A guide to surviving a week without WiFi in your flat

It's one of the many problems faced by all students who rent flats – sorting out the WiFi provider. In the glow of moving into your 'own home' and leaving behind student halls (which you quickly realise you severely under appreciated) you forget that ahead of you could be weeks without one of the ultimate necessities for any uni student. With the date finalised for the installation of your internet, the waiting game becomes even crueler as the countdown begins. So, for anyone still in this hellish limbo, here's a few tips and tricks to aid your suffering. For those who can bask in the glory of internet, it's time to learn how the other half live.

Singing along to ABBA is life

There's no better fix for that early onset boredom than a good old-fashioned singalong. Whilst the neighbours may not appreciate the Mamma Mia 2 soundtrack on continuous repeat for 7 days, it definitely helps pass the time. In the more hopeful moments of your day you may even find yourself dancing along, Colin Firth style (of course), performing your own miniature version of Eurovision. Other musicals are available, but with no internet you might just have to settle for whatever you've got downloaded on your phone.

Drink your sorrows away

Quite an obvious idea, but no WiFi when drunk is so much better than when sober. Gather your flatmates and friends and have a night-out – in. A surefire way to make you forget the slow passing of time, drunk you will also find the smallest things entertaining or just be happy sat staring into space for a good half an hour. Alternatively, just go out and try to find any club with WiFi (Lulu's is your best bet).

Who even needs Wifi?

There's no such thing as strange

You'll find yourself doing some random stuff when you're not constantly staring at a screen. Confession time: we held a full on séance one night complete with Tarot cards and fortune telling. Although quite an extreme example, the point I'm trying to make is that things will get weird. My advice? Embrace it, otherwise you're never going to last the week.

Cook that risotto you always wanted to

Grab the cook book your nan gave you as a house warming gift and get cooking. With the extra time on your hands, making a curry that takes an hour or standing continually stirring risotto suddenly doesn't seem like such a bad idea. My flatmate bought a blender and made houmous. Treat yourself to the foods you would never normally get (we're talking camembert, smoked salmon, goats cheese, mascarpone) and become your flat's very own Nigella.

Houmous anyone?

You'll spend your life's savings on data

The moments when you cave will cost you an arm and a leg. In just over a week, I went through £24 worth of data, which I had to have in order to sort out the start of first semester and to figure out flat issues. The time will come when you are rationing your Youtube watching to one video before bed and suddenly you start texting people again like it's 2008. Even if you don't buy more data and instead resort to coffee shops with their beautiful free WiFi, you end up spending a small fortune on lattes and cake.

Your yoga skills will improve

Whilst on the subject of data, you'll find it suddenly becomes an elusive thing just when you need it most (and when you've sold a kidney to fund it). Good 4G service lurks in the weirdest corners of the old buildings of Edinburgh, meaning that you have to balance precariously on windowsills, lean out of windows and sit in arctic climates just to have a cheeky scroll through Facebook. The only benefits are that you spend a lot of time with your flatmates, as you all squeeze into the one place you get connection in your kitchen, and that the continual effort of balancing on ledges really helps work on the core.

Every cloud has a silver lining

Of course, your WiFi-less state is not forever, and when you finally have connection to the outside world you'll look back on the random things that happened in your week without WiFi with a strange sense of fondness.