Baby rats!

I've acquired a young mummy rat, and 7 beautiful bouncing babies! The mum is called Lavender and is an absolute sweetheart, only a young thing herself, and her babies, I'm guessing are roughly 3.5-4 weeks old. They're all so gorgeous.

Looking at them makes all my problems seem to melt away...I feel like rescuing is what I'm meant to be doing, for once I feel at ease with myself, a sense of purpose and self-assurance, it's great!

What to do when you're bored...

...and time doesn't move fast enough. Iuno.
No one's emailing me back fast enough, and I want to get on with things I need to wait for. With just two weeks left of Uni, I just want all my work done and out of the way so I can get my job and move house!!!
Hopefully in the break between finishing Uni for summer, and moving house, we can squeeze in a trip to Ikea, one of my favourite places in the world :P Need to buy some useless kitchen items in the hopes of having the time to make proper breakfasts.

On the interests front, I've had to put horseriding aside yet again, but rats are coming into play stronger than before. Sounds obscure, but there is actually a nationwide network of rat fanciers who show their rats and even more who rescue. I've been scouring the internet again looking for rats nearby in need and no one's answering my emails! My relationship with my own rats has improved as I've started to take more control of things - I'm working on getting Rufus to lose some weight whilst keeping my oldies in tip top shape.

Ooh that reminds me, I'm going to start a webcomic on here, rat-related stuff. I want to eventually become a children's illustrator so hopefully these comics will lead me on to publishing my own rattie books :)

A job!? Yes please!!!

HU YEAH! If you have the balls to go in and ASK for a job, it raises your chances CONSIDERABLY!
Omg omg omg It's only a receptionist job, but it's employment! It's getting paid! Oh gawd I hope they want me - what I lack in any real experience I think I make up for tenfold in enthusiasm, especially when I think about how close it is to my soon-to-be house!!!
Tiny post, but a hopefully motivational one - ask and you may receive!!!!!

Why living in your own house is better than Halls of Residence

Where do I begin?

Living in Halls alone, and having my boyfriend and friends living in halls while I visited has made me realise there is just no competition when it comes to figuring out where to live. In halls, we get radiators running constantly, unreliable showers and taps, a fluffy toilet lid (oh wait, that's 10 years of DUST) and ornamental extractor fans (god forbid they actually function!). And that's just the buildings themselves! I haven't even got around to mentioning the types of people that they sling us in with!

For me, I ended up with a bunch of huge German engineers, that actually turned out to be ok guys, but were terrifying and totally inconsiderate when it came to fridge space, kitchen use, and having parties til 4am without inviting the rest of the flat.

My boyfriend has had the pleasure of spending his first year of University living with a bunch of non-toilet-trained gorilla men who like to defecate and urinate anywhere but inside the toilet bowl, not wash a thing, leave crappy rap music on full blast while they go home for the weekend, oh and beat their girlfriends at any given time of day.

My best friend gained a new sleeping pattern thanks to her flatmates leaving at 12 midnight and returning at full volume at 3 on the dot, smoking pot in the kitchen, trashing the place, bringing strange boys over (to a girls only flat) and generally making life hell for her (not to mention the silverfish problem and the liquid crap leaking from the middle toilet ceiling)

My other friend dealt with crappy music, smokers, and then foreign exchange students that didn't bring any of their own stuff, or buy any of their own food - they just used everyone elses!

The cleaners were a joke - Kim and Aggie would be having words, the security is ridiculous (they refused to attend to a boy throwing his girlfriend down a set of stairs, and a guy that almost got broken into while he was still in the room)and overall it just seems to make everyone's first year at Uni an absolute misery.

So...this summer, me, my boyfriend and best friend are renting a house! :D Not only that, but my beloved ratties are coming with me!

So we have to pay the bills separately, at least we'll be living in a secure, quiet house, with our own spacious rooms, double beds, everyone in the house knows how to use a toilet correctly, basic hygene can be followed, we won't get told off for having a BBQ or a chip pan, we don't have to share our space with morons that can't wash a dish or even a work surface. No worries about people stealing things and having them broken/soiled.
OMG we'll have FREEZER SPACE!!! I know it sounds like such a small thing, but being able to buy meat from the market in bulk and freeze it to use as and when we want is just...it's amazing.

My poor boyf hasn't had a scrap of freezer space, and some gross fool didn't put their milk lid on properly, or stole some of his and didn't tighten the bloody lid, causing it to leak, go bad and cause an epic stink. No one would admit it was their fault, so the stink, and the puddle of rotting milk remained, for months. Someone removed the salad tray, and a cleaner had a little go at it (god bless her) but it did nothing, the fridge was covered.

