Desk borrowing

I am currently borrowing a fellow student’s study space, in a kind of desk-share situation where he never uses it and will only take it back when studying at home is no longer convenient.  It’s an odd, indefinite sort of situation where I don’t know how much to make the space my own but do have the freedom to do so because he never made the space his own.  In fact I had to ask the other students to clear the desk for me because they had been using it as extra storage space.

In our college live-in community the garages of one set of units have been converted into study spaces for the students.  The front of the garages have been made into storage shelves and the actual study spaces at the back are accessible from inside the building.  There are three single rooms on this ground floor which are considered the ‘quiet’ studies, each housing 2 students, and the bigger one with 4 students.  The remaining four garages/studies are interconnected and are considered the ‘big study’ or the ‘communal study’.  Each ‘car space’ has three desks in it. Many also have bookshelves of textbooks, including a small selection of the college library that they have made available for our community.

J has had a space in the big study since last year and I studied at home.  But I found that I was easily distracted studying at home.  It was so easy to get up and make a tea or get something to eat, or just do something else entirely (anything but studying!).  This was particularly easy because I was the only one in the house.  I made it through the year fine but I thought it would be useful for my study habits if I could get a space in the big study.

I made inquiries but the studies were pretty full.  Priority of course had to be given to students with children who therefore didn’t have a spare room to study in.  However I knew that one of the guys in my year at our community had a study space allocated to him last year but never used it.  He was happy for me to use his space until he needed it.

So I’m using his study space for now.  I’ve stuck some things on the wall, put some books and pens on the desk.  Having other students studying around me has really helped me to concentrate on also studying and not wasting time.  I don’t know how long I'll be here but for now I will make the most of it.  Back to it!