Tomorrow, my last assignment for the first term of third year is due. After that, I have just one more term at university until it’s all over and the real word will, most likely, hit me like a tonne of bricks.
And I am dreading it.
Second Year Is Over: Stream of Consciousness
Stream of consciousness.
29th June. One month left of being a teen. How terrifying.
Second year was great. The course was interesting. I performed well. I had good friends. Good housemates. It was pretty chill.
I get an exam result back next week. If I get 70% then I get a 1st for second year. If I get 40%, I still get 67% for second year. I’m pushing for the former. Unlikely.
I qualified as an English as a foreign language teacher. Haven’t looked for jobs though. University has improved my confidence massively, but that’s still a nervy prospect.
I don’t want to be twenty. I like nineteen. The eldest teen you can be. Somehow twenty almost sounds younger. Back to the start. Like going from year 6 to year 7.
I’m back at home now. Home with parents. Not home at uni. Both still home however.
I’ve lost weight already. Two weeks here and I’ve lost four pounds. Proper dinners. No housemates force feeding me left over doughnuts.
Great to see my friends. Lots of them aren’t here. They’re still at uni houses or away on hols. But still some of my most favourite people in the world are in this little corner of the UK.
Think I needed to get away from my housemates. Any longer and drama could have occurred. Nine months is a long time. Some talking behind backs was beginning to occur.
Miss the access to NowTV though.
Oh Grey’s, how I miss binging you every day.
I bought a scooter earlier this year. Brough that home. Was like a mule lugging everything on the train. Scoot around my town now. Exercise. Fun. Gets from A to B.
Was meant to learn to drive this summer. Wanted my dad to teach me. Can’t get insured until 21y/o on my mum’s insurance company. Now they want me to get normal lessons. Another nervy prospect.
Learn to drive, but also, here, meet a stranger.
Gonna investigate that insurance company, Marmalade. Hopefully they can save me.
I really want some food. Just after I’ve said about losing weight. Irony.
Just looked out the window and the weather is so dreary. Doesn’t look like summer at all.
Might pop to the shops to buy some food or something. But then it’s food shop day tomorrow. To wait or not to wait. That is the question.
I’ve also really been wanting to write a poem at the moment. But I’m not very talented in the art.
A cliché 2016 look-back
I entered 2016 at a club surrounded by friends, I’m entering 2017 sat alone on my sofa writing this, and that sounds depressing but it’s not what you think. I had an offer to go out. In fact, I had an offer to go out to the same club as last year, with some of the same friends. I turned down the offer for multiple reasons. Expenses being one. Being a second year student at university I’m hardly rolling in dosh and New Years has never been an especially big deal to me, so I figured I’d just save my money. I also have some essays due in January, and because I’m working some ten-hour days really soon, I can’t really afford to miss a day of writing to lie in bed with a hangover. So I think I’m just gonna write this, then stick on a film and chill. My parents are going to have dinner with me before they head out to a party so that’s nice. Anyway, onto the really cliché telling of what I’ve done this year and why it’s been great or whatever and blah blah blah.
So, I entered 2016 at a club surrounded by friends and started off the new year quite nicely. Before I knew it I headed back to my university halls and got back into the swing of things. I can’t believe that now a year on I’m half way through my degree. How terrifying! So things kept going well, I felt quite on track generally with life. I was (and am) happy and still quite chilled out knowing uni didn’t even count at this stage. Though I still tried hard so as to prove to myself that I can do it and went on to get 69% overall. Firstly, yeah, ha ha, and secondly, how annoying that I was just 1% off a first! But anyway, as I said it didn’t count. Before that though, the latter half of first year was great. I had my two best uni friends by my side before they f’d off back home to foreign lands and was quite content.
It started off as a very good year for music.There was always a gig to be looking forward to. It started with City and Colour who I saw at the Brighton Dome and I’ve basically been wanting to see since I was around 12 so it was a long time coming and I loved it. supported by Lucy Rose who I’ve followed a little along the way so that was fab. Then I went to see Robert Francis up in London who I’d never heard of but my flat mate adores. He was very good and had decent support by the name of Anna Pancaldi. Then next, the main event! Adele at the O2. I absolutely love her. Incredible voice and one of the funniest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to be in the presence of. I then had a bit of a live music dry spell but in late November, I was back at the Brighton Dome, this time to see the absolute legend that is Jack Garratt. Now that guy has pure talent and anyone can see that. I dragged my two housemates along and they didn’t know of him but couldn’t deny his skill and pure genius. One of them managed to catch me a drum stick too. Front row. Amazing.
