Communal Living: The Silent Domestic

This is definitely one for anybody who has ever lived in a communal environment. In fact anybody who has had to live with anybody besides themselves. The silent domestic comes in many forms, depending on the issue, depending on the people. They happen between couples, but perhaps they shouldn't?, they happen between friends and family and they happen between the relative strangers who happen to share any kind of space with one another.

The silent domestic is the fight you have through the little actions. It is the label staking claim on the milk in the fridge even when you live with only one or two other people. It is the refolding of the hand towel so it suits you or the rearranging on the living room so YOUR chair can actually see the tv for once.

These fights are everywhere. However it is perhaps when attempting to live communally, be it colleges or share houses, that they are at their worst. At home with family before you move on and move out these kinds of things aren't necessary. Either everybody does it the same way, after all that is where most habits come from. Or you talk/shout about it until you come to solution. People don't need to be territorial at home.

I mention that couples probably do it and shouldn't. Well really if you are getting serious enough to be living together (and I have good old-fashioned morals so read married) you need to be communicating. There are sure to be any number of niggle-y things, especially initially, but you should know each well enough before even getting to that position to know how to handle it with the other person. To me the best silent domestic in couples is the old faithful... 'which way should the toilet seat be left?'...

Here the experiences I'm speaking about are, if you haven't picked up on it, the college experiences. Well not specifically university, in fact some of my most memorable silent domestics come from my job before uni, forced to share a bunk bed type accommodation while on the job for several days at a time. Noteable me and my... roommate... didn't get along all that well... particularly by the end of it.

This is the situation I talk about. When you are living with people, not of your own choosing but because you just have to. Maybe its you've joined a share house with a friend and realised that their other friends... aren't really your sort of people. That kind of thing. The little things that they do that piss you off - in some cases into a silent rage - and yet all you do is intentionally do it back the other way, your way.

I live in a hall way type arrangement with 3 other girls. We each have a bedroom of our own but share a bathroom, toilet and laundry. Some of the most significant silent fights we've had here involve the common areas. Though I'm not going to deny one of the most popular 'silent' domestics about musical taste... Nobody really talks to anybody else but you all put your music on loud enough to drown out the 'dreadful' strains of the other persons.

We have some quirky silent domestics amongst ourselves here in the hallway. In charge of our own cleaning they include how we go about cleaning the bathroom or the toilet or even when we do the cleaning. I like to get up and get ready before I give the bathroom sink a wipe down (as is my job at the moment), one of the others prefers that to be done first. So she does it... Cool you may think, what is the problem with that? The body language if you ever saw her doing it would explain that. I have the disadvantage of not only living with these 3 girls but working with them too... If we aren't on good ground... work becomes hellish.

But my favourite silent domestic, the one that is my basis for all silent domestics, is the one we have about the washing detergent. Now we don't have any structured plan about who has to buy the washing detergent. We all know that we are good about somebody getting some in good time so we never run out. All good... never have we run out of washing detergent or fabric softener. In fact, when we start to run out we generally end up with MORE than we could ever need.

That is where the domestic comes in. This particular fight is 3 against 1. How is this a fight at all? Well the 3 like one kind of detergent and the 1 likes a completely different one. You may think the 1 would just concede, I mean after all it is just detergent, or not. It is the single longest running silent domestic in our hallway. Whose type of detergent is there first at resup time.

I am one of the 3. We occasionally all manage to buy together, and end up with a ridiculous amount of our choice. Unfortunately the 1 has managed to trump us all this time around... with 5kg of her choice! That is a long time in clothes washing.

It wasn't really until this moment that I even noticed that it WAS a fight. That it was a we HATE your detergent and I HATE yours all out brawl using only our wallets and our bought preferences. The ultimate in what I'm calling silent domestics. No words are ever spoken, nobody ever actively complains - it is only detergent - but each of us wants it to be OUR choice that we are using...

Silent domestics will always be there... Frustrating as hell to live with but funny as hell to think about as a discerning adult apart from it all...

