Flats and Exams

Everything just seems to work out. Sometimes.

I cast my memory back a couple of weeks ago when we and Team Thomas were lazing about in Greenwich Park, talking direly about our chances of finding the right flat in time. We had just spent the best part of our Saturday viewing flats which all had just a little something wrong with them. Gerrod consoled us: "Well, I think as long as we find a flat by, say the 15th, we'll be OK. After that we'll start to worry."

So, last night we signed the lease on our new place in Putney, and what was the date? I'll leave you to work that out. Too slow, it was the 15th!

Yes, things just seem to work out a lot of the time. It reminds me (and perhaps Kristy) of a certain debacle in my third year of uni (or rather, the debacle that was my third year of uni), when I failed to show up for a final business exam. Now, I wasn't trying to make a statement by doing this, I had just mistakenly believed the exam to be 24 hours later than it actually was. So the day after the exam (after making use of every hour during which the exam was actually conducted) I woke up, checked the internet, and to my horror discovered that I was running approximately 19 hours late. No matter how quickly you get dressed, you just can't make up that kind of time.

After much convincing from Mum, I finally decided to go in to uni to plead my case with the lecturer. I didn't hold out much hope; I certainly wouldn't let me sit the exam with such an excuse.

But au contraire mon frere! When I finally tracked the lecturer down things started looking decidedly up. Sure, he swore at me a fair bit, asked if I was on drugs (I too felt it made sense that I should be), but in the end he sent me downstairs to have a cup of coffee before I sat the exam.

So I bought a cup of coffee...and then I called Kristy, who helped me on the first question. Or two? Bad Kristy! No, I appreciated it, and I didn't feel too guilty about it either, seeing as I knew (as I think Kristy did as well) that I wasn't going to be much competition to any of my peers in the business world. Don't worry people, I really didn't do that well.

So anyway, the gist of it is that we got a flat, and things seem to work out a lot of the time.

Flat Hunting

The past two weeks we have been frantically hunting for flats with Kristy and Gerrod, our soon-to-be house mates. I wouldn't describe the process as relaxing, but it has had its moments of comic relief.

Such as when Kristy and I visited a top-notch flat near Waterloo. The agent met us out the front of the building to let us in, leading us through a gulag of anonymous doorways, up a few floors in the elevator and down another hallway before we finally arrived at the flat.

Now I could smell the smell before we got within 5 metres of the flat door, so when the agent implored us to "look beyond the mess", I was already kind of prepared. But not prepared enough.

Inside this two bedroom flat lived six people, as well as some advanced viruses which were hitherto believed only to exist in rural China. The place reeked of stale coconut milk-based cooking, unwashed dishes, as well as other things we were yet to discover. A couple of times I lost my balance after tripping over debris in the hall, but seeing as I didn't want to touch anything with my hands, it was a little hard not to topple over completely.

Then the clincher. The agent showed us into the master bedroom and ensuite where we found, wait for it, a caged rabbit.

"So, what do you guys think of the place?" asked the agent.

While Kristy chose to say something articulate and honest, I chose the more indirect way of letting the agent know my feelings:

"Mmm...and, are these, yeah, these are double-glazed windows, aren't they, here...mmm, I think...hmm"

He was a little bamboozled for a moment, but I think he got the picture alright. Translation: "Mmm...rabbit, rabbit rabbit, rabbit...and, rabbit...rabbit".