During the summer of 2016 I travelled the furthest I’ve ever been before, to Cape Town, South Africa for three weeks. Myself and a friend flew via Johannesburg to CT in order to volunteer with the non-profit organisation SAVE (I recommend everyone check them out, they do awesome things). I volunteered for two weeks on townships and settlements with the kids in the schools and spent free time with all the others volunteers seeing the sights and doing the dos of Cape Town. The kids were incredible. So happy despite having so little. They’ve 100% left me with something I’ll always remember and I hope I’ll go back one day. I went on a Cape Point Tour driving right down to the most south-western tip of the African continent, I trekked Lion’s Head, I got the cable cart up Table Mountain, I watched the sunset on Signal Hill, I sand boarded, I quadbiked, I went on Safari, I got a ferry to Robin Island, I clubbed on Long Street, I ate incredible food, I met some amazing people and made some hilarious and lovely friends, and I simply had the time of my life.
I came back from South Africa and spent the summer at home, working here and there to build up the money I’d spent while abroad, and seeing my friends at the beach as much as possible. Lots of kayaking. At the end of summer I said goodbye to a friend who was going to live in Australia. I’d spent the majority of summer with her so it was pretty sad, but since going there, she’s decided it’s not for her, so it turns out I’m going to be seeing her again this summer!
I headed back to university. Bit different to first year, I was moving into a house, a proper house, with a friend, a friend of that friend and pretty much a total stranger – I’d met her once. I walked through the door and I’d totally forgotten what the house had even looked like. All the doors were shut and I wasn’t sure when I opened the door which room I’d enter. I’d viewed the house back in January and it was then September so you can’t blame me! I got used to the house very quickly. Dad had put up all my photos the day I moved in and we’d hung the prayer flags I got in India, and a pin board. My room is quite big and it felt quite homely very quickly. I get on well with my housemates, and I’ve managed to avoid any drama, crazily it’s the boys who’ve created it and I thought boys were drama free, well how wrong was I!? I like to think I’ve been the voice of reason though any difficult times.
Our house is a short walk from uni, around half an hour, and being the grown up adult I now am, I thought buying a scooter would probably be a good idea. So I now scoot into uni on a regular basis, especially if I’m running late, and I just take it right on into my lectures and seminars. My tutors and class mates are used to it now and often ask me where it is if I’ve decided to walk in or grabbed a lift!
The christmas period has been great this year. I came back home and because I get on so well with my parents I’ve been very content. Christmas day was relaxed, with just my parents, my brother, and my grandmother and uncle. The food was brilliant – My dad outdid himself. On boxing day we headed to Essex to be with my mum’s side of the family and had a slightly louder day. Lots of cousins on that side and cousins that now have children too which makes things more interesting. With little ones wandering about, there’s always something to watch. Then the 27th was the usual tradition of turkey curry day at my Auntie’s house with most of the same people as boxing day. Then heading back home to get some work done. I’ve submitted two essays due for the new year and have just one more to write, but basically from scratch because I have done nothing, hence I can’t afford to miss tomorrow for a sore head.
So 2016 has been good. I’ve got into the habit of creating a collage of photographs for the year. I’ve done it now for the past 4 years and the volume of photos seems to increase every year. Whether that means the years are getting progressively better, more photos are being taken, or I’m just choosing to use more photos, I don’t know! But I’ll take it as a good sign nonetheless. If 2017 can have some moments of the same calibre, then I think I’ll be pretty lucky.
