Flatmates 3.0

In our flat, we are ten: Rubie, Jenny, Ayla, Ellie, Ed, Rob, Ben, Belle, Kate, and me: Amber. Want that again? Rubie, Jenny, Ayla, Ellie, Ed, Rob, Ben, Belle, Kate, and Amber. In our kitchen, we have one table with six chairs, four tea kettles, one refrigerator (I know...), ten cupboards with nine locks, and about a thousand leaflets for take-away food. We also have a window overlooking The Brood, the lake. We are nine of us 18, eight of us social, seven of us girls, six of us from country towns, four of us on the top floor, three of us international, and two of us have been to Venezuela.

Although technically, this is my third-time around, thereby making me a seasoned professional, it always amazes me how living with people bonds you so much more rapidly and openly than common friendships. Differences are thrown aside and faults humorously embraced within days of meeting each other. Case In point: I am three years older than everyone else, and have awkward American habits like eating copious amounts of peanut butter from the jar, and am in my final year of college... none of this seems to matter at all! Strange as it is to say, it feels like we are a little family.

This is not always an easy thing. Everyone knows everyone else's business. In a manner of an hour, the strange noise from Rob's room becomes "Did you see the girl Rob was with last night?"
Rob declares It was the TV! Also, tiffs are inevitable. I came home yesterday to find Ben and Belle in a row over the rice cooker. Apparently, Ben had failed to clean it out and Belle (the house mother) put it in front of his door as a friendly reminder, causing a VERY big accident when Ben stumbed out of his room this morning, half-asleep... This is what was heard as I ascended the stair to my room: "It's just a bloody rice-cooker!" "So clean it!" Ben then accused Belle of being on her period, to which she responded with a violent stream of feminist points, none of which helped her case any.

But then there are more fun aspects too. For instance, when Ayla mentioned she was going to a Viking party for her Deviant Society, Ellie burst into excitement at the prospect of dressing her up as a Viking with the horns and sword and fur hide... We asked where she was going to get all this stuff, to which she responded "In my closet! Right next to my ax, bow & arrow, and rapier." Ellie is a theater major, and while that may explain the closetful of weaponry, it also unqualifies her to be in possession of such tools. I said if we ever had a burgler, I knew which room I was going to.

It's very nice to always have something going on, although this can also be a negative when one has entire novels to be read the next day, and people to come home to. I was home late one evening after my day in London, and my flatmates came to me the instant I walked in the door: "Where have you been? No one has seen you all day!" They are already saying: "It's going to be so weird after Ambah leaves! We're going to be such a close little family, and then Ambah will go and we won't let the next person in, after Ambah!"