4AM

Well, nothing brings a group of people together so well as ... a 4AM fire alarm.

To be fair, while I was in my pajamas and in bed, I wasn't asleep quite yet. I'm still getting used to the various pings and creaks, as well as the drunks wandering the streets, screaming, shouting, cackling, and raucously carousing in a way that really makes me wish I had brought Frederick so that I could run them over. (Homicidal? Sure, but you'd feel the same way at 3:30AM if one of your windows didn't close all the way)

Out of nowhere, what was basically an air-raid siren went off, and I sprung out of bed in terror. First at the horrific noise, but a second later out of panic - my room is separated from the rest of the rooms by a small hallway, so it sounded like it was just sounding in my room alone. Nothing was smoking, none of the hobs were turned on, the microwave hasn't been touched, but I wondered if the excess heat from the heaters (I have to crank them to cover the cold air from the window) had triggered it. I fanned the alarm for a moment, then sucked it up, put on my coat and shoes, grabbed my purse, and wandered into the hallway, where everyone was slowly wandering down in various states of dress and bleariness. 

Turns out everyone was feeling guilty, but everyone stayed in remarkably good spirits for a 4AM wakeup - please to note that, since we none of us saw any smoke, we all just stayed inside in the main hallway - way too cold outside. When the firemen arrived, they did a quick search, then checked out the fire panel. The facts were these: right in the main hallway, there's a fire alarm button (push in case of fire) - the button is usually covered by a plastic cover... which was lying over by the window, leaving the button exposed. Someone had obviously come in and accidentally bumped into it - no burnt popcorn, no overheating heaters, nobody smoking out the upstairs window ... (wink wink) :) Best part? The main hallway has a CCTV camera, so we don't all have to pay the fine for the firemen being called.

They managed to turn off the air raid siren, but something was kind of screwy with it, leaving a 3 second interval beep, which sounds rather like submarine sonar. Unfortunately, they didn't have the key to turn it off, so we got to listen to our main hallway beeping for the rest of the night.

In not so great news... it's still beeping. Nearly 6PM later, and the beep is still there. While I'm hoping that when James (Finally!) shows up to fix the beep, he'll also bring a ladder and hammer to bump my window back into place, I'm frankly hoping that this happens sometime before, say, I graduate.