My Floor and Cooking

Ever since I first arrived in halls on my humble basement floor, there has been a semi-constant population of around 3 people which has fluctuated in my time here up until now. My room mate and I share a room on our floor, which has a maximum capacity of 4 people (2 double rooms, not 4 people to a room!) and the facilities include a large shower come toilet of about 2 x 2 metres (6 x 6 feet) and a massive kitchen comparatively to the other people who share our house all the way up to the 3rd floor (they all have tiny kitchens, which are generally cold).

Our first neighbour was a Turk, whos name was Mustafa, he stayed with us for a few weeks or a month- I don't really recall that well. All I recall of him was he went to the gym quite often up at the uni and would also take scolding hot showers - i.e going in there after he'd used it would be like walking into a sauna. My room mate and myself both agreed that he must have very thick skin or lack of sensitivity. However, he left as the boiler behind his wall was keeping him up and stopping his concentration on all things related to mechanical engineering. He thus requested a place at the newest halls of Imperial College and to our surprise he managed to swindle one!

His replacement appeared a few days later as he had suffered from a ceiling collapse in his room and needed a bed while they supplied repairs! After my room mate met him in the corridor; he came to the quick conclusion that this guy was stuck up as he didn't speak much to my room mate, Alex and came to the conclusion that he should be thus named Lord Fardquad (which stuck for about 3 weeks). As I had met the neighbour a day earlier I had come to a different conclusion; one that would proove to be more correct - he was infact the shyest guy I have ever met, very softly spoken and looking slightly lost. Thus we saw him from time to time - he seemed to drink a lot of water; that's basically when I saw him, and of course the time he locked himself out of his room at 2am at night as well as the time we watched how I met your mother.

His ceiling was fixed and he has now departed from the basement. He even left some mince pies, which to my room mates dismay contained Brandy (Mormon's don't drink alcohol). Now, today, we have yet another neighbour - and you may even be wondering why she was here (yes a she!). Well her ceiling also collapsed too (she comes from the same halls as the last guy). I was first alerted to her presence when I heard hysterical screaming as she first saw her new room and initially thought that she might be with the people from a few weeks back who decided it would be a laugh to drink in our shower. Consequently, I have not met her as I was eating dinner at the time and by the time I left the kitchen she was long gone. And so begins the 3rd incursion (how long will it last?).

On a final note I have a valuable lesson for all you cooks out there - likely you have already come to this conclusion - always remove your meat many hours in advance of cooking it or it will be unslicable! My cunning plan to get around this was to heat the still frozen chicken in the pan until I could cut it up, this worked eventually and after much struggling the frozen bird was sizzling away in the tomatoes.