Beyond Selidor

Day 14 – Where you live
I missed another day again due to various reasons, but I'm definitely going to catch up today.

As you probably all know, I currently live in Cambridge. On September 26th, I will have lived here for exactly two years. I came here in 2008 to begin my MPhil, and stayed on in 2009 for my PhD. From September 2008 until July this year, I lived in the same room in a student hostel owned by my college. The first year of that - my MPhil year - was excellent, because I got on really well with my 14 housemates, aside from a few minor differences of opinion about how long it was acceptable to leave dishes lying next to the sink. The second year, however, wasn't so great. It wasn't so much that my housemates were bad as that they were kind of absent. Whereas in my MPhil year, we'd often congregate to gossip and chat in the kitchen while eating, and we'd do stuff together socially, last year everyone ate in their rooms and avoided contact as much as possible.

I now share a privately-rented house with four of my friends. I really enjoy it. It's so different to live with people with whom you've chosen to live. We eat together most nights, we watch DVDs and TV together, we go to the pub or the cinema together. It feels much more like home than somewhere I just happen to live.

The location of the house is also fantastic: it's got about five really good take-away shops on the same street, four pubs really close by, a supermarket down the road, a video rental shop over the road, and, most importantly, an off-licence over the road.

Cambridge itself is great, although I am a city girl at heart and couldn't tolerate living here if I weren't a student and didn't have a big group of friends also living here. My ideal location is a block of city flats smack bang in the middle of a block filled with good coffee shops (so, pretty much where I live in Sydney, to be honest). I am quite a fearful and nervous person and find it difficult to feel safe in most houses. I only truly feel safe in (non-ground floor) flats, in areas where there are always people on the street, and in other places I have difficulties sleeping. I do not like living in areas which are only residential, and I think that places which are a mixture of residential, retail and businesses tend to have a more natural, lived-in feel about them. The hilarious thing is that I grew up in Canberra, which is about as artificial and suburban as you can get, and I still have a great deal of affection for the place. I can't see myself moving back there in a hurry, however.


Day 15 – Something you love about yourself
Day 16 – Your first kiss
Day 17 – Your favorite memory
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday
Day 19 – Something you regret
Day 20 – Your morning routine
Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling
Day 22 – Something that upsets you
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry
Day 25 – Your sleeping habits
Day 26 – Your fears
Day 27 – Your favorite place
Day 28 – Something that you miss
Day 29 – Your favorite foods/drinks
Day 30 – Your aspirations