Special Post #48: Accommodation Series #18: Imhotep Is Born

part five of the nearly completed accommodation mini-series about my trials and tribulations to find a house for final year…

#9: Imhotep Is Born

We now have 6 people, a house and a contract. Operation house-for-final-year was nearing completion. The last piece of the puzzle for me was to meet the one housemate I didn't know... Simon.

Simon, like Katherine and Liz, is a Mathematician going into his final year of study. He seems like a really nice guy and I finally got to meet him just a week after the deposit gubbins when it was Liz's turn to get a year older.

We all met at a local pub and ended up having a really good evening. if Katherine had been there we'd have had a full house, but it was still a great chance to chill out as a collective for the first time.

There's just one small detail left in order to call the mission accomplished: a name. Every good house needs a name. Being a house of geeks, which is what we essentially are, we all love a little show called Look Around You. Produced by the BBC last decade, it's a spoof educational series that mocks those videos you used to watch in school when you had a substitute teacher. If you haven't watched any, and you like Monty Python, Blackadder, or Brass Eye, then I highly recommend it.

Our favourite episode is Maths. And since half the house are studying maths next year, it seems very appropriate. Skip to 2:46 if you just want the reference, but our new house name is IMHOTEP.

#10: Boat Bondage

To get to know everyone a bit better, and get a taster of how easy it was for us to live together, I suggested we go on a boat trip. And that's exactly what we did at the start of April. A week-long excursion from Swiss life to live up the Birmingham countryside... It seems a bit backwards to take a holiday from Switzerland in Birmingham, but I had a great time!

We all got on like a house on fire, so to speak. It's really made me look forward to living with them all! But the trip made me realise that something like that is what was missing from my house this year. I just turned up one day and started living there. No big hello, no trips, no parties... And that's maybe why our house has never felt, to me, like a home. We all go off and do our own thing, rarely around enough to wear the carpets down. While this year has been great, I'm now itching to move in with my new housemates.

Coming soon “Mind The Gap”