Freedom
I’ve handed in my coursework and on Friday 20th I sat my one and only exam. I think quite a few people have been rather jealous of my one, one hour exam: not too strenuous. Though throughout the year there has been some coursework, however not so much that I could complain, really it’s been very manageable. I definitely put the work in however. To do well in this exam I really had to revise, I’m not a person that can fluke their way through. Two types of people I hate in this world: people who don’t revise and do really well, and people who don’t revise and do awfully. So basically people that don’t revise. If you do really well then it’s just annoying for the rest of us, and if you do really badly then it just annoys me that you aren’t even trying! There’s a girl on my course who clearly did so much work for this exam and I really hope she does well. I feel like when people try so hard they deserve to do well. I’ve got my fingers crossed for her.
The exam was tricky and my tutor put in some really cheeky questions. Even now I’m out of the exam with all my notes I still I have no idea about some of the answers!
Find the verb form and category for the verbs in the following sentence:
The car that Jesse had had had it.
Just getting my head around what that meant took me a minute or two! Then of course I assumed the verb form and category can’t be the same for every one, so yeah, still not a clue. Grammar can be hard!
Anyway, now I’m free and I have 3 weeks of nothing, and literally nothing! I have no plans. I had wanted friends from home to come down to see me and hang out here as it’s such a great place to be, but everyone is always up to something or busy. I feel like people like to make themselves out to be more busy than they are these days. I’m never too busy to see a friend or call my mum or do something fun. We can’t live simply working away. I was speaking to a flatmate yesterday who told me he thinks he’s too busy to come out for a flat meal before the end of term and then he told me his plans, to me, about 5 out of 7 days he told me about seemed wide open. One day he had purely dedicated to revision. All day? Get up a few hours earlier to revise and then come for a meal. My point is that people need to stop making themselves think they’re too busy to have fun or to see friends when really it’s your choice. If you want to be ‘too busy’ then you will be, but if you want to go for a meal, then you make the time, but I think people have almost forgotten that it’s their choice to decide.
So, just 20 more days in halls and I’m out. I’m pretty excited to go home actually. Going home over the year has been sort of an effort because you know how short it is before you’ll be getting back on that train. This time I’m home for ages so it won’t have that feeling, it’ll be like I actually live there again. And yet again, the mixed feelings kick in. Excitement and sadness.
But as that extremely cringe-worthy quote says: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
A month and a half left.
I’m nearly done. Nearly done already! I can’t believe how quickly this year has flown by and yet really it’s only been seven and a half months, because university starts pretty late and finishes pretty early. When I finish, it will have been 9 months and 1 day. Doesn’t seem like a long time, does it? If someone said they’d taken up a sport and they’d been doing it for 9 months you’d class them as a beginner for sure. And I’m definitely still that.
It’s weird. It’s nothing like I thought it would be. It’s kind of like taking up badminton and finding out you’re playing tennis. Both racket sports but anyone who plays either can tell you how different they are. I came with expectations and worries and excitement. Some of those expectations were correct, others far from the truth, some worries warrented and others ridiculous and some excitement factors turned out to be a bore. It just truly hasn’t been what I’d thought.
I don’t work as much as expected, and most of it is easier than I expected (not easy, just easier) and I therefore watch a lot more netflix than expected. I don’t have as many friends as I thought I’d get, I’ve made friends with very unexpected people, I don’t spend all my time socialising, I don’t know the ins and outs of all my flatmates, I’m not friends with all my flatmates, but I like everyone in my flat, I don’t know the name of everyone on my course, I don’t spend all my money on alcohol (I actually save a lot more than I expected) and I don’t go clubbing every week. I don’t miss my family, ever actually, apart from the one time I felt really ill. I love my time at home, but I want to be at uni also, and yet I sort of don’t want to come back when it comes to sunday night. It’s bitter sweet.
I was talking to my dad as he drove me to the station on the Sunday night of the last time I went home. (It was the only time I’d gone home just because I fancied it, usually I have a reason.) I was talking to him about uni and how I still don’t have my head around it. Around the people and the buildings and the work and just everything. The people inparticular. People can really surprise you. You think you know them and then they do or say something that really shocks you, because really you’ve only just touched the tip of the iceburg. Seven and a half months is definitely not time enough to know a person. (I know for sure that my flatmates and friends don’t know me, properly at least. I haven’t really showed them.) Then there’s the friends I made at school. I’ve known them since I was just 11 years old and in July I’m 19. In 8 years we’ve grown up together and we really know eachother. There’s rarely anything said or done that surprises me. I know their characters and what they’re like, so with new friends it’s really odd to still truly be getting to know them.
