Theguardian iconTheguardianSep 20, 2026 ~1 min source read

Water your plants and get an eye mask: 48 life rules every student – and adult – needs to know

Something that you can scale up to feed two or four without bankrupting yourself or showing off. So how should you socialise, feed yourself and look after your health?

Water your plants and get an eye mask: 48 life rules every student – and adult – needs to know

Share this story

Send the public story page.

Useful takeaways from this story.

You don't realise until you leave home just how idiosyncratic every family is, and how many of its customs are tacit, invisible, or maintained by someone else.

How would you have any idea which of your practices were universal, and which common courtesies your upbringing had totally skipped?

How do you even know how to keep your own body and soul together without the behind-the-scenes input of parents, who also have peculiarities of their own?

Building the complete brief

The page is ready to read now. The fuller skim-friendly version will appear here automatically.

The useful part

You don't realise until you leave home just how idiosyncratic every family is, and how many of its customs are tacit, invisible, or maintained by someone else. How would you have any idea which of your practices were universal, and which common courtesies your upbringing had totally skipped? How do you even know how to keep your own body and soul together without the behind-the-scenes input of parents, who also have peculiarities of their own?

How it works

  • Something that you can scale up to feed two or four without bankrupting yourself or showing off.
  • So how should you socialise, feed yourself and look after your health?
  • Something that is a full meal, covers protein and vegetables, and can be eaten over several days.
  • Suggestion: pesto pasta, but please always add broccoli right at the end – such a small price to pay to not get scurvy.
  • Something that you can make for others that is comforting and nobody can take against or be allergic to.

What to take from it

Something that you can just pour boiling water over, like a cup of tea, only it's food.

Details worth keeping

Now you're among people who emphatically aren't related to you. Something quick that has protein in it and is not toast.

Keep reading in the app

Open the app view to save this story, compare related coverage, and continue from the same source.

Open in app