Moving In Progress...

It's been 35 weeks (slightly more actually) and my lease is ending today... 35 weeks, almost 9 months... I keep thinking that this is about the same time between a baby's conception and birth. How is it that such time has passed?

More than the stress of packing and moving (side note: I'm packing and moving stuff from my room. ONE ROOM. And it's driving me absolutely crazy. How my parents can move house 5 times is waaaaayyyy beyond my comprehension), the ending of the lease also indicates all of us leaving.

The first weekend:

Julia had arrived the day before, with her boyfriend Michael. All I was told was: there's a German girl already in the flat. But I only met her the day after, after her boyfriend drove back to Germany and she returned to the flat. I remember her knocking on my door and introducing herself with a bright smile to my mum and myself: Hi, my name is Julia. I'm from Germany...

Stephanie arrived some days after I did, with her parents. My impression of her was of a girl that spent the first couple of days doing up measurements of her room while her parents were busy unpacking. Her parents brought most of her boxes into the room, Stephanie would have an idea of where she wanted the large pieces of furniture (bed, desk, drawers, closet) placed, everybody would move her belongings out of the room, drag out the large pieces of furniture (mattress included), reaarange the room, move everything back. Repeat process each time Stephanie had a new idea of how her room was to be arranged - 2 or 3 times... Obviously there was some tension with this kindda major operation. As a result, I remember thinking that Stephanie was full of teenager angst.

Karina moved in next, with the help of her boyfriend Colin. A very private couple, helped by the fact that Karina's room was closest to the main door. They came and went and I only saw them in the short distance (5m?) between the main door and her door... Was Karina shy?

Elli moved in last, helped by her Dad and her sister, Rachel (so she says). I remember seeing her Dad. I have no recollection of seeing Rachel. Another silent flatmate, very focused on moving everything (and there were lots of things!) into her room... Kept to herself pretty much... It was until 2 days after she moved in that I even knew her name was Elli.

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After the initial curiousity with each others' lives, and discussion of practicalities (let's pool together some money to buy toilet paper! and dishwashing liquid! and salt! and sugar! and aluminium foil!), we all settled into a comfortable routine.

Life most times is just a wakeful version of sleep... Wakeful and conscious, yet dazed and unaware. You remember going to sleep, you remember closing your eyes, you may realise you're drifting off to sleep... but you never actually realise the exact moment that you fall asleep. You don't recall the point of transition where you cross the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Similarly, it's hard to pinpoint the moment that we started to live as 5 members of 1 flat, instead of 5 individuals in 5 different rooms, sharing a kitchen, 2 toilets and a living area. It's hard to establish the moment that we were no longer surprised to see "unfamiliar" faces when we came home and instead started to ask, "Where's (insert name)?" or "Has anybody seen (insert name) today?"

So there we were... awake and conscious, yet dazed and unaware. Drifting from day to day, existing in our comfortable world we created away from home.

During this time, we also developed some bad habits (bad habits are enjoyable, incidentally). We started to sit around in the living area for long periods of time having tea. Each of us had pressing deadlines hanging over our head, obviously, with us being "full-time" university students but there was a strong magnetic force that made these sessions irresistable. How can anybody concentrate on essays/exams when there are 3 or 4 others sitting just outside your door talking about their childhood, discussing politics, exchanging stories about their brushes with authority/the law, organising the next outing/flat dinner/BBQ, looking at photos, ripping off each other's CDs and mp3 (major music piracy syndicate), watching DVDs, or simply enjoying each other's company?

And when we eventually tore ourselves away from the group and went back into the privacy of our own rooms, the other bad habit kicked in. SKYPE. So after spending hours chatting outside, we excused ourselves on the pretext of "I'd better be getting back to writing my essay" only to go back into the room and continue chatting online. It's impossible to get any work done in this place!

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Extracts of our online conversations (online names have been changed to protect our privacy):

Elli: do u want some music

Mae: dance music???
Elli: no dreams and memories
Mae: oh yes... dreams and memories... :)
Elli: now?
Mae: if you want....
Mae: yeah, i am free to receive files now
Mae: that was real quick!
Elli: yes, made a temporary mess of my desktop though!

Mae: hahahah
Mae: temporary is the key word....
Elli: fancy going shopping?

Mae: ok!

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Mae: BOO!!! :P
Karina: Hey! What you up to? Im just having a spot of dinner!
Mae: Hahaha... just checking whether you're being productive and doing your work.

Karina: Yes I am being productive! Thats why I am having dinner so late - I lost track of time!! Reading lots of journal articles for my essy. What a good girly I am!

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Steph: what are you up too?
Mae: blogging in between watching TV
Mae: y?
Steph: just asking
Steph: i guess i could wright [sic] a mass e-mail... i'm way over due
Mae: hahah...i tot u had something to do
Mae: u can msg the guys and ask if they are planning to come up at all
Steph: ...

Mae: OR you could do dishes!! :D
Steph: lol... ya after i get this letter started
Mae: yes... dishes..not terribly exciting
Steph: totaly [sic]
Mae: blog's up!
Steph: cool, i just saw!

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19 May: Julia and Karina moved out.

20 May: Elli, Steph and I moved out.

We can no longer just take a few steps out of our room to "have a cuppa tea" or "go for a walk" together...

This takes getting used to...