I have just one exam this term; on the 20th May. I started my revision a couple of days ago and I’m really hoping to do well, but of course with first year not counting I’m not feeling overly pressured. When I went home over Easter, I purely hung out with my friends, we went to spoons way too much and just did this and that. It enfuriates me when people say they’re too busy to see their friends when we’re back home, it does in general, but expecially when the year literally counts for 0%. I want to do well, I really do, but imagine if my train had crashed on the sunday evening as I returned to uni and I had died. While I was on that train I had written my paper. I’d done a little that morning too and finished on the monday afternoon it was due. To say it was sub par is probably an understatment… I get the grade back tomorrow I believe so I guess we’ll see. But what if I’d slaved away during easter and not seen friends in order to do it and then died. I wouldn’t have even handed it in. I know, it’s a silly way to look at it, but really it’s true. We don’t know what’s round the corner, and I want my life to be filled with friends and family and no work is going to come before that. Once again my talk on exams and real uni stuff went back to friends and having fun! Anyway, I guess I’m just saying I’m having a laugh, and I’m doing sufficient to do well and that’s how I plan to continue.
Goodbye again?
It feels like months and months ago, even years ago, that I wrote a post regarding saying goodbye to my friends from home. Yesterday, I had to say goodbye to my friends from University, and I think it may have been harder.
I walked my boy to the bus station and made sure he got on alright, he’s a baby, and clearly needed my help… But of course, I didn’t mind doing it for him, afterall, he lives in the US, so it’s not as if I can visit him this holiday! As I walked away I was hit by the fact that I won’t see him for a whole month, and then after June, it’s going to be years before I maybe see him again. So yesterday was just a little taster for what’s to come. And I know I’m going to be a wreck come summer. We’ve become such close friends and living together means everything is much more intense. We’ve had arguments, and little spats, but we resolve them because you have to and because we wanted to. He really is a great guy, and I know it’s stereotypical and people hate the saying, but I really do feel like I’ve gained a brother.
After this, I walked back to the flat to be greeted in the kitchen by my fave. She’d just said goodbye to an American friend also who was only at our university for the term and won’t be returning after christmas, which gave me a little reminder of how lucky I am that my two best friends at uni are here for a year and not just the term. This girl is French and also leaving at the end of the year, so I’m going to be double the wreck in June! We walked to the train station together, she was getting a different train heading to Gatwick, while I was heading across country. I waited with her on her side of the platform until the train came. She hates hugs and I had every intention of letting her get on the train without one, but when the train pulled up I couldn’t do it! (And, unlike her usual half hearted limp hugs I’ve recieved in the past, when I hadn’t been aware of her dislike of them, this was actually a good hug!!) I crossed back over to my plaform quickly before her train pulled away and we waved and made sad faces through the window. Then it headed away and I couldn’t help my eyes glazing over. Again, another friend I can’t exactly just pop round and see.
My goodbye with another friend was a long chat on Thursday night. I sat on my chair in my room while he sat on the floor in the hallway. I’m not sure what we chatted about but we talked away until 2am. He’s the easiest to talk to and we could’ve gone on much later if it hadn’t have been for the time! We’re both extremely easy going and could talk about anything. Something about him makes me feel so at ease, I always end up telling him whatever I’m feeling and our chats have the ability to get deep really quickly! At one point I mentioned that me, be the lazy person I am, still hadn’t gotton a lightbulb and had been living in the dark for the last week. He said he’d get me one and he delivered it the following day. What a babe.
On Friday, myself and my American Boy (Estelle reference, wat up) made a slap up brunch. We needed to get rid of fridge food we had, as did another flatmate of ours who gave us bacon! So we cooked up the whole pack and some sausages and that same flatmate also gave us potato wedges. It’s safe to say we both felt extremely sick after this but we had some music on and it felt kind of like a nice goodbye meal. Many flats did a full on christmas dinner with all their housemates, but I was quite happy with this, I like all my flatmates, but there were four of us in the kitchen in the end and only my french love was missing, so it was still great.
