Rayleigh 11

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Wow, we're nearly half way through the Blog Every Day In May blog-hop, and we're still going strong!

Day 12, Sunday: What do you miss? (a person, a thing, a place, a time of your life...)

This is an easy one for me.  I went to the University of Essex in 2002, and lived on campus in a small flat.  I shared it with 3 other people who I hardly saw or spoke to.  It was quite a lonely time for me.  However, after I graduated with my B.A. degree, I decided to go back (after a year off to make some money) and study for an M.A. degree.  But this time I chose to live in one of the tower blocks on campus (mainly because it was the cheapest accommodation there, but also because you shared your floor with at least 10 other people).

In 2006 I moved into Rayleigh Tower, floor 11.  During freshers' week I meet the rest of my flatmates, and found that I would be living for a year with people from Sweden, Germany, Korea, Taiwan, Spain, France, Pakistan, China, Malaysia, Greece, plus two others from England (throughout the year, one of the English and the Chinese left, and were replaced by people from Japan and India).

Because we had so many nationalities living on one floor, we all had friends from our own courses and societies.  This meant that our floor was the place for a party.  

Whenever one of us had a birthday, we'd always have a party.  And with 13 of us living together, that was a lot of parties.

Aside from the parties, it was great living with so many people as there would always be someone in the kitchen to talk to, have a cup of tea with, or cook dinner with.  It was great, as I can be quite boring when I cook, and one of the girls I lived with loved to experiment with food, so we'd combine various things from our cupboards and she'd come up with something delicious.  And she always made us a birthday cake.

My birthday cake - yum!

And there would always be someone to go down to the bar with, when studying was getting to be too much!

In fact, I would have to say that the best part of my whole university experience was living with this bunch of people.  Unfortunately, I have lost contact with a few of them.  We're still friends on Facebook, and so occasionally comment on each others' pictures or status updates, but that's about it.

I am just sad that this experience only lasted a year, and although I know we have to grow up and move on, I miss this stage of my life and wish I could go back and just have one more Rayleigh 11 party.