On the spirit of Scrooge and when I grow old...

The days are getting shorter and colder, and as the weather brings across thoughts of Christmas, my thoughts turn towards not just home, but Dickens. Yes, Dickens and A Christmas Carol.

It was almost as if a light went on in my head since yesterday, and I begin to understand my landlord, and to gain something from it---which is how I don't want to turn out when I hit my fifties or sixties!

She really is Scrooge. She isn't evil incarnate nor is she poor--she goes on holidays to really far destinations, eats only organic food!---but just unreasonable, and combine with that, not being able to plan ahead so that leads to her trying to penny pinch.

she goes on like a broken tape recorder, I thought you would be in school on Monday, tues, wed, and on weekends, to which i calmly reply I am in school half of the days and now it's my assignment/exam time so I'm staying in my room to clear my work. i almost don't lose my temper anymore when i hear this because I'm so sick of hearing this phrase. The real reason, I think, is her worry that if i'm in, i'll waste heating and light energy. But i've talked to other landlords and they explained that even if I stay indoors twenty four hours, 7 days a week, it'll come up to at most 5 pounds more per week, on top of say, if i were already paying 10 pounds per week for utilities (which exclude the internet etc).

she turns the heating on very, very low when she goes out and whenever i ask her to turn it on---look i am not stupid and am capable of fiddling with the control myself, but out of respect I tell and ask her as she gets nervous even when I use the washing machine unsupervised---and seriously, it's a marked difference when her friends pop by and the heating is just nice!---and grumbles on and on that I am wasting electricity. I have told her i am willing to run to the kitchen and toilet and switch off the little heaters so that the heating will only warm up my room but she says its too troublesome (i.e. she rather i freeze over at 7-8 degrees...which no matter how many fleeces i put on, is too cold to work properly!). Then because she sees me going to the toilet in slippers---I'm not wearing socks to the toilet to shower!--and because she seen me once wearing my polo t-shirt with cap sleeves to the toilet---she insists it's because I am not dressing warmly. Ridiculous: i have never complained to her about how cold it gets only until I have already worn two fleece jackets, ad I don't ever stroll around the house in mini-tops and shorts! Plus the curtains in my room are affected by the drafts through closed windows, which means my room's walls aren't sealed properly!---and she keeps saying it's because i'm not wearing enough clothes until I started saying look, I am wearing thermals under my clothes, and fleeces on top of my shirts! She then counters that I must zip more tightly. sigh.

I have seen her using the microwave to heat bread etc, and when I wanted to defrost my cooked food in my tupperware which I did two weeks ago, she says I'm being extravagant. Seriously, it takes 7 minutes to defrost as compared to 20 minutes over the gas, and from my google research, she'll save only 18 pounds per year if I consistently use gas over the microwave! She follows up with a lecture that she's trying to save energy and the environment---i was laughing to myself because research shows that for the same food you use for the microwave and gas cooker, you actually consume less energy for the microwave (i wasn't cooking in batches, just reheating food!). The real reason is she wants to save er... 1 pound per month from my usage which is never more than once a day? She always leaves lights on in all the rooms, which irritates me (an irritation i keep to myself), as I think that's a waste of energy and it merely shows her lip service to saving electricity!)

But something has become clear. The room I am renting is full of junk in the cupboards--I know because I'm supposed to find free space in the cupboards to put my things---and I have seen her other rooms when she was preparing for her guests to stay over---it's amazingly full of junk.. so full that it's impossible to walk into the other rooms!

She's a hoarder. The worse thing is, she's a fairly ok financially middle-class hoarder, who has only hosted EFL learners who cannot talk to her, so that's why she's so darn difficult to communicate to. She's bossy, and authoritarian, which is why she thinks she has the right to tell me how to run my life, and to keep asking me to go out---sorry that's not within the tenancy agreement!

And she's not what I want to become. Something clicked clear this weekend, and there's something very pathetic about becoming like this!

i don't ever want to be like this. I have seen at least four other older people near her age who are generous and yet not extravagant with their money. I never want to become like this, encumbered by my many things that I can't let things go.

One thing I learnt from the move from C to London, and now from accommodation to, in few weeks' time, yet another accommodation, is that I never felt so encumbered by my books and clothes before. Things have a way of tying you down; your spirit down; and your priorities become fettered to your property. I haven't argued or been more firm as many classmates/friends told me to, simply because I dare not risk my things---my computer, some presents given to me by people dear to me, my certs, passport etc. Of course, if anything goes wrong, I can complain to the authorities. But what's the point? by then it's over and no complaining will bring back my certificates, for instance, to me.

I resolve not to accumulate too much things now though. Or at least, it's ok to buy things, but to let them go and allow others to benefit from them too. One person I know always has the attitude that she is glad for someone to be using something she doesn't, or whenever I tell her I passed something I can't use to someone else, her response is that of enthusiasm, because the thing isn't wasted/hoarded but used by someone else.

that's the kind of attitude I want when I grow old.

When I grow old, i may or may not wear purple, but I want to be a generous person. Oh bills have to be paid, feet have to be planted on the ground, care with money still has to be shown, but this sort of pettiness? Spare me.

On another note, for some of you---who have been very patient in not asking about C--- I'll explain more when I have got time.

For now, what I will say is this: it's like growing up time, in the sense of learning to have the courage to do what is right for me, even if pragmatically, the place---oh believe me, I do know graduating with a degree from C does carry prestige----has a lot of glitter to it. Faced with such a decision many years ago, I went with pragmatism, made the best of it, but always wondered what would happen had i the courage to walk away from it.

I guess I feel as if this time was a kind of repetition in a way, and I'm glad, for now at least, despite the many accommodation woes, the fear i won't do well or pull through my deadlines, that I had taken the leap.

So while these few months haven't exactly been very happy or productive academically---i am applying for funding etc so all my deadlines are messed up now---I have learnt and grown a lot, more perhaps, than if I had gone straight into student accommodation in UCL.