Then on Friday evening I had time with two of my faves in our kitchen, chatting and half watching a film, then my American friend left to go out with some friends, and myself and my French fave were left to chat for a while. She went to go to bed, (because she’s 21 years old now and I guess being that old is tiring!;) and I went out to a flat party with a girl off my course. We didn’t know anyone there and simply walked in, but ended up having a pretty good night. This girl I’ve become close with fairly recently, and she’s my only real friend off my course. And you may see a correlation here, she’s also foreign, she lives in Paris, a little easier to go visit I suppose! BUT! She’s here for the whole three years! Thank goodness. I walked her home after this party and said goodbye and then took a soletary stroll home.
All I can say is thank god I live in this time, with internet, with skype and facebook and snapchat; the ability to have a response within seconds.
End of Term! Already?
It’s Monday, and on Saturday, I’m heading home for christmas. It’s true what they say about time flying when you’re having fun. I can’t believe how quickly this term has gone and I don’t want to go home! At the end of my last post I said about calling my mum every day, well that fizzled out. I call her sometimes, and we text, but I’m so comfortable and happy here that I don’t need that reassurance anymore. I’ve actually made some amazing friends which of course makes everything better.
The work load is okay, certainly enough to cope with, and best of all I enjoy it. Maybe some boring seminar prep seems a little pointless, or the reading assignments a little tedious when we already covered it in the lecture, but for the main part, it’s all interesting and the lecturers can be pretty good at making it engaging and even funny. I definitely chose the right course and I’m reassured of this all the time. If I didn’t like the course, I think my stress levels would be through the roof!
As I said, I’ve made some really good friends. But I’ve only made a few. It’s very different to a school environment and making friends is really different to how friendships formed before. Living with people makes relationships quite intense and you can form a fast friendship really quickly. I have a few housemates that are great and if it wasn’t for them, this blog post would be an extremely different one! We’re laughing together everyday even in the short amounts of time when we pass in the kitchen or suchlike. I adore living with everyone. Having people about all the time and someone to chat to; It really is the best.
As for living next year, I’m a little stuck. People are forming groups that they want to live with and I’m not. I don’t think I need to rush into anything just yet because we’ve been advised not to rent yet and the housing fare isn’t until February anyway, however we have the whole of January off, so that is a little worrying! The people I’m closest to are leaving at the end of this year, as they are foreign and came just for one year, and other people I know are living with flatmates or people from their course and it gets a little complicated. You can just live with a bunch of strangers I believe, but where I have the choice, I’d much rather vet the people I’m going to live with! I’m sure I’ll update on that at some point, as for now, I’m clueless.
I said I don’t want to go home. And don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to some time with my parents and seeing all my old friends, but I’m in such a routine here now, and I rule my own life. I can walk out the flat at 3am for a walk around campus, I know people will still be about and I’m safe, but at home I can’t do that. At uni, I eat what I want, when I want it, at home I’ll be cooked for, (which I am very excited about) but I don’t get a choice of what and when. It’s just a very different life style. However, as I say, I am excited to see friends and family!
Now I’ve nearly been here for three months, I can say I’m sure I made the correct decision. A friend who isn’t at uni said to me the other day that she was worried because she hasn’t fallen in love with an universities yet. Well I didn’t either. Where I am now was almost a luck of the draw. I didn’t want to go too far away from home, I didn’t want to go to London, and this significantly limited my options. The town I’m in is a very well thought of one and it’s exciting and fun, so while I thought the uni was okay, I took the plunge and put it first choice, and now I’m so so glad I did. I can’t believe that I could be happier, with better friends anywhere else.
Another friend of mine from school attends my university and I saw her last night for a gig we had arranged before starting uni. She said she could actually see a change in me, and I think I have too. I think my confidence has improved and I’m less interested in what people think of me, so maybe I’m more relaxed? If someone is going to judge me straight away, or on my clothes or something like that, I don’t care for their friendship. I’m much more myself now than I ever have been I think. As for confidence, I speak up in seminars so much more than I ever did in class at school. Maybe it’s because I like the subject, or actually know the answers a lot of the time, or maybe I just have gained confidence, I have a presentation on Friday, so we’ll see I guess!
