’re cooperative.

Keeping good relationships with neighbours is essential. Being a student of law, I have seen what people driven to the edge by the people around them can do and try to get away with. On a more basic level, nobody needs the level of stress that you get by having a bad relationship with a practical stranger in close proximity to your living space.


Additional Notes:

Our poor neighbours that live below us I think are quite lucky that we are cooperative. We met them when whilst emptying our bath. The water was in fact disappearing from our bath room and filling their bath in the room below, via their light fittings. Apparently they’d had problems with leaks before and the previous tenants were really dismissive of the whole thing. Despite this, I would have preferred to have met them on slightly better terms.

I think noise is the one thing I get really and truly hung up about. I’m terrified of making too much noise and disrupting people and often get called on it because although I don’t have a loud voice, it is a clear voice that carries further than I imagine. This is great for presentations, or taking a position of command, but is not so great for trying to talk behind somebody’s back. People always used to tell me that I was so nice because I never seemed to say anything bad about anyone. The truth of this was more that I didn’t want to say anything bad about anyone in case they were stood within earshot, which for me, is probably anywhere within a five mile radius.

Weirdly enough, Kris has also heard someone sneezing behind their wall. This made her realise that there is probably a child sleeping inches away from where they sleep. Either that, or we have mice with dust allergies living in the walls.

Adapting a Student Lifestyle to a Post-Student Lifestyle

One of the most jarring things about going from a student to a graduate for me was the change in lifestyle. The way that I’ve adapted my life to fit around work and a slightly stricter timetable isn’t perfect and I’m sure it could have been done better by someone with more willpower, but it works for the most part.

I am aware that not everyone had the same student experience as me. Some people took a much more serious approach to studying, some people locked themselves in a room eschewing all social contact, and some people threw themselves into every single student society possible leaving no room for pub-based socializing. This probably won’t apply to any of those lifestyles or make sense to you if you are one of those people. Also, this isn’t a way of me saying that I think you’re wrong, just that you've had a different student experience.

My advice to anyone who is trying to break out of a student routine that was similar to mine and into a more professional routine is as follows:

Find a balance. You should know what you can and can’t do, so don’t deny yourself a night out, but just know when is a good time to finish. Staying out all night will undoubtedly catch up with you if you do it too much. Of course, a lack of sleep affects different people in different ways, but it can also be subtle in the way it affects you. You may not realize that you’re not functioning as per usual or that it’s taking you an extra couple of seconds to answer questions that have been put to you.

Hangovers are not your friend. A recent medical report has said that there is no cure for a hangover, but I’m fairly confident that we all have ways of avoiding them that are moderately effective. The best one is of course to not drink, but that’s the boring sort of thing that a parent or a policeman might say, so I understand it's effectiveness and uselessness at the same time. Other methods involve lots of water, pre-emptive painkillers, fatty food, more drinking or staying up so late that the alcohol seamlessly processes itself. I probably wouldn’t recommend the last two for a subsequent release into a working environment.

Find a way of getting up in the morning that works for you. Lying in until the last minute and then having to rush around is no good. You can get away with turning up to a lecture disheveled and reeking of beer, but the slow-witted quick-to-comment colleagues you collect in an office might make mention of it in that irritating faux-sarcastic manner. Time to clean up a little in the mornings is pretty useful and not having to rush around puts you in a better and more mellow mood.

Eat Breakfast. This makes a massive difference. It’s not just subversive marketing by Kellogs that suggests breakfast is important, it really is a life-saver of a meal. Something to wake you up is also good and whereas I’m not going to tout a caffeine addiction, I have to say that I am a different person without that first cup of tea.


Last night reminded me of the way I used to live, as I went out with some friends and probably drank a bit too much. As I said before, I know not everyone has had the same student experience, but mine took me to a lot of pubs and bars at least three times a week. My nights out would also almost always involve very late nights that would occasionally continue once I got home through to four o clock in the morning. A couple of times it even got to the point whereby the sun was starting to come up and I decided that there probably wasn’t much point in sleeping anyway and I have now found out that after about thirty six hours, I involuntarily fall asleep.

This morning also reminded of the way I failed to adapt early on in my working life. I wouldn’t say that I have a hangover, but my brain does feel a little bit like over-cooked rice; all my thoughts are sticking together and several of them are welded to the bottom of my skull. I remember having this sort of feeling when I was still making sales over the phone and I remember it being deeply unpleasant. The morning after a night out is always enough to make you swear off never going again and for me, it has got to the point where I’ll start seriously thinking about how things will be in the morning whilst I’m still drinking. Maybe that’s a sign of adaptation, maybe it’s a sign of growing older and more responsible, I’m not sure.

Everyone is going to have different routines and capabilities. How far your life adapts or needs to adapt is also dependant on how lenient your job is, or even what your job is. I’m approaching this from the standard viewpoint of nine until five hours, but different hours will inevitably invite different lifestyles. It’s best to find what’s right for you and don’t be surprised if you don’t get it right first time. It will take a good few months at least to get used to the change.


Additional Notes:

Apparently, only being able to stay awake for thirty six hours makes me somewhat of a lightweight but it’s not something I necessarily want to work on. A recent adventure to Belgium and back on a six to eight hour coach journey in which one could only take short naps before being interrupted by an inconvenient ferry trip and all the complications surrounding boarding, traveling on and disembarking the said ferry taught me that I could probably stay up much longer if I cheated and took short naps throughout the day. The blog I mentioned a few days ago has an interesting article on Polyphasic sleep patterns that might be worth trying some day.

Ironically enough, I made more sales when I was hung over. My theory on this is that nobody really wants to buy insurance from someone who sounds overly polite and cheery, because they instantly think it’s some kind of fraud. Maybe they’ve read the KPMG profile of a Fraudster that I mentioned the other day, but regardless of the reason, more people seem to buy things from someone that sounds like their spirit has been crushed.

I am clearly bitter that my flat mates can have a lie in after a night like last night. The night was fantastic, as we went to my old university’s comedy night and saw a forgettable but passable female working class comic, whose jokes seemed entirely based around the fact that she was female, working class, or female and working class, we saw Dave Gorman who was unbelievably funny, and an up and coming group called “Pappy’s Fun Club” that was so unexpectedly brilliant that my cheeks still hurt from laughing. I even got a hug from compare Alex Zane who then looked as confused/drunk as I felt.

I was however sensible/boring and came home before going with the others to the student union bar that stayed open late. My main motivation behind that was because the union bar on a Wednesday night is normally full of drunken rugby players, who by eleven are predominantly naked. Nobody needs that.