Home, Sweet Home
Posted by charley on July 5th, 2008Dorothy once said “There’s no place like home..”, and quite right she is. This is the way I felt when returning to the house from my lecture today.
I wouldn’t say the new house is particularly a home just yet, we’ve only been moved in a few weeks and I haven’t even got my own curtains up, but it doesn’t mean the people I am around can’t make it feel like home. I don’t know about other people but the way I’ve been brought up has made me a very homely sort of person, a person who looks forward to making a home for herself in the future and I suppose being a student in a rented house is practice for that very thing.
It was that typical feeling when everything had been unpacked and placed in its new positions in my new room, that feeling of knowing that your parents were going to leave you again just like they did when they settled you into your halls of residence, and you’d be left to carry on life trying to be as much of an adult as your student union would let you. It’s the first meal you cook in that awful gas oven probably 10 years older than you, it’s the first time you settle down in your new bed hoping that the next day comes as soon as possible, or in my housemate Emily’s case the first time you go to the Chinese on the corner and lose your purse… These are the times that make it home and the times you know will be funny stories to remember when you’re old and grey.
My new room is no tidier than my room used to be at home (sorry Dad), clothes are still scattered over the floor, shoes kicked against the wall, paper documents scattered everywhere. The only thing that is different is my bed being made all the time, proud that I own a Cath Kidston duvet and pillow set. I dragged my boxes of ‘Vogue’ here as well, prompting my Dad to ask whether I really needed them? And me to stutter back that yes, how could I live without them? Once I get rid of those nasty brown curtains in my room all will be complete! Thanks to Student Finance my loan didn’t go in on time so I’m ever grateful for my overdraft, and proud that I’ve only bought two pairs of shoes since hitting the Lincoln shops for the first time in 4 months! They’re safely placed in our shoe, bag and coat cupboard next to my room, it wouldn’t be my house without one I’m sure.
The lectures are getting harder and harder by the day, starting off with the easy stuff we finished with last year and now getting to the difficult theories that make everyone ponder the meaning of life, and that really can’t be a good thing when talking about some Russian guy’s Semiotics. Semiwhat? I hear you say…exactly, I don’t have a clue! But it’s alright because according to Barthes it’s only called a fork because we’re told its called a fork, we could be looking at a cat and calling it a fork for all we know. Bloody theorists.