I resorted to cleaning the fridge with actual cleaning products and it worked for like...a day. I even had to turn the coolness up because it was on like, 3...out of 10, no wonder all the food was going bad so fast - we had some philadelphia spread that's meant to last for weeks grow a fetching green hairdo after a few days.

It disgusts me that they even deem the place suitable for people to live. And I can't wait for the house. There will be updates on the move once we're settled and I'll list even more brilliant reasons why it is so much better to live in your own house than skanky halls of residence.

Recipe: Chicken Korma

Since my first year of Uni, I've only had three major cooking disasters. One involved some charred chicken, one involved a potato in a microwave and a lot of black smoke, and the third was not my fault, but the pans...or more accurately, the electric cooker rings. I personally think they're more dangerous than gas ones, but any idiot with no intention of cooking with a gas fire is the reason we're stuck with these.
Anyway, pan coating - it comes off cheap pans and makes your food taste nasty. If you're not a budding chef, a couple of cheap stainless steel pans will do for you. My boyfriend and I are on our second set of pans and our ceramic pot replacement (for stews). We now have stainless steel gear and hope we'll have more luck with it!

Anyway! On to the recipe! Well..it's not so much a recipe as a set of instructions. It's a totally simple dish, that's not insanely bad for you (well, at least better than microwave junk), really yummy, really filling and actually pretty cheap if you know where to get everything.

Chicken Korma!

This was one of our favourite meals for an entire semester. It serves either four quite neatly, or two with leftovers for lunch the next day (it tastes just as good cold!)

You will need:

-Korma sauce (cheapest place to buy sauces is usually Home Bargains - Pataks Korma, our fav is only 69p a jar there, as opposed to Asda where it's about £1.50!)

-Easy cook rice - the cheap stuff. There's not much difference when it comes to this kind of rice. If you have no confidence with real rice, feel free to use microwave stuff if you can stomach it.

-2-4 Chicken breasts. Lol, I said breasts on the internet. Make sure they're within date, fully defrosted (you can freeze meat on day of purchase and use within 3 months, you can also defrost in the microwave if you forget to take it out the night before)

-Naan bread. Whatever flavour, brand or size you like. Asda's own are a pretty good deal, we tend to get 2 packs of 2 naans for about £1


Instructions:

1. Boil a half kettle of water. Get large pan ready for the rice.
2. Whilst the kettle is boiling, wash the rice in a sieve. Use about 1 cup per 2 people - it expands by 300% when cooked!
3. Once the rice is clean, place it in a pan and pour in the just-boiled water til the rice is about an inch under.
4.Leave the rice on a medium-high heat until boiling - then remove from heat and put a lid on, stirring periodically and adding a bit more water if it looks a little dry.
5. Cut the chicken breasts into bite sized chunks and pour some vegetable oil into a frying pan. Cook the chicken on a medium heat until white all over. Cut a larger chunk in half if you think they're done, to make sure there is no hint of pink in the centre. If need be, let the chicken brown a smidge.
6.Pour the korma sauce into the frying pan with the chicken once it's cooked, simmer it gently for about 20 minutes or however long that particular brand needs. Believe me, sauces taste different if they've not been properly cooked through for long enough. Stir it to make sure it doesn't boil over or burn to the bottom of the pan (a common problem with electric hobs)
7. When you have about 5 mins to go, sprinkle some cold water on your naans and place them on a grill or baking tray under a hot grill, turning halfway through cooking time.
8. When everything comes together, you'll be enjoying some true student comfort food.

:)


Warning: Remember to be SO careful handling raw chicken. Wash EVERYTHING it has touched, including your hands, VERY carefully! I can't stress this enough, food poisoning is the worst, you don't want it.

Hygene in Halls

How to stay healthy during your stay at Halls of Residence.


If your halls are anything like the ones I've visited, you'll know full well why I'm writing this. I know that certain standards have to be met by the halls of residence for students to live in them, and some are better than others. Despite this, there is a different person living in each room, every year, and over the years, stuff's going to build up.

First off, the carpet. It'll most likely be that wirewool chord type stuff you remember from primary school. When you move in, be sure to throw some baking soda over it and hoover it up before you get your stuff in - that'll sort out all the little buggies in there, and all the other bits of fluff, hair, food and bacteria from previous students.

Secondly, the walls. I know this sounds weird, but my boyfriend noticed some splashmarks up his wall in halls. We sprayed some antibacterial bleach spray to get rid of them, and the wall was a shade lighter in that spot! We then went over all the walls with the spray - no harm done to the paint, the room looked brighter and we felt way better for it!

