Everything you’ll learn living in James Baillie

The sesh never stops. Literally.

No matter what day of the week (or what time of day), you will be sure to hear the unmistakeable thump of some flat’s pres. Up at 8am for a 9am lecture? Expect to bump into various drunk souls returning from their nights out. Don’t be surprised to find yourself stumbling home at 8 just in time for your own lecture either.

7.46am on Monday morning, Priya’s night is still in full-swing

We bought a disco light and it makes all the difference

It gets too much for some

The walk from the kitchen to the rubbish bins is a bigger effort than the walk to uni

Sure, James Baillie is conveniently close enough to Uni to be able to roll out of bed half an hour before your seminar and just about make it in time. But the TREK to take out the bins always proves too much for some, and so the smell of old rubbish that hits you upon entering your flat starts to become scarily normal…

A view from behind the bin

What’s green, fluffy, and used to be edible?

That’s right, a plate of food that’s been forgotten in the kitchen for 3-4 weeks. A highlight (or rather lowlight) of my flat’s cleaning experience has to be a bowl of spaghetti hoops that was discovered underneath a magazine behind the curtains after god knows how long. The number of plates, bowls and mugs that have been thrown away to avoid washing away the mould is growing by the week.

Believe it or not, this used to be a pack of baguettes

You can still convince yourself you’re living in luxury thanks to your en-suite bathroom

If your kitchen is growing fouler by the day due to hosting pres every night and leaving your drunk food out before crashing, the only consolation to be found is in your private bathroom. Struggling to locate a single clean plate? That’s okay, you can still brag that you’re living the high life, even if your shower is at such an angle that you have to stand on your tiptoes to clean yourself.

Whereas in Devonshire, a baggy on the floor or a mug full of cigarette ends may reward you with a disciplinary meeting and disapproving looks from others in your flat, in JB, I am yet to encounter a block that DOESN’T have a lingering smell of weed as you walk upstairs…

Maybe heat detectors in place of smoke alarms are really a gift from above.

Not a mug that should be ever used for tea

Uni work and lectures are really getting in the way of my social life here…

When hearing your alarm at 8 in the morning, its all to easy to convince yourself that you need the extra few hours of sleep more than the lecture you should be attending. Anyway, it will be recorded to watch later, right? Wrong, ‘later’ will never come, as once again the call of your mates to get you to come out clubbing with yet again win, despite your cries of how broke you are, or how ill, or how behind with work.

Jess, revising for her philosophy exam in a room full of intoxicated friends (she slept through her exam the next morning)

They also give us mood lights (which look great combined with vodka bottles)

Sub-wardens are a myth that everyone is yet to encounter

We’ve all seen the posters with pictures and names of these mythical authorities, but are all yet to discover if they even exist. Whereas I’ve had nights in Devonshire and Oxley that sub-wardens have told us to keep the noise down or to move the party elsewhere, JB is unbounded by rules and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

If you don’t use squash as your vodka mixer, are you even at uni?

So despite having to cope with the horrendous smell of kitchens and struggling to get through a day without needing to take a nap, James Baillie is where we all know we were destined to live. All of the above, good or bad, are making first year the best, and definitely most memorable, year of my life so far.