...and don't panic! The Know brings you advice during housing
A true friend is always there for you, especially when you're drunk.
Miss Quit regresses to her childhood this week as the prospect of beginning the "University of Life" looms.
By a stroke of fortune, or rather the severe lack of it, inspiration for this week’s column came entirely of its own accord, when I found myself entirely destitute for the best part of a fortnight over the festive season. Well, as good as destitute anyway.
It all occurred within a split-second, in a shopping centre in London, mid-way through what had been a particularly successful shopping trip. Somewhere between paying for lunch at Bagel Street and browsing for last-minute Christmas presents at The White Company, I had managed to lose my debit card. One frantic call to my bank (three very strong coffees, and many calming words from my mum) later, I found myself devoid of any access to the green stuff for between 5 and 7 working days.
Only dogs could have heard the noise that escaped my mouth when I discovered this.
What was worse than the all-engulfing panic and stress that ensued from such a hapless situation? I could no longer shop. It is impossible to overestimate the comprehensiveness of this catastrophe. Spending money comes as naturally to me as breathing, and is often just as necessary for my existence. I am notorious for it, anyone who knows me will tell you the same. My fatal flaw, my one handicap, is the inability to keep money for a prolonged period of time.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me, by no means am I advocating a consumerist lifestyle. Quite the contrary. In many a way university life has considerably altered my attitude to spending, and whilst my mentality has been known to change with astonishing speed on a heavy night out or if I happen to spot a LAFI (life altering fashion item), I am becoming increasingly conscious of my expenditure, certainly more so than ever before. Try as I might however, I will always be somewhat economically challenged.
So there I was: the perpetual spendthrift without her plastic lifeline. Being at home resolved minor issues like feeding myself, yet I couldn’t help but feel that a fundamental part of me had been lost along with my card. My Independence.
There was no way of refuelling my car, ordering a taxi or using public transport, which made trips to anywhere further than the high street out of the question. Scrounging lifts off other people is both impractical and rather embarrassing for someone who has been driving for almost four years. The surest way to make your parents and/or siblings inconvenienced, annoyed and praying for your return to uni, is to be entirely dependent upon them for all transportation.
Alas, the old sayings are true. Money is freedom. Having some stops you from becoming a sponge. Eventually I gave up venturing outside altogether, more due to mounting revision than the regrettable lack of funds.
In a bizarre twist of fate (and logic) losing my debit card, my independence and a good deal of my sanity proved to be a veritable blessing in heavy disguise. It soon emerged that because I had no real means by which to distract myself with my admitted infatuation with shopping, I could wholeheartedly submit to my revision. No resentment, no procrastination, just lots of tea and reading. Whilst money is freedom, sanity, and really rather nice, it is also temptation to spend my entire degree in Topshop.
Perhaps poverty is the secret to academic excellence after all.
Nine days and a whole double folder full of notes later, my shiny new card arrived. The only problem was that my brain was so full of memorised facts that learning my PIN number proved almost impossible. I would not be surprised if there is an exam paper floating around somewhere with a four-digit number scribbled all over it instead of answers. Oh well, if all else fails I could always be a personal shopper. Making a living by spending other people’s money? Remind me why I’m doing a degree again?
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