I’m here!!
Well, I’ve been at university now for 13 days, so almost two weeks now. It’s safe to say I’ve settled in fairly well. I’ve certainly had moments of panic, moments where I’ve thought I just wanted to go home, but they were honestly fleeting and I was smiling again a few moments later. It’s a huge change. The biggest I’ve ever undergone in my life. Living in a new place, not only meeting but living with new people, leaving home, leaving family… cooking for myself! They’re all fairly massive changes, changes that I’m gradually getting used to. I’m learning how to do the things my mum did, from getting my veg into meals, to calming me down when I get stressed (already, I know! University work is hard!!) So I’m slowly getting there and I already love some of the people I’m around.
In an induction lecture, the Head of English said that one thing that should be absolutely certain with university is the changes you go through as a person and while you might not get an amazing degree, make sure you have an amazing experience and change throughout. (He actually said that the university will have failed us, and we will have failed ourselves if we come out of university feeling as though we haven’t changed, but he used way to much of the word ‘failure’ at this early stage for my liking! Anyway..) I genuinely already feel as though I have changed. I’m not a confident person, and I can’t say that after 13 days of being away from home I’m a different person and that the prospect of giving a presentation doesn’t scare me (it does. A lot) but I can say I feel as though I’m on my way to being that person, and that I’m already finding it easier to say hello to someone new or join in a conversation. When we’re all in the same situation it makes it a whole lot easier I must say. Everyone wants to talk and everyone wants to meet up, as we’re all in this situation where we just want to find our tribe. I’m currently still searching, but that’s okay.
I have to say, the work is hard, really hard. Already. I’ve had 6 hours of teaching so far and I had Wednesday and today off, and yet I feel as though I’ve been working fairly solidly. I haven’t had a chance to do any of the extra reading, as I’m too busy doing the compulsory reading. Sometimes it makes no sense. I’ve had to read the same paragraph around 10 times in some cases and sometimes I must admit I simply give up and move on. At the moment, it’s all jargon, which is of course tricky to take in immediately. I actually made a list of all the words beginning with ‘lex’ in chapter 1. They more or less all have different meanings, even if just slightly. They are, lexicon, lexeme, lexis, lexcalisation, lexicalise, lexical, lexical entry, lexical unit, lexicography, and lexicographer. I also counted these words said 12 times in just one ten line paragraph. I have to say I was more than baffled. However, what I do have to say, is that this stuff (for some reason) is what I find highly interesting. Maybe not all of it, but the majority. I find myself laughing out loud at things I’m reading because it’s just so clever, or literally saying “wow”! It confuses me a lot but it’s still something I want to look up and find out what I’m not getting. With the amount of work I’m doing, and know is ahead of me, all I can say is that I’m glad I’m enjoying this subject because if this was a subject I didn’t like, I think I’d have quit already.
Socially, I’d say that freshers week is overrated, and I kinda feel like anyone who tells you otherwise is lying! Maybe I’m wrong, who knows? All I know is that freshers was fun, it was good getting to know people, but because you’re getting to know people and you’re constantly talking, you’re mentally drained 24/7 and then you want to go out as well. I would say I had one really good night out, but the reality is that you don’t want to go out every night of the week (well I don’t!) so we didn’t really and I had some good nights in too. Making new friends is hard, hence why a lot of people spend freshers extremely drunk, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Good nights are going to come here and there and you can’t try to put them all into one week. I’m excited to get out again this weekend though, and now these people around me are actually my friends, it should be really good, better than freshers week, especially because we know the area better now, so hopefully Friday will run smoothly and the weekend will be a good one!
Final note: I’ve called my mum every day I think, and that’s totally okay.
and also, I’ve been reading all day and it’s now 11pm, so I won’t proof read this, sorry for any stupid mistakes, I know I’m an english student, but gimme some slack!
Saying Goodbye to Friends
What?! How is it possible that I’ve already said my goodbyes to numerous friends? I won’t see the majority again until the Christmas holidays. That truly does feel crazy. By the time I do see them again, I will have made multiple new friends (at least, that’s the plan!) We had our ‘Last Supper’ yesterday and 14/15 made it to the meal, and our absentee managed to make it to the pub afterwards. There were many goodbye hugs and it was odd because I didn’t really feel that sad, because it doesn’t feel quite real yet. It’s not a goodbye forever so I didn’t feel too effected by it, especially because we have social media to close the gaps these days.
