Student Life
Survival tips for living at home Practical advice for keeping the peace with the parentals, and avoiding the steely gaze of disapproval at your extracurricular antics. by cianna O’Connell
1
Sober up at least an hour before returning home. Everyone loves a good night out. The dancing, the drinking, the heel-induced falls, the loss of valuable personal items, the overpriced shots and all the other drunken antics are intrinsic elements of student life. Once your taxi pulls up outside your family home, however, the fun comes to a screeching halt. The seemingly insurmountable task of getting yourself safely into bed without waking another family member slowly dawns on you. You immediately regret that last order of Jägerbombs. “Everything will be OK”, you slur to yourself, “I am as sober as a sandwich and will be a model of stealth and subtlety”. Things begin swimmingly. You successfully navigate your way up the garden path. Suddenly, disaster seems imminent. The key! IT DOESN’T FIT THE LOCK! Never fear, never fear; twiddling works like a charm. Next: the attempted preparation of a silent postmidnight snack. You decide that you are in the mood for Rice Krispie buns. Unfortunately, after melting an entire bar
A student can never enter a family home without creating a cacophony of rousing noises of cooking chocolate, you realise that the breakfast cupboard does not contain the requisite cereal box. Again, never mind, Fruit & Fibre will have to do. Later, in bed, whilst consuming your sticky chocolate wholegrain concoction, you assure yourself that no one in the house heard your re-entry and that your initial fears of being too drunk were entirely unfounded. You are wrong. A family home is considerably larger than most student accommodation. Unlike a modern apartment or college halls, it is also usually considerable older. Floorboards screech like warring foxes. Granite tiles react
with your stilettos to send reverberations throughout each room. Kitchen appliances whirr and family pets bark. No matter how colossal an effort is made, a drunken student can never enter a family home without creating a cacophony of rousing noises. Unless you sober up at least an hour before returning home, you may endure steely parental glances in the days that follow. You may also have to spend a considerable amount of time cleaning congealed cooking chocolate from the microwave.
2
Remember that trends acceptable on the high street may not be acceptable in the family home. I am not a fashionable person. I generally only know what’s “in style” from perving on pretty girls walking around the Arts Block (sorry, by the way). Also, I live by the mantra of “If It’s on Sale in Topshop, Then It Is Generally OK”. A month or two ago, I began to see girls out on the town in see-through lace camisoles. I decided that I wanted such a top. Luckily enough, Topshop had an abundance of them on sale. This meant they were, yes, OK. My mother did not agree. “WHAT IN THE NAME OF... oh yeah, that’s great, that’s just great... why don’t you have a sign on your forehead saying ‘Hey lads I’m up for it’... no selfrespecting woman should wear something see-through…”. I began to argue back: “But everyone wears them, they’re...” “THEY’RE LINGERIE IS WHAT THEY ARE! Now, at 20 years of age you’re entitled to do what you want but... JAYSUS LIKE!” I put a T-shirt on underneath.
3
Accept that you will never have a duvet day. Ahh yes, isn’t that what we all dreamt about in sixth year? Long days of doing absolutely nothing, lounging around in a Penneys’ onesy, watching a bit of Dr
Phil… This dream, however, can never become a reality for students stuck at home. Mothers see an idle twenty-yearold as an unforgivable waste of resources. There is always a list of chores to be done: putting on washes, cleaning out the shower and ironing shirts that you don’t even wear. Also, if you think a mighty hangover will grant you any clemency, think again. It only serves to heighten a mother’s already over-zealous desire for punishment.
4
Become asexual. Seriously. I strongly advise anyone living at home not to have any interest in members of the opposite sex. If you are an eldest/only child, non-platonic friends are seen in the same light in which the conquistadors viewed the Native Americans. The first time I invited a boy home, my sister was in such shock that she fled to her bedroom and declared sanctuary. When the same poor boy accepted my mother’s stammered invitation to stay for dinner, my sister asked if she could eat hers in the sitting room. Even attempting the simplest of activities with a non-platonic friend in the family home will result in embarrassment. dvds will be interrupted by a shout of; “ARE YOU TWO SNOGGING IN THERE? Aoife wants to get her phone charger but is scared to go in! Will I send her in?” Which will inevitably be followed by a frenzied whisper of “Mum! Oh my God, oh my God, why did you say that? I’m not going in. Oh my God!”
5
Move out. Or else find generous friends who are willing to welcome family-home refugees into their apartments. You can always offer to make them chocolate Fruit & Fibre buns in return. Cianna O’Connell is a Senior Freshman student of Law. 9
Issue 3.indb 9
12/01/2010 23:30:15