Eleven things you’ll undeniably relate to if you lived in Chamberlain halls

Chamberlain is definitely the best halls available at Soton, combining Glen's incredible location with double beds and en suites, luxury!

Thinking you applied to Glen, you ended up with these brand new rooms completely by surprise, and it was definitely nice to know you were the first one to use your mattress or shower.

Chambers alumni gather round while I reminisce on arguably the boujee-est halls in Southampton.

The undeniable best block rivalry

Among Chamberlain's five blocks, there were clearly some that were "cooler" than others. If you were unlucky enough to be stuck in A – the quiet block that was rumoured to be home to all students with peanut allergies, or B with the common room, you had to watch the carnage unfolding in the other blocks from your ridiculously large kitchen windows.

C and D always rivalled each other for the best pres, with both music and lighting (shoutout to that one massive party in D block 2016/17 with the cool lights). E was the kind-of-lit mate who could never really compete.

Only one word to excuse this poor quality: Samsung

Takeaway-gate

As Chamberlain was a brand new halls, no takeaway or Domino's driver ever knew what Chamberlain bus stop meant, which made ordering a takeaway a stressful business. You had to either walk to Hartley Grove, or try and explain on the phone where exactly they could find your hungover and hangry self.

To make matters worse, there were always the accusations on the (very underused) Chamberlain chat that someone had stolen someone else's Domino's, so you always had to pay with cash…which no one ever has.

Trekking to Hartley to meet the driver

The trek to Glen for a parcel

When the email eventually arrives in your inbox, telling you your parcel was ready for collection, the thought of walking all the way out of Chamberlain, across the road, and over to the other side of Glen seemed a bit too much.

So it was a very normal thing to find people collecting their Missguided order at 11pm in pyjamas (I'm unashamed to say I walked there in my slippers many times). But really this was all part of the fun of being a fresher, and not having your mum ask you "where are you going at this time of night in your dressing gown?!"

The lights that never turned off

The biggest killjoy of pres. The sensors in the corridor and kitchen always ensured you looked your ugliest before a night out. The only way to solve this was obviously to stick t-shirts to the ceiling over the sensors, and use everyone's desk lamps as lighting instead? It ended up looking pretty cool tbf.

Mood lighting…

The kitchen fans

Not only were there lights that never turned off, but fans too! Whenever anything was plugged into the sockets by the ovens, you were forced to listen to two of the world's loudest extractor fans for what felt like forever afterwards.

The solution? Put your toaster and kettle on the floor so you don't have to listen to the ridiculous fans for ages.

Shoutout to King

The bus vs Glen Nevis struggle

We in Chambers, like Glen, shared the horrific walk up the hill, but also the smug feeling of sailing up it on the U2B.

What could make or break your day however, was whether you managed to get off the bus from Sainsbury's at the interchange and catch the U2B that was just about to leave.

Let's just say lugging your weekly shop up the hill was not enjoyable, which is probably why the Chamberlain bus stop was always full of supermarket vans, when we all wised up to the magic of online grocery shopping.

The green

Chamberlain is nothing if not green, not just the big patch of grass in the middle, but also the overwhelming lime green kitchen walls, chairs and even corridors…seriously, it's all a bit much.

One good thing was the grass in spring/summer for revision, sunbathing and chilling – it felt like every man and his dog was out there. However, it was all fun and games until residence support came and told you to put the beanbags back in the common room because they were "for inside use only", *eye roll*.

In loving memory of Tarquin the trolley

The group chat that never got used

Someone's really well intentioned idea to create one group chat for the whole of Chamberlain halls. Everybody added their mates, but in the end the only notifications you got were everyone was leaving the chat.

The identity struggle

Chamberlain faces a unique struggle, it is in itself a halls, but also technically it's a collective name for Chamberlain, Hartley Grove and South Hill. This leads to some confusion, mostly on the part of Hartley and South Hill people, who will always claim they live in Chamberlain: wrong, wrong, wrong.

The weed corner

Being as the smoke alarms in halls are pretty damn sensitive (big thanks to the people setting them off in the middle of the night) everyone seemed to gravitate round the back of A block to smoke weed. Residence Support caught on to this pretty quick though, along with a nice little fine for those involved.

When your 6ft tree doesn't meet Residence Support's 3ft limit