Homepage.

WELCOME!

Welcome!  This diary will hopefully prove to be an entertaining read though that is largely dependant on whether anything interesting happens in our lives.

I should start off by telling you the reason that we have decided to set it up and also a bit about myself.  The main reason that we have decided to start up a website is that we need some kind of shared outlet to release our rage about the monster…more will be written about this in time.  Also, a reason more personal to myself than to Peet, I have a fairly bad memory of events due to years of excessive marijuana consumption and so therefore this will serve as some form of “cyber memory” for myself.  Hmmm…in a way I suppose that makes me part cyborg.  Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before I become fully transformed by technological replacements.

Peet and I met each other under fairly strange circumstances.  We are both second year students at Manchester Metropolitan University and didn’t meet until the beginning of year two.  Both of us failed to sort out any accommodation for our second year, as we were both intending to go on an exchange trip to America this year.  Us being fairly slack (and for other reasons such as money) this never happened leaving us with nowhere to go back to after the summer.  This meant that we were both suddenly thrown into the terrifying world of being “a homeless”.  Well, it was a truly unsettling experience.  My friend Simon met me from the station after a nightmarish 8-hour journey from Brighton to Alsager in which British Rail didn't fail to live up to their reputation as being shit.  I was feeling really ill as well and felt like I was going to faint on the train.  The harshest thing was the fact that I had no bed to fall into-only a floor to fall...erm...onto.  Nasty.  Basically I was planning to go up and find a room either in halls or a house.  This proved to be harder than I had thought.  I went to see the accommodations officer to ask how long it would be and although I was expecting to be “a homeless” for a week at tops the officer informed me that if I expected a place before Christmas I was being optimistic.  This put me in a pretty difficult position since I couldn't stay with friends for an entire term, also I only had the clothes that I stood up in.  Dilemma!  If there was no accommodation then I had nowhere to stay and therefore would have to give up university.

A couple of days passed with me feeling steadily more and more dirty and trampish.  No one understood.  I felt entirely separate to all of my peers.  I'd see someone that I hadn't seen all holiday and they'd have just settled into their house, would be all excited about it and I was just staying on a floor unsure whether I’d even be able to continue at uni.  It was hard to think about anything else and no one understood.  Being homeless temporarily knocked my confidence.  I know it sounds stupid being only a week but it's true.  You cannot be independent when you're staying at someone else's house, as every time you go out you have to make sure that you're with them so that you can get back in. Also, it's hard not to feel like your imposing even if told otherwise.  I can honestly say that I now understand how and why people end up on the streets.  I suppose it's all to do with dignity.  If you've got nowhere to go then being independent is the only dignifying quality that you can salvage.  This can seem more valuable than a roof over your head!

It was by complete chance that the tables turned.  I was sitting in the canteen chatting with friends and generally feeling like a bit of scum when Peet came over.  I didn’t really know Peet very well at the time but we had a few mutual friends.  He came over and we had the usual chit chat of “Hi…how was your summer?” and then the dreaded although anticipated next question “where are you living this year?”

'Hmm,well actually I am "a homeless" at the moment.'  I replied meekly.

'So am I!'Peet suddenly exclaimed.

It turned out that I was not the only one in this predicament as it had felt like at the time and that there was indeed at least one other normal person in the world who was going through exactly the same.  Peet and I finally had someone who understood what we were each going through and for the first time I saw a glimmer of light at the end of the cardboard box ridden tunnel.  Now that we were united in desperation there seemed no way that we would or could stay homeless for long.  We stormed valiantly into the accommodation officer’s office and proceeded to explain our situation.  She informed us that there were no houses in Alsager (a Royston Vasey-like village famed for it's inbred locals where we lived last year), but that there were houses in fairly nearby and slightly livelier Crewe. Within two days we had moved into our house and although we were a fair distance from the majority of our friends and our lectures, we had beds and a front door to which we owned the key.