I remember saying to a friend that we still had 4 months left until we would be leaving home and moving to uni, and we both acknowledged that we thought that time would pass extremely quickly, little did we realise just how quickly it would fly by! It feels like only yesterday I was sitting my exams and freaking out about getting my results, only yesterday did I have my last day at school, only yesterday was I boarding a plane with six of my closest friends, friends that yesterday (and actually yesterday) I said goodbye to.
It was an odd feeling. Just odd because you can’t quite comprehend not seeing these people every day when you have seen them almost every weekday for the past seven years of your life. It’s a hell of a long time to now be saying goodbye, to realise you’re only going to see them on holidays or here or there when you happen to both be free. It’s almost like our relationships have turned adult, because now when we see a friend, it will be for a drink at the pub, or having lunch in a little cafe or for a meal. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect us to suddenly be all mature and classy, but nor are fifty years olds when they get back with their old school pals – I’ve witnessed that one first hand! It’s just that idea of not seeing them every day which is odd, and that at uni, there are going to be new people who you see every day, new friends and new places to hang out. I think because I’m super excited for university now, it means these goodbyes were easier, and knowing that within three months I’ll be seeing them again, makes it okay.
When you think about the group of friends you’ve formed at school, everyone plays their role. The confident ice-breakers, who just makes everything less awkward, the peace-keepers, the jokers… You all just blend together to form this group. You couldn’t really have a group of friends formed purely of jokers, or peace-keepers, it just wouldn’t work. So with that in mind, it’s weird thinking about who you are within a group and if you’ll find your new group, your new role when you get to university. I’ve been seeing the word “tribe” around a lot lately. I feel like it’s kind of fashionable at the moment. It’s not really being used in its old definition of ethnic group or race, but as a group of friends (whatever ethnic group or race they belong to outside of their ‘new’ tribe. Well I love it. I love the idea of finding your tribe and just fitting in and working together to make this amazing friendship. Something about the word tribe makes it sound a whole lot cooler, so I’m pretty excited to get to uni and find my tribe, but I’m also already looking forward to Christmas…
The Big Shop!
I spoke to a work colleague this week who said her daughter last year had a bit of a meltdown in the middle of Tesco while they were acquiring all she needed for Uni in the so called ‘Big Shop’! An unexpected surprise for me, I was actually extremely calm. We went to The Range, pretty much one of my and my mum’s favourite shops! I mean what’s not to love, they have everything! However on this occasion, very unusual, my Dad came too (and I was very glad he did because he was the one saying things like “I’m sure we can afford an extra 50p for a plate” when my mum was suggesting the plain white ones that had chips before they’d even left the shop!) Anyway, we started with bedding and I got a new duvet cover and an undersheet, headed onto the kitchen section, where I picked up (my actually very nice, and not boring plain white with chips) plates (thanks dad), and a frying pan and any other bits I needed, and then headed to stationary. Stationary isles are my favourite, (unless we’re in a supermarket and then it comes close to last, before the pet food isle and toilet rolls…) and this was no different. I picked up highlighters, ring binders, page dividers, and anything else I could fit in the basket! I don’t know what’s so great about it really, but I’m fairly stereotypical in that I really like it, I suppose being so organised impacts on my love of it! And that was the big shop, no worries, just excitement, and that is growing all the time. I have moments where I get super nervous but they’re really short and go pretty quick.
I also got a laptop, but ordered that off Amazon Lightening Deals and really did get a good deal! I recommend it to you if you haven’t heard of it, because I hadn’t! It gets you a lot of money off and they sell all sorts, so it’s always worth a check! So with my big shop and laptop sorted, I’m pretty much ready to go!!
(I also just thought I’d mention, that girl who had her little meltdown, she finished her first year and absolutely loved it and is now raring to go back next month, so if you’re just getting ready for first year like I am, but feel very nervous about it, chances are you’ll still love it!)
hi 