University Thoughts – Focus on the Good Memories

Although there are many things that I never did in my first year of University like sitting on a rooftop late at night, or doing laundry in the early hours of the morning, working in the library into the next day, sitting on a patch of grass with a group of friends, leave an essay to the night before, or going on a date, or falling in love. Or a lot of the stereotypical things associated with University.

I did still actually do a lot: I lived with a bunch of strangers and became friends with them, played swivel chair hockey, frying pan tennis, pumpkin bowling, made a fort, had a water fight, went for late night walks, stayed up into the early hours of the morning talking with friends, made multiple late night mcdonalds trips, had an impromptu flat party, got pushed around in a trolley, got freshers flu, had a late night cry with a friend, made friends with strangers, got complimented in a bathroom, threw up in multiple toilets and even on the high street, had horrible hangovers, made drunken mistakes, kissed strangers, kissed friends, gone on walks to discover somewhere new, had deep conversations, been chased by a goose, gone out for meals with friends, celebrated birthdays, went to a student night at a playzone, had study sessions in the library, had weeks with hardly any sleep, weeks with too much sleep, skipped lectures, made 9 ams when I went out the night before, spent whole lectures sitting at the back playing around instead of listening, joined societies, stopped going to societies, joined a gym, quit the gym, won a filming competition, made a short film, worked for hours straight in an edit suite, made a tv show, filmed in a castle prison, wrote tonnes of essays, did group presentations, watched new things, went to the cinema,  tried new things, purposely did something out of my comfort zone, did yoga, just sat and gossiped, had prank wars, lived with a traffic barrier in the flat and a road sign, decorated the flat for Christmas, went out for a Christmas meal, made pancakes for people on pancake day, went out on a pub crawl, cleaned a drain, lost my purse, broke my phone so had to use a crappy nokia, had a flat meal, made friends, made a university family. Laughed until it hurt, cried so much it felt like I was dying, made mistakes, but made a million more memories.

No matter how much I’ve been remembering the bad this week, those bad memories sticking more in my brain than the good. If I look back and truly think the good have by far outweighed the bad, and I’ve actually had a pretty amazing first year. Sure I’ve already forgotten a lot of what has happened these past eight months, and I’ve been spending this past week feeling nostalgic and sad and tired and alone, though looking back I can’t help but smile. It’s been an indescribable eight months and it’s sad to say goodbye to being a fresher. It’ll be hard moving out on Monday knowing I won’t be living here in this room again or with the same people, but this September will bring a new year of University and if it can provide me with memories like it has done this year, even the bad, then I look forward to it. I’m sad to say goodbye, but finally beginning to look forward to what else life has to bring me.

University Thoughts – I’m Scared

My first year of University finished on Friday. My last deadline was met and the library books I had accumulated over the past essays were returned. I am now left without a purpose or motive. I wake up in the morning and I literally don’t have anything I need to go and do. Which is nice and liberating but also it’s very pointless and demoralising.

I need that purpose, and I need that structure to keep me sane. I already find myself resorting back to old versions of myself. I’m getting more anxious, the idea of making plans with friends fills me with that familiar dread in my stomach. I’m eating out of pure boredom and my mind is exhausted. There’s no passion for anything. There’s no oomph or motivation.

I have a week left being here at Uni until I head back. A week left in this room. My room. So many people don’t like their rooms in Halls. I love mine. It’s my room, my little home, my own place. It feels more of my room than my one back home does. I’m dreading leaving it. Because this time I’m not coming back to it.

Part of me is looking forward to going home though. I feel the need to cleanse and revitalise my life and come back to Uni for second year renewed and better. It’s like I’m running on the last dregs of my battery right now, and I need to go back and plug myself in.

So part of me is ready to say goodbye. But there’s another part of me. A bigger part of me that just wants to hold onto everything as tight as possible and never let go. I’m not ready to move forward. Not ready to let go, because…I think, I’m scared. I’m scared to let go of what has now become my familiar, because I’m scared of what is waiting for me. I don’t have a clue where I’m going, but at least I know where I am. So when I say goodbye, I’ll be lost and scared and a version of myself that doesn’t know how to cope with that.

She’s here and she doesn’t know how to cope or manage very well. She’s good at pretending, but inside she is screaming. She’s running around in a forest with no sense of direction, so it feels like she’s in a maze more than a forest. I didn’t realise until now, didn’t realise at all.

I’m scared.

University Thoughts – Last Few Weeks

I am in my final few weeks of University. My first year is almost up and I can’t quite believe it. It has gone by so fast, that’s the thing you go to University and you’re trapped inside this little bubble and you don’t quite realise that time is passing and then suddenly… its almost over.

Everything still seems so surreal. I often have moments where I still don’t believe that this is real. Especially when I go home, because it feels as if this life is all made up. Even being here in the moment I still can’t process that this is real life. And the fact that it is almost over, that’s the strangest thing of all. I feel like I have been here forever but also that I have hardly been here at all. I don’t know whether I’ve made memories that I’ll cherish forever, I already feel like I’ve forgotten so much; everything is just blurring into one.

Today for example, was the first time that my flat actually ever cooked and ate a meal all together. We usually just cook separately, so even this act, something that everyone does, was surreal. It was something we’d never done before but it was lovely. Though like everything it is a memory now and the fact that it was real hardly even seems true.

This last semester feels weird in itself. I can’t even pinpoint it. Something feels off. Perhaps it is the inevitability that this is the end and I won’t ever experience living like this again, perhaps its that we’ve all changed so much over these past seven months (seven months is that all, it seems like it should be, has been longer, it’s not enough), maybe its the stress of all these looming deadlines. I don’t know what it is, but something seems off. Maybe its just me. I think I am getting nostalgic and missing it before it has even ended.

I’m not ready to let go of first year. Not yet.