Convincing Myself I'm Not Depressed

As I've mentioned I'm not particularly skilled with members of the opposite sex. I've also mentioned that I have a huge crush on one of the other guys in my year. I think I even mentioned the fact that even if I remain incompetent for the rest of the year, there's always next year etc. and slowly but surely I'm getting better with time. Pathetic yes but all well and good. I can go plodding along and hopefully make some progress...

Or not. Saw him yesterday, he's one of the 3 other members of my bible study group, how I have love going to bible study for the 5 minutes we get to talk before the others get in and get started. but dammit, this week... he had news... and for me it was not good news. He's leaving, not at some indiscriminate time post graduation, not even the end of the year. He's leaving, next week!!! 

How do you get AROUND that? Maybe if I was good at the relationships stuff... but I'm not... I keep my feelings well and truly close to the chest. But goodness I had to work to not break down throughout the rest of the study. Yes, we literally went straight into the bible study like nothing was wrong. Admittedly he seemed a little be more sullen than usual, anxious to be leaving I suppose. Leaving this place would be like getting out of a prison. Excited about finally being free, nervous about what the real world will look like outside its protective walls. I'm as institutionalised as can be... so i never really expected any of my close friends to not be... that in itself is quite a shock...

I'm just not quite sure what to do now. By nature I crush long and hard... I'll probably make a good wife oneday if my relationship skills ever improve. My high school crush, the last super one I had, only really ended cause he stopped talking to me, and then we finished school. But this one... doesn't have the animosity in it. I don't want to have to be convincing myself not to think about him, it is painful and awkward... and my mind says completely pointless. But the saner part of my mind also says he'll be going all too soon, and there are bound to be girls from where he's from, and I'm too hopeless for anything... I just don't know... Now I feel guilty when I watch for him, feeling like I'm feeding a part of me I don't have a right to be. Such is my life right now...

About a Boy

Ok... Most of the time... I'm the most content person about about my not having any relationship experienced. I'm its unusual but not unheard of to be 18 and never had a boyfriend. In fact except for one long term and rather childish crush on one of my best friends I can definitely be termed a late bloomer. I didn't understand how girls thought of actors in movies as hot or not... Not until about grade 11...

Which isn't to say I don't get it now :) it all makes sense to me... Though from a Christian background as well as a strong faith of my own I never quite the same sex lure as many of my friends... More than happy to wait... Plus its easy to have that attitude when all the guys at school you find to be repulsively immature. To this day I don't understand the teenage ability to date half their class if they feel like it. A) you know them way too well and B) because you know them you know how immature and shallow the majority of them are. I was more than happy to keep to my one or two hopeless crushes.

Now though... I'm starting to wish I hadn't... I have zero relationship experience. ZERO. The only time a guy has every asked me to anything.. was a date to the formal - a joke... When we were in grade 10 (yes 2 years from any formal)... Who knows how that might have panned out... He was the type of guy who probably would have gone through with it... more for a laugh than anything. But he left halfway through year 12 and missed it anyways.

The only other proposition i've had? also him... The day he left school. Asked me for a kiss before he went. Unfortunately in the middle of a Chemistry class test. I didn't take him up on his offer. Tempted - a little, sceptical of his motives - a little, embarrassed for wanting to - a lot.

So that covers in 2 paragraphs all the invitations I've ever had... Now is where I point out my position at school. I was the smart girl. I was well known throughout, but simply for being smart, I'm certainly not what you would call a looker and a number of kgs overweight for the majority of my life. It doesn't bother me else I'd work harder to change it but was without a doubt an effect on that side of my life. I'm not after some stereotypical hot guy with no brain anyways so meh...

Now to the parts that detrimentally effect my personal confidence around boys. I mentioned a crush on a best friend? Four years, in fact a large part of the reason we (my best friend and I) initiated the friendship can be attributed to that (on my side at any rate), I had that crush and four years we were friends with him without too much of a hassle. He dated another of my friends for 6 months... and if that didn't have my nose a little out of joint to boot. But I never would have said.

