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The Cambridge Chat Thread

fumblewomble

Me! Me! I want to start!

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Reply 1

Craghyrax

Nice one

The other one refuses to close. I think its a bug with the site change - I'm sure I heard something like that. I'll report it anyway. Busy writing a reply to your suggestion fumblewomble :smile:

Reply 2

groovy_moose

I can't believe how many of these chat threads i've seen come and go now...

Reply 3

minimo

ditto moosey :biggrin:

GESAR: i don't know your name (I'm sure you told me but I'm a dimwit) so I cant add you to the event, can someone else do it? x

Reply 4

Craghyrax

fumblewomble

It is worth making your situation known to college - it's not really in their interests to stop you from working after all! Lots of colleges have 24/7 libraries with card access and it seems to work fine.

To be honest...
They do know but they're not motivated to do anything about it because people like me are in the minority. The standard line is that they don't want to 'encourage' people to develop unhealthy life patterns :eyeball:

Of course if they could have intervened when I was a little girl and started staying up late reading books under my quilt, their charitable interests in this respect may have been a bit more fruitful :rolleyes:

Ridiculous as that sounds, that's what the Fellows will say if you ask them, and they actually think that! I babysit for one of them, and he didn't seem able to actually get his head round the fact that it was reasonable for a person to operate outside of normal conventions! He had a 'don't be silly' attitude to it. I spoke about it at length to my grandfather, who is a retired Master of Caius, and he was worse! He got quite heated about the fact that it was totally nonsensical for me to expect my college to introduce a massive new development for a minority such as myself and told me I ought to be willing to adjust my lifestyle according to the resources and facilities available - after all everybody else manages fine so what's my problem?

So much for the attitudes....

Then for the actual logistics of the matter. I discussed it in length with the librarians who explained what the real problematic implications were:
1: Apparently they contacted lots of 24hr libraries who had recently changed, and many reported that although students *Said* they would use the extra hours alot, very few actually did.
2: Allegedly the Ward (our library) has the lowest book theft rate of any library in Cambridge by a considerable margin. They put this down to the fact that the entrance is always observed by librarians. (and also we can't take any bags into the library, but leave everything in the cloakroom - and non college members can't get in because the staff would notice instantly)
3: Apparently libraries with no librarians are not kept as tidy, and our librarians heard stories such as staff finding pizza boxes and the like lying around when they returned in the morning. (This I'm sure is true. John's had crumbs and wrappers all over the show, the smell of instant coffee and a yoghurt sitting on someone's desk. The Ward is surgically tidy... every surface gleams with polish and shine...the floor looks spotless literally all the time!)
4: They would have to install the necessary automatic equipment.
5: (This is the biggest thing I think) At present our books don't have security stickers or chips in them and a sensor at the door. This means that every single book in our library would have to be manually tagged in order to be able to set it up. It would probably involve employing someone for the summer to do it.

So yeh... that plus the attitudes I've come across...e.g. recently with our rooms point system, and last year with our May Ball - I feel very pessimistic.
But I'll write the letter.

Reply 5

Y__

I was at a formal at John's today, and I met smilepea :yes:

(I am 100% sure it was her).
Going out actually does help to combat week 5 :smile:

although I've not been productive today, in terms of work....

Reply 6

Melancholy

Craghyrax

Nice one

The other one refuses to close. I think its a bug with the site change - I'm sure I heard something like that. I'll report it anyway. Busy writing a reply to your suggestion fumblewomble :smile:

I nearly forgot to ask before... Did you take part in the Palestine protests in the Law faculty? :smile:

Reply 7

smilepea

Y__

I was at a formal at John's today, and I met smilepea :yes:

(I am 100% sure it was her).
Going out actually does help to combat week 5 :smile:

although I've not been productive today, in terms of work....

Yes it was me, John's formal was nice, ensuring the drunks were ok was not so nice :rolleyes:

In other new I GOT MY STASH TODAY!!!! :woo:

Reply 8

Craghyrax

Melancholy

I nearly forgot to ask before... Did you take part in the Palestine protests in the Law faculty? :smile:

Can you close our old thread? :poke:

The sub thread closing tool is broken :dry:

I didn't, but this was primarily because of work. Also I didn't agree with all of their clauses, so I wasn't prepared to be impulsive about jumping in. I attended the massive Palestine demonstration in London on the 3rd, and in our Ethical Investment (tiny) demonstration at the Senate House yesterday, but these are both events that you go to and return from rather than moving in somewhere in the middle of term!
I visited some people who were occupying and chatted to them about it, but was only there for 2hours.

Reply 9

Y__

smilepea

Yes it was me, John's formal was nice, ensuring the drunks were ok was not so nice :rolleyes:

In other new I GOT MY STASH TODAY!!!! :woo:

I'm going to sound enormously stupid now, but at one point I thought that guy was your bf because you cared so much about him being okay :tongue:

. But I guess girls are generally more caring about drunk people than guys are.

Reply 10

Melancholy

You big hippy, Craghyrax :tongue:

(I've closed the other Chat thread).

Reply 11

Craghyrax

Y__

I'm going to sound enormously stupid now, but at one point I thought that guy was your bf because you cared so much about him being okay :tongue:

. But I guess girls are generally more caring about drunk people than guys are.

I'm sure you'd be more caring than you expect if it was a vulnerable drunk girl!

Reply 12

fumblewomble

Craghyrax

To be honest...
:blah:

I feel very pessimistic.
But I'll write the letter.

Hmmm. Clearly they have looked into the issue then.

Would a study room in college do? You could push for a room to give you a formal work space that isn't your room away from distractions. That wouldn't have the problems with looking after books etc. After all, any supervision rooms etc wouldn't be used at those times.

It would also help if you could find more peterhouse people who would use such a facility.

Do hours change during Easter term?

Reply 13

smilepea

Y__

I'm going to sound enormously stupid now, but at one point I thought that guy was your bf because you cared so much about him being okay :tongue:

. But I guess girls are generally more caring about drunk people than guys are.

lol no

I just wanted to make sure he wasn't sick everywhere or made a fool out of himself :rolleyes:

Reply 14

Gesar

I still need to meet mathmos Zhen Lin, y__ and Squeezebox!!!

Reply 15

Y__

Craghyrax

I'm sure you'd be more caring than you expect if it was a vulnerable drunk girl!

Ah, that's true, I guess :yes:

.
Although I suppose that being taken advantage of is the main concern regarding vulnerability, and guys usually don't have to worry about that as much as girls do.