Friday 4 May 2012

The Dark Side of Student Living: Conflict Contest Winner Announced!

On Monday we published a bunch of interesting stories about the conflict in student homes. We asked you to vote for your favorites and you did. It is now time to announce the winner of two free tickets to the Special Evening Opening: Global Homes at the Geffrye Museum. The winner is…(drum-role please)… Iris, with her story about Dani - the early bird who did not share her food.  Congratulations!

Your stories of conflict evoked memories, inspiring even more of our readers to share their stories and photos. Since these later entries are really interesting, we could not resist publishing them.



- Jill



We also had a great story from Lucy:

I simply can't resist telling you my story of the charming girl I lived with last year. She quite frankly destroyed my year.

Me and "Jess" had been good friends in our first year of university, so it seemed a natural progression for us to share a house in our second year, what could go wrong? She started out as a lovely and fun friend, but it soon all started to get a bit odd, and not so friendly. We rented our house in June and I had to go away for a month or so with university on a project in Italy. I asked all of our housemates including her to ask me if they wanted to let a friend use my room for a night or two while I was gone, but other than that 'please don't just use my room, I pay a lot for it' (or something along those lines).
 
Anyway, when I returned, similar to the other story you posted, my room wasn't in quite the same way as when I left. Lo and behold, not only had "Jess" let someone stay in my room for the whole duration of my trip (without asking), but she had charged rent. Wonderful. So, as any sane person would, I confronted her about this issue. After making a 500 pound profit from the room I pay for, she refused to give a penny of it to me, unsurprisingly. Arguments of epic proportions followed and I eventually gave up, and came to the conclusion that "Jess" was not a very nice person at all.
I thought that would be the end of it. I could not be more wrong. I (and my 4 other suffering housemates) soon learned that "Jess"'s arts degree was far more important and difficult than anyone else's in the house (including those studying medicine and vet. science, of course). She insisted that we all listen to her daily rantings about essays, exams, lectures and so on while our work was not as important. During exam season or when an essay was due, we would all quietly knuckle down. She would not. She would go absolutely nuts. There would be tears, drama, demands that other people make her cups of tea and often meals, and insist that we drop all of our own work commitments to read and help edit and re-write her essays (and for some reason we sometimes did...). When she did not have an exam or essay due (while the rest of us did), she would blast her stereo and sub-woofer and insist on 24/7 noise and 'fun' with her pseudo-hipster strange friends. She would also be revoltingly dirty, refusing to do any dishes or cleaning during her period of 'undue stress'(funnily enough she is the one who created the authoritarian cleaning roster). Bad enough? Yes. But not the end of it. We all also learned that "Jess" was very possessive over people.
She did not like her friends becoming friends with one another, and when I got together with my current boyfriend, I actually received a 'warning' that nothing could 'ever happen' because he was 'her friend' and not mine. Needless to say we both deemed this a little crazy and hilarious and did in fact end up together, very happily. As if the warning wasn't enough, whenever James would be feeling down, "Jess" would audibly insist that it was because of me, and push him to break up with me (in our house, in the room next door to me), and then act sweet and lovely when she saw me five minutes later. She would also talk daily about how 'tough' it is that everyone fancied her. They did not. She became obsessed with the idea that all of her male friends, and anyone else's, wanted "Jess" more than anyone could comprehend. This isn't nearly the end of the story, much worse things have been done by "Jess" since we all moved out, but they are of such an extreme nature that they deserve a memoir at the very least. That's my story of the charming young lady who attained the apt title of 'the Führer' amongst our housemates.



Thank you to all for your contributions and congrats, again, to Iris, the winner of our contest!  Our exhibition is fast approaching, and we are preparing another contest for more free tickets, so stay tuned!

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