Kitchen Troubles

Ah, student dormitories.

You get the odd quirk in your kitchen that you tend to get a little fond of, never mind how annoying you thought it at first.
In ours, we had a dented oven door that just wouldn't shut. It would creak open relentlessly and let all the heat out, and in the end we gave up trying and propped a chair against it.

It was annoying at first, definitely, and we complained about the 'shitty oven' whenever we used it.

It became a conversation starter for us too, when we were just standing about aimlessly waiting for things to cook.

I admit to using it a few times because I am a boring person and a complaint always gets the conversation going, then we could proceed to grumble about the state of the rooms, the dilapidated old building (I hear it will be knocked down soon), and conclude, in the end, that ours was better than the other buildings because of the en-suite facilities.

 We wrote in to the accommodation team, appealing for them to come in and get it fixed but somehow they never got about to doing it, and we gave up emailing them.

The chair became a handy place too, and I enjoyed sitting down there with a book and I could keep a very close eye on the pot instead of walking to and fro from the table to the stove/hob.

One morning, I was woken up by the accommodation staff for their routine health and safety inspection check (which took no more than 4 seconds, I swear I'm not exaggerating- they just marched into my room and took a look at my shower and probably gave the room a quick once-over during their march-in and out, because they thanked me and left immediately after)

And apparently they got the oven door fixed as well because my housemates were sitting about the table at lunch talking about it, and we each took turns to open and shut it, marvelling at how it was working again.

We kept the chair there for a few days, though, forgetting it was completely pointless until it was moved away during a late-night drinking session because there wasn't enough chairs.

Just today, one of my housemates commented that it felt a little weird having the oven door fixed. 

"I miss kicking the door shut and propping the chair against it, haha."

"Mmmm, same! I keep looking for the chair, and a couple of days back I dragged it over and propped it against the door because I forgot the oven's fixed now."

Well, at least the dent is still there.

Wonder if they can fix that too?

Helplessness

So, my bumbling phone finally died on me a few days ago.

I was expecting it, really- I would use it at every waking moment aside from instances where I'm at class/ doing work/ or on my laptop. Even while I was not using it actively, I'd usually leave the screen on and forget about it, or take the time to download some ebooks.

I feel handicapped without my mobile phone.

I went grocery shopping with my cousin, but there was a miscommunication with the meetup location and I had to run back to my dorm to get on Facebook and contact him.

Me   : WHERE ARE YOU??!!

Him : I'm at the train station?!

         Didn't we say we should meet there?

         Where are you?

Me  : I'm in my room, my phone has died.

        See you in a minute

        DON'T MOVE FROM YOUR SPOT

        DON'T MOVE OK I CAN'T CONTACT YOU AFTER THIS

You can imagine my immense relief after I finally met him (after running about for 30min trying to find each other)

I complained to my parents over Skype and they were most unsympathetic.

"How do you think we met up before we had mobile phones, huh?"

... ummm... pagers?

I applaud people in the past for being able to magically find their significant other, after months years of not being able to see each other and only communicating by letters. I'd like to think that post was not as reliable back then, too, and what if the other party never got your message?

You'd be standing at the meeting spot, desolate, that's what it would be.

*cue dramatic music and a thunderstorm over my head*

Speaking of unreliable post, Royal Mail managed to lose my REGISTERED mail. Good lord. My mum paid 20 pounds to ship it all the way here and it never reached me.

I really appreciate SingPost's (Singapore Post) efficiency and cheap prices. I would often send parcels to the UK to my friend in London for the equivalent of 50p to 1 pound.

My mum tells me they've recently upped their prices, though.