Practically Alice

It's near enough 11pm (scratch that, it is 11pm - the bells are chiming) on a Friday night and I'm sitting in bed, scantly dressed (it's warm in here), book in hand and suddenly I'm smiling. I'm smiling because I have missed being able to sit in this room full of books and hear the turning of pages without the background noise of drunk people or music or the smell of cigarette smoke or weed drifting into my window; without knowing I will be woken up in the early hours so I can steal these and read late. It makes me smile because I love, more than anything, to fall into a book completely. Admittedly Tigers in Red Weather  is currently strewn, along with my cuddly toy of choice at home, behind this laptop but alas I had the itch to write. I want to capture this feeling and put it into words so I can again gain the sweet taste in my mouth right now. I feel like I should be in a YA novel, or a TV show, or am a stupidly young, naive and geeky Carrie from Sex in the C...

Here we are. Today at four o'clock I will sit and take my one and only exam of this year, and my final assessment of first year. I'm sitting here (strangely calm) on my bed in my flat, after having chatted to and relaxed with my flatmates and it is honestly surreal. To say that eight months (ish) ago I walked up to this flat, sick to the stomach with nerves and began living with five complete strangers is just weird . These people I've grown to adore, get irritated at and laugh with and I will definitely miss living with them next year. Everyone has there ups and downs but I would say that, on the whole, our flat has an appreciation and care for each other that will hopefully last; we look out for each other, we respect each other and for a majority of the year we shared food and sat down to a meal with each other every single day. I can't thank them enough for the things I have learnt from them about people and, well, myself. The people I've met have just been ...