That is the one thing I do well. Crushing on a guy in silence. That is basically what I'm doing at the moment, the reason for this rambling, and I HATE it... I'm more than over it. I got over it at high school too... and told him. In his way he didn't really make much of a response. In fact he didn't give a response at all. He never truly spoke to me again. Six weeks, or thereabouts, before the end of year 12 I lost one of my best friends - and of course the boy I'd been crushing on since I could remember... It hurt to say the least.

When I say we initiated the friendship it wasn't an easy friendship. He was enough of a loner that we had to disrupt him in the library to get anything out of him. Over the years it just became our thing. We were still in the library but he no longer (unless we did something 'terrible' and pissed him off which was only once... maybe twice lol (we got ourselves and him kicked out, for a week!)) attempted to read rather than talk to us.

But anyway... dredging all that stuff makes me feel better but only cuz I'm distracted and it doesn't hold the same levels of emotion as the predicament I'm in at the moment. I like a boy. I like a boy SOO bad. More than I have done any of the other minor crushes I've had over the last year... and more than I can ever remember liking that guy back in school. From this I've discerned that emotional growth hurts like a bitch. I can't work as effectively as I normally would - though I would say that in part that is end of year blues - which I'll save for another blog sometime :)...

So I've developed the stalker qualities... You know, if he is in your general area and you don't need to be looking at anything else you watch him. I've done the internet search even... It was funny cuz he actually did come up, for some award he won back in high school... was quite entertaining for me. I've done the depression moment cuz he doesn't have facebook. Nothing more than that but it makes me feel rather stalker-ish which depresses me further...

I just don't know where to go from here. There are only a few weeks of the year remaining when I'll have him so close... and after that, not until February when classes resume. Once of the blessings of a tiny uni campus if you can be sure you'll always see people again, whilst your here that is...

The other thing is the stalker stage can't last forever. As it is, he has started to pick up on the fact that I watch him if I see him on accident. Just tonight I noticed a figure (identifying by gate(step) more than anything) walk under our tv room (we have a outdoor walkway underneath) so I switched sides of the common room to, well honestly more to check if it was him than to specifically watch him :), and walking with a mate he turned a little back to my block window and waved at me...

and THAT is what has me freaked out... What do I do? Is that even a good sign? We are connected through the university christian group, he is even in my bible study... Is it just as a friend... But no I don't think that really explains it... WHY did he look back at the block enough to spot me at all? And even if he did... Even if it is EXACTLY what I hope it is... What do I DO?!? And that... is all I have... today there is no solution... and I doubt sleep will grant me the answer... I'm destined to flounder is curious, fear, excitement and all that other good stuff...

Early Mornings

I'm sure i've mentioned it before... and even if I haven't... It is a part of my work that I get up a little before 6 every week day... Fairly typical for a lot of day workers I'm sure. And on weekends I sleep in... only until about 8.30 or so but a sleep in nevertheless. Unfortunately some people don't seem to understand the concept of silent hours.

Yeah I'm sure that many people but it down to the disadvantages of communal living. But there is said to be a couple things which really should be though of. In our building we have to have our living areas, particularly the communal ones, checked for their cleanliness standard on a fairly frequent basis. So for me noise is one of the big ones. As it is we have the disadvantage of being the building closest to the dining hall/bar and all of the others have to wander past to the go to meals. The voices carry to my second story window like the people were sitting on my window ledge.

That is a little irritating... but with training you can ignore it pretty well... Though nights - like last night - when one of the resident sports teams is doing the drinking/function thing it gets a little frustrating attempting sleep. But that really isn't my issue here today... My hallmate (we don't have room mates but groups of 4 share a hall with a bathroom/toilet etc...) decided it was neccessary to SLAM her door at a little before 8.00 this morning and then the bathroom door.