Not much you'll be able to do about the mattress unfortunately, apart from double up on bottom sheets and wash your bedcovers at least once a week.

Drains: if your room has its own sink, throw some bleach down there. If the room has a bad smell, it's probably the stagnant dirty water in the drains after a summer of no use. Bleach the whole sink, and the taps completely too, just to lift any dust, mildew and mould. You'll be washing your hands in that thing remember.

Handles - anything you touch, or put stuff on, you should clean and polish first. Door handles, locks, drawers, everything. Sounds like I'm going overboard? I get my boyfriend to do all these things on a regular basis, but unfortunately his flatmates don't. He picked something up from one of them (shared bathroom) and ended up bedbound for 12 hours, throwing up 11 times before we could get a doctor out to give him an injection. Fun eh?

Kitchen area - Wipe down all surfaces before you start cooking, keep your own cutlery and utensils away from everyone elses, don't let it all stagnate in the sink, and make sure you clean your cupboard area out too before you put your stuff in. There was a spider in one of the kitchen cupboard in my first year - a big one. So you know it wasn't short of things to eat either.

Bathroom - "But the cleaners come in and do that for us" I hear you say. Once a week, for some flats is NOT enough. If you're within earshot of the bathroom, you'll know what I mean, and probably want to throw some bleach down before you use the toilets too. In saying that, some are cleaner than others, some cleaners are more thorough than others, but you don't want to leave your health in someone elses hands. E.Coli is a serious virus, so always make sure you have some toilet cleaner to use (and clean the seat and handles as well) at the opposite end of the week to your cleaner, so it's getting done twice. If you get to know your flatmates, you could even chip in together for cleaning products or have a rota of who does what.


Food Hygene
I have a strong need to add a bit on food to this post. When handling raw meat, especially chicken, you MUST wash your hands and anything else that has touched the chicken. You can't afford to forget about it, and always make sure it's cooked through, right to the centre - no pink.

If you have leftovers from dinner, be it pasta, pizza or even a sandwich or something, wrap it up airtight, in a container, tin foil or cling film and put it in the fridge once it has cooled to room temperature. It should then be ok for up to two days.
If something is left in your room overnight, don't even think about it - the heat will have more than quadrupled the number of bacteria living on it.

Student Security

One of the things that is often overlooked by new Uni students is the security of their Halls of Residence. Take my word for it, just because there are a handful of security staff about doesn't mean they're going to catch someone hopping in and out of your open ground floor window with your laptop and anything else worth selling.
Having spent two freshers at halls now, it's become apparent just how insanely confident fresher thieves are-we've been on site at the time of a robbery and didn't see a thing til it was too late.
In early-mid September, it's still pretty warm, so most of us will leave the windows open to let some air into our pokey little study rooms, and never stop to think that someone would have a go at nabbing your stuff while you run off to the bathroom or kitchen for a second.
Flat parties are also a time to keep watch. Lots of people flooding in and out of an open flat where all the doors are open because that's the sociable thing to do. It only takes a theif a couple of minutes to scope out an empty room and clear out all the valuables.
One time a taxi driver told me that they got a call to my Halls of Residence and there was a guy waiting with loads of boxes and bags. He made up this story that he was getting the train home with all his things but in reality he'd just stolen from several flats in one go and the poor taxi driver had inadvertently helped him escape! He said he looked just like a student and was perfectly calm. He had no idea this guy was up to no good.
The police tend to have a much greater presence over freshers than the rest of the year, as it's become tradition for thieves to prey on the unknowing first years with their brand new shiny laptops and phones. Don't let yourself fall victim to guys like this. There are some very simple things you can do to prevent being broken into.

1. Lock your door after you - especially if anyone else in your flat has an open door policy. If they're letting strangers in, you need to look out for your own things.

2. Make sure you're covered - some of our parents insurance companies might cover contents in halls of residence but some don't, get your parents to check.

3. Only open your window when you're there - even on the first and second floor. You won't believe how determined some people are, don't give them an opportunity.

4. Don't lend anyone else your keys - even just to 'run back and get something they forgot' - usually happens when people are drinking and moving from flat to flat. Unless you've known the person long enough to know they're trustworthy (I mean like, friends before Uni started), don't give anyone your keys.

5. Take the police's advice (and freebies) - this freshers the Manchester Police were giving out timer plugs, UV marker pens and stickers, and little bells to put on your bag/purse to alert you of pickpockets.

6. Keep your cash somewhere safe - hide your wallet rather than leave it out on the desk, and don't keep more than £50 in cash at any one time. Insurance companies only tend to cover about this much in the event of theft.