A day in the life of Bev

Beep beep. Morning? Still the middle of the night. Time to get up! Five more minutes please. Beep beep. Still dark outside. Beep beep. Shower. Clothes. Breakfast. Brush teeth. Time to go. Brrr, freezing! Tram. Work. Lunch break! Work. 5:15, home time. Dark again already. Tram. Buy food. Finally home! Computer… e-mail, blogs, facebook. Dinner time. Cook. Eat. Dishes. Computer. Study? Procrastinate. Getting late, time for bed. Pyjamas. Brush teeth. Read? Yeah! Lights out. Toss and turn. Can’t sleep. Too hot… too cold… thirsty… can’t get comfortable. Where’s my boyfriend? Tick, tock, tick, tock. Still can’t sleep! Midnight. 1am. Sleeeeep.
Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep. Morning?…

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On failing to get out of bed

I like to get up at 6:30 in the mornings.
Hang on a second, no I don’t. Nobody likes to get up at 6:30 in the mornings. That was just be weird. Even the strange guy on 5th floor who gets up early every single day, including weekends, doesn’t get up at 6:30. (He leaves it til 7). Let’s start this again shall we…

On weekday mornings I have to leave the house at 7:35am. So I try to get up at 6:30. That gives me a bit more than an hour to get ready. Not that I need over an hour to get ready, I just like to have it. I’m not the kind of person that likes to jump in and out of the shower in two minutes*, get dressed at the speed of light and eat breakfast so fast I barely have time to chew. I like to actually have a chance to sit down between activities. So I try to get myself out of bed at around 6:30 in the morning.
So far this week it hasn’t worked once. This morning it was ten to seven by the time I managed to drag myself out of bed. 45 minutes before time to leave. That meant 45 minutes to have a shower, get dressed, get my stuff ready for work, eat breakfast… I managed to do it and get out of the house in time, but it was such a rush. No standing under the shower just letting the warm water wash over me, no sitting down, just for a minute, before heading to the kitchen and (this one’s important) no time for a cup of tea. I had to wait until I got to work before I could imbibe any caffeine. *gasp, shock, horror*
So tomorrow it’s back to the drawing board again. Another attempt to drag myself out of bed on time even though it’s still dark outside. I’ve decide I need to set two alarms – one on the clock that I can keep turning off every five minutes (that one gets set for 6:15 to at least give me a chance of getting up by half past) and one on my phone set to just after 6:30. That’s the one to tell me “you better get up right now otherwise you’re going to be running around like a headless chicken all morning. Again.” What do you reckon, will it work?

*the recommended length of a shower by the way, or so I read in a German newspaper a couple of months ago. What I’d like to know is a) recommended by who exactly? and b) how is that even possible?? It takes me longer than 2 minutes to rinse the shampoo out of my hair…

Dilemmas

What do you do when you get up in the morning to find the shower in your corridor is occupied?

a) Go back to your room and wait 5 minutes to see if the other person finishes
b) Go to the not as new or as good shower in the other corridor, which involves walking past the entrance to the building (all glass and transparent)
c) Forget about the shower, go back to your room and attempt to wash yourself over the sink.

This morning, after much internal debate, I chose option c. Or I suppose I chose the first and third options really as by the time I’d decided what to do 5 minutes had gone by and the shower was still occupied. By that time I’d decided there was no point in going to the other shower cos that would only add another 5 minutes to the time already spent and make me late. So I washed myself over the sink, which resulted in lots of water on the floor but at least I don’t smell any more.

And so it’s off to work I go.

How to do your laundry in a student residence

I was woken up at 10 to 3 this morning by my phone beeping. A text message. Was it a fire? A flood? Had somebody had an accident?

No! It was from E-Plus telling me I have no credit and should top up now, now, now becasue they so desperately need the money! Why do they feel the need to inform me of something I already know at such a ridiculous hour? Do they think waking people up will make them more likely to do as they’re told. “Yes E-Plus, I will put hundreds of euros on my phone. Just please let me get some sleep!” Maybe I should try it. I’ll call random friends when I know they’re sleeping and demand money from them. I’ll either end up rich or friendless…
Usually I don’t let it get to the stage where I have literally no money on my phone, but this time my boyfriend ruined that plan by answering the phone when I tried to one ring him. Who picks up on the first ring anyway? I bet if I’d actually wanted him to pick up it would have taken 10 rings, or 15 or 20. I suppose E-Plus is right really, I do need to top up my phone. But with what money? Hmmm? Answer me that one you lovely people at E-Plus.

There are many things I would like to do if I had money. Move out of this place for a start. This morning I had to spend 10 minutes cleaning the mud out of the bottom of the shower before I could actually get in and wash myself. Thank you so much whoever left the mud in there. I need to do some washing as well but I can’t… until Friday! There are 2 washing machines in my building. Two! For more than 100 people! To use a washing machine you have to get an appointment. So yesterday before work I trailed down into the cellar to try and get an appointment… There were no appintments left at all yesterday. For today every slot between 6 (when I finish work) and midnight (the last slot) was taken. Same for tomorrow. I managed to get one appointment for Friday evening. That’s one load of washing, two if I time it exactly right and manage to first get my washing into the machine dead on 7:30pm and then manage to get down there with my second load just as the first cycle finishes. Doing laundry in this building is a fine art.

I also need to get new clothes when I finally have money. Clothes for the summer. I’m not just saying this in an “I am female and I really need new clothes beacuse I just do and that’s all there is to it, ok?” kind of way. I really, really do need summer clothes. Or at least summer clothes that are suitable for work. I’m currently sitting here in brown pin-striped trousers, a top with three quarter length sleeves and a pair of boots with fur inside them. Yes, fur. My feet a boiling and I’m not even at work yet. So I need shoes. And I need skirts so my legs don’t have to boil in trousers. But most of all I just need money!