I didn't feel the earthquake on Monday night. I was walking to a friend's house after work with headphones on, and so far as I was aware everything was normal and if anything swayed a little I must have just put it down to my faulty eyesight.
When everybody was making Facebook statuses about the earthquake I felt a little bit like I'd missed out, but I was scared enough when I walked home later that evening.
Getting into my bed I realised that I had picked possibly the most unsafe space in my room for my bed, right under a substantial brick windowsill.
It would be just perfect if I were to be crushed by the bricks while I slept in my pigsty of a bedroom.
Probably no-one would even notice I was missing for a number of days.
In bed, I thought more about the construction of my flat.
It's an old industrial building down near the harbour.
Not only is it made from brick, possibly the worst building material when it comes to earthquakes, but its proximity to the water gives me nightmare images of waking up completely submerged with eels in my sock drawer.
But it's not just earthquakes that could shake the foundations of most flats in Dunedin.
If you blew hard enough on some flats, they'd probably come crashing down around your ears.
Living in Dunedin flats is almost like living outside in the winter.
I don't know any students who can actually afford to heat their flats, and most of us suffer through winter with no insulation and no heating in our bedrooms.
When I lie in bed, I can feel a light breeze running over any exposed skin, even with all of my windows shut, my curtains pulled and my door closed.
The external walls let wind and rain in, and the internal walls might as well be made of paper.
My flatmate wanted to hang a framed print on her wall but decided against it because she wasn't sure the wall between our rooms could actually support the full weight of the print and the frame.
And not only do the walls not keep out the cold, they also don't keep out any noise at all.
Anyone in shared living situations will tell you that intimacy and privacy are luxuries not reserved for those living in flats.
Last year, I lived in a terrace house and the man living in the room next to mine in the next flat over would set his alarm for 6am on a Saturday morning and then would just let it go for an hour and a-half before he stopped it.
I was also lucky enough to be privy to his most intimate moments and experiences.
This year, any conversation happening anywhere else in the flat might as well be taking place in your bedroom.
In fact, it's almost like having telepathic abilities that you never asked for and certainly didn't want.
Student life is pretty easy, really. But there are parts that are quite hard, like staying healthy when sleeping in your room is nearly as cold as sleeping on your doorstep.
I've noticed that I get sick more easily and stay sick for far longer when I'm living in a cold house.
Of course, it's not just student flats that have substandard living conditions; New Zealand has a real problem with housing.
And earthquakes are only the beginning of the problem: we're thankful when our houses don't collapse but we keep living in them when they're hardly safe for habitation.
Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