Now see don't get me wrong... Normally it wouldn't be that big a deal. Slamming doors is part and parcel of the communal living thing... But add to the fact that we had one of those function nights with loud people until a little past 12 keeping me up... I don't feel very appreciative... Now I wouldn't mind so much if I thought perhaps she needed to get ready for work or something... She didn't, we all work together... Getting up throughout the week is easier for all the other girls getting up too...

My neighbour is also the most moody member of our hallway. If somebody had woken HER up with their door... We would have been hearing about it and her poor disturbed sleep for a week... Which isn't so bad now that we are used to it... but it still gets a little frustrating...

So basically I've had my rant now... and feel a little better for doing so :)... I must get on with my study.. But a note to others in communal living situations... vaccumns, music, and door slamming... when you no your neighbour is asleep or is reasonably expected to be asleep (ie the silent hours) aren't cool. It isn't some old people rule that doesn't apply to uni blocks... Some people need their sleep.

Graphic Mutterings

So I've changed my mind... I'm female, I'm entitled apparently =P. I don't take photos often... and even less frequently of people or anything interesting... I have no artistic talent and no ability but every so often I take photos of stuff... My bed, the puzzle i was colouring... my uni stuff... they just sort of sit on my camera doing nothing. Might as well stick them on here I say.

A bit of a prior warning... though I'll generally post them in clumps things like my bed or my room are pretty well the costant focus of my camera... so don't be surprised if every photo i ever post is exactly the same. I am putting them on here for my own benefit... just like everything else... and i like my photos of the nothingness if nothing else.

Welcome to my bedroom... Yes I really did sleep on the floor that night... It is the only time I've ever done it... but look at the beautifully made white bed and that is why...

This here? Is my cupboard... Not nearly as fun to photograph as my immaculate (sometimes) bed... But never the less I have done...

And this is my pinboard... and that is my room in overview... I'll be sure to have some slightly more interesting photos the next time around... This is just an introduction to... well me...

You Can't 'Save' Daylight

Ok... So I've mentioned that I haven't had a bee in my bonnet - or anything really to talk about - in quite some time. But times change. In an unfortunately literal manner. Apparently clocks do that changing thing this past Sunday in the southern states of Australia... Daylight Savings they call it. I don't understand the concept though apparently it is very popular in the world.


According to an American friend of mine it was the idea of Benjamin Franklin. That is the guy renown for the key on a kite in a lightning storm isn't it? I know he was a brilliant mind and everything but instigating Daylight Savings makes him on my unfriendlys list right at this moment. Who designs a concept which involves the changing of time, which is basically the only constant-ish thing on the face of the planet?

Now I don't know. Is daylight savings the world over? Or is it restricted to the USA and unfortunately areas of Australia? I assume that if parts of Europe do it, they'd all have to do it. How awkward could that be? Some countries on one time, others an hour out. Actually... there must be multiple time zones cutting across Europe without the aid of DLS (as I will refer to it from now on to save myself typing out the same dreaded words too often).

I don't know anything really of Europe coming from the Eastern-Western country we are a little to far detached from such places, despite a Queen. We, of Australia, are much more closely linked with the US of A. Something many Australians quite detest even as they line up for any one of the US fast foods so they can be in home to watch any one of a gazillion US tellie - sorry television - shows. I actually have a young cousin who talking to her you could mistaken her accent for a very light American one - distinctly unAussie at any rate.

But I'm not discussing Australia, the not the 51st state of the US, but rather DLS. For anybody with the luxury of never having crossed paths with DLS before. It is the strange habit some parts of the world seem to have for adjusting their time and pretending the time is an hour later than it actually is for the entirety of the summer months. Yes that means that just the other day (the first Sunday of October) we lost an hour and they aren't going to give it back to me until sometime next year (I don't know when exactly).

Just so we have an understanding. This is not me fighting a norm I've experienced all my life. I am lucky enough to know the TRUTH about the fact that time isn't actually set up for DLS. The great state of Queensland has no DLS. Though every so often it comes up as an option. The day it gets a second go round (it has already been trialed and hated once before i am capable of memory) will be a sad day indeed. I don't really see the point of changing time just so you can have the sun later into the night. I do not need the sun up at 8 o'clock at night.

