What a shock to my poor ears when I first arrived at my new college. The noise, day and night was making me very ill. I have never experienced such constant annoying noise ever in my life. The strange thing is that I seem to be the only one who notices it, and therefore suffers the results of it.
Coming from a lifetime of country living, I was only kept awake by the noises of nature. From the occasional cockerel, to the noisy horse in the neighboring field. In the countryside you could sleep in the day or night. You could rest any time, and read a book without having any distractions whatsoever. It was because of the quietness that I could really sit down and study day after day. I now look back and realize I took all that for granted.
After my first week in the dorm I had averaged only a couple of hours sleep a night. Why? Well where to start? How about the coming and going of cars and motorbikes outside my window from returning student from a night out? Luckily for me they would also have loud drunken conversations outside the window just to help the sleep pattern more. Add a little noise from the early morning cleaning and catering company, which gives an added bonus.
But the outside is only 20 percent of the problem, the inside is even nosier. It seems that there is always an army marching pass my door all night. And it seems every person is wearing high heels that really pound your brain as they clip clop past. Of course those high heels have owners, who with drunken squeaky voices and silly laughing, and they make sure they talk and laugh right outside my door.
Even inside the room I am bombarded with extra noise just to help me go further mad. My bed is next to water pipes that seem to bang all night as the water gets hot and cooler. The constant banging goes from faint to build up to a thumping five minutes of head banging noise, and then stops and starts again.
I do wear ear plugs, but they have not yet invented ear plugs that cut out all the noise. If only they had! The toilet in my room backs onto the toilet next door. Luckily for me I have neighbors who flush the toilet all night, and the system takes about twenty minutes to fill (noisily), before the flush goes again.
Of course I have a roommate who hears nothing. He can sleep though anything whatsoever. He can even fall asleep with the TV on, so I have to get out of bed and turn it off. He can even sleep though the blistering noise of his own snoring. It is the sort of snoring that sounds like a pneumatic drill mixed with a drum set. No matter what I do, he does not stop. In the morning he wakes up fresh, and I look like death warmed up.
As the weeks go on, the situation gets more of a problem. The days now include homework and exams. I have to say my essay editing is now suffering from lack of concentration because of lack of sleep. If this continues much longer I won’t even be able to spell essay editing.
I am trying to find off site accommodation so I can sleep, but that is down to my parents throwing more money at me. I hope they say yes, as I need the SLEEP!
About The Author:
John Patrick is now sleeping outside the college.