I would however appreciate the sun up at oh 6 in the morning? Is that too much to hope for? I am up before 6 for my work... and generally that translates to something outside as well. Whereas I have finished up for the day at about 5.30 and an hour and a half of sunlight is more than enough thank you very much. Perhaps a body clock gets better at coping with DLS over time. I'm not talking specifically about bedtimes or awakenings. I'm talking about that ingrained function that allows your body to analyse time of day by the height, heat or brightness of the sun.

Ok... Now rather than going back and editing which I could do... But where would the fun be in that?... Apparently using a slightly more reliable source (ie Wikipedia) I can see that DLS can actually be blamed on a New Zealander, George Hudson. Why it is we have it in Australia when it was a New Zealander =P... No more seriously I'm surprised Australians don't claim partial credit for its creation if that is the case. Probably because it isn't a hugely popular concept with many Australian. I know I am speaking for myself here but all 4 of the Queenslanders (of the 8 people I live with) have been heard to make similar complaints to my own about this ridiculous habit.

The other thing I've managed to pin down is used in Europe... and the USA almost religiously... But few other places in the world. To my left is a nifty little thing I just HAD to hijack off wikipedia. I suggest all you DLS lovers take a good solid look at this map... and all the ORANGE bits... The tried it and hated it bits. I like to think of them as the sane bits. Most notable the MAJORITY of Oz is not blue so why am I stuck with this blasted DLS stuff? Such is life.

Plain Ol' Boring Me

Unlike... every person on the face of this planet (with a blog at any rate) who seems to take photos or steal photos often enough to have them in all of their blog entries... I just... don't... I'm not going to lie... The only thing I've taken photos of in recent months... is my bed... Seems strange... in fact it is strange... but I was very pleased with my lime green sheets at the time... If I ever dig up my camera in the right mood I may put them up here... But photos feel... so revealing... plus i don't have nearly enough to make them a constant sort of a thing :S... such is life...

I'm not just calling myself plain and boring for having not shown photos... As I said... it is something I could easily change and yet, am not. The boring bit comes from the fact that I stayed in Canberra for the long weekend. I have a perfectly good family home in the warmth of the Queensland climate; and it's probably not RAINING there either. And yet... I am still here. In my room, everybody has returned home as is customary in our block except for the boring ones. Of which I find myself part.

I am not quite sure why I always manage to lump in with the boring bunch. I just naturally filter that way I suppose. Not given to the drinking or partying habits of my colleges nor particularly fond of the late nights they put themselves through to conduct said habits. I am not against any of it... It just doesn't work for me. I am one of those people with the misfortune to NEED the 7-8 hrs of sleep advised to all mankind. And when I break with the trend my body begs for a catch up until I do give in (generally on a Friday night).

Today... I did the good thing and took my friend to the airport a little after 8. - Some people are giving me that odd look about now that says... THERE'S your problem... you could get your full 8 hours after a night out if you just got up later. - Yeah... Doesn't work. 8 o'clock when you get up for work at 5.45am and work till 5.30pm is a sleep in. Again... Don't speak of all the people who work longer hours every day of their lives than me... They have some secret power I can only dream of possessing to not need lots of sleep.

But now I shall stopping being rather bitchy about people who have different gifts to my own :). If I'm honest with myself... needing the sleep isn't a bad thing. It isn't like I would use the time for anything constructive. Hanging about my computer desk procrastinating in some form or another no doubt. Rather like I'm doing now...

I don't know how to have interests... I used to be a part of a whole host of groups and do a couple sports. I was one of those kids with rarely a free night or weekend.. And then I left school, got a job and moved away from town... Living in an isolated spot in the middle of nowhere without the time or transport to escape regularly certainly has a halting effect on my extracurricular activities... I have more access these days... but often very little time... Something I am likely to forget while bored on a long weekend after a week of rest :)...

But as usual.. I have wasted many a word upon nothingness... I should get back to... nothing... fun fun fun :)