University Thoughts – Finding Yourself

I often forget that I am still growing. That I am still only in the first quarter of my life. Though I often find myself caught between who I want to be and who I’m trying to be, and I sometimes wonder if I’m trying to be the person I want to be, or if I’m trying to be the person I think other’s want me to be.

I’m not quite sure who I am, and I’m trying to work that out at the moment. Trying to work out what my place in this world is meant to be. I see how people at University change, some try desperately to reinvent themselves, to make people see them how they want people to see them, some people don’t change at all, some people kid themselves into thinking they are changing but they just can’t escape themselves, some just mature, and some are still lost, still trying to work out what sort of person they want to be.

Yet, the thing is, the thing I’m trying to remind myself is that I don’t just become one identity. I will go through so many reincarnations of myself throughout my life time, it’s not a matter of finding one and going with it. Perhaps I need to stop trying to find myself and be a specific person, but just let myself evolve and develop freely without pressure. The only sort of person I should be aiming to be in life is happy. Nothing else. The only person I need and want to be is happy.

University Thoughts – My First Home

I’ll be moving out of this house soon. A house that I can consider my first home, in a way, it’s not the home I grew up in and I may not own the house. But this is the first house I have lived in that I’ve paid for, that’s been mine. I think that has been the biggest part of 2nd Year at Uni, was the living. Was actually being an adult for once, not just playing pretend.

I’ve watched as the house has gotten more and more empty, as each one of us has moved out. So I’ve seen how it’s changed from our home, with our memories plastered everywhere to turn cold and bare. Even though our stamp and our identity can’t be seen I can still see it. I stand in spots and can see the memories.

The hub of our house, our living room, is so full of memories. There’s like this switch in my head that gets the projector whirring and I can see them play out before me in a haze. I can see that first day that I moved in. I can see us all sat in our seats sending ugly snapchats to each other. I can see us blaring music and looking like idiots as we leg dance. I can see us just dancing and playing about. I can see us having predrinks. I can see us playing blindfold hide and seek. I can see us all sat there watching bake off. I can see us watching scary films, and us all making it worse by scaring each other. I can see us all surrounded by books, whilst we’re trying to write our essays. I can see us comforting one another when we’re down. I can see us playing the try not to laugh game. I can see the time when I was woken up at 3am because there was a spider downstairs and none of them would get rid of it. I can see those stupidly late night chats. I can see the hungover days. I can see me late night baking because I was stressed and then the others joining me. I can see us all trying to cook in the smallest kitchen in the world at the same time. I can see the arguments we’ve had. I can see a load of us all napping at the same time. I can see us eating take away together. I can see us celebrating each other’s birthdays. I can see us gossiping together. I can see us talking. I can see us smiling. I can see us laughing. I can see us in complete silence. But we’re content. I can see us for what we were, a mismatched family of sorts.

So there’s this place that was the center of so many memories. They’re all there. And so many of them are so happy, and we’ve grown so much as people together. It’s like all those memories are my happy place and they’re trapped there. Trapped in that room, and I’m having to say goodbye to it and know that I won’t make any more memories there. And the ones that I have are gone, they’re done and they’re going to fade. I won’t remember them clearly and right now those general statements from before, aren’t general, because I can press play and see specific memories. But one day they aren’t going to. Nostalgia is one of the happiest yet saddest feelings to exist and I feel it so strongly and often. This place felt so purely mine, and I want to be able to preserve it. I’m happy to move on to somewhere new. I’m just not happy to let it go. I’m not ready for the memories to fade. I want to preserve it all, but I know I can’t. The memories may fade, but I’ll remember that for the most part I was so happy living here, and I was sad to say goodbye.

University Thoughts – Review

I’m alone once again in the house as I wait till Monday to leave for Easter, And even then I’m not going straight home, I’m in London for a few days for work experience and then I’m come for a couple of days then I’m back.

Second Semester has gone just as fast as the first has, and with it of course has been a billion and one negatives. But I don’t want to focus on them. I always focus on them, I have had to live them, I don’t want to waste so much time reliving them as well. They were difficult enough I don’t want to continually torture myself. I do that enough so let me just take a couple of minutes to remember and reflect on the good. Because at the end of the day they are the memories I want to cherish and fixate on. (to be fair i should really do this reflection when I’m back after easter because i’m only back for a month, but I want to do it now.)

Second Semester, you gave me a late night trip up to the cathedral in my pajamas, late night walks, a film in a night, numerous drunk nights (most of which blur into one or can’t be remembered), an ftv drinking social, an ftv quiz social, a night of drunk baking, just baking in general, pin the tail on wayne the spliff donkey, an australian themed house party in liverpool with Laura before she left, late night adventure to a park with Nicola and Sara, the discovery of massive bop-it with Emma, Steve the swede, the aiden turner calendar, disney sing alongs in the living room, dancing in the living room, playing Zombies with Rachel, going to nandos and getting desert with Rachel, dying Alicia’s hair, dying Sara’s hair, dying Nicola’s hair, dying my own hair ginger, snapchat filters and captioning them to eachother, doing a modelling photoshoot, going to mcdonalds far too much, drunk kerplunk, the party light, girls night at Tyler’s with the mattresses downstairs watching romcoms with facemasks on and a shit tonne of food, chilli night, filming for Joes film, giving birth for Joe’s film, filming  for Toby’s film, filming my own short film, finishing my short film, getting the smoke machine for my own film, staying up late just to talk about bridges for some unknown reason, getting addicted to the facebook games, going to the arcades, quiz night with my old flatmates, having singles night with Sara, trips to toys r us, eskimoos, try not to laugh game with water in our mouths, the house party that was both the best and worst thing ever, media research group presentation group meetings, the ugly bug ball, film nights with the house, long stints in the edit suite, going to the pub when the sun came out, doing work in the sun, nerf gun war, going to parallax for a film screening, the continuous ripping between myself and my friends, all the new inside jokes that we’ve created, still continuing to jump out at each other and just domestic life as a whole.

Because to be fair at the end of the day, it was the small things. Silly things that I can’t quite remember or have only just remembered now that gave me such joy. I find when I look at things as a whole, I find it underwhelming, disappointing, but I look. really look and remember, I can say it was pretty alright. Naturally there were blips, and tears, and arguments, and mistakes, and a billion and other bad things. But it was still good. I’ve still had fun and been happy between the bad and that’s what counts.

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.

 

 

University Thoughts – Finally Realising

It’s my third week at university and I feel like perhaps the reality of it all is slowly sinking in. The dream like euphoria is seeping away. I’m waking up.

It felt like I was living one of those dreams I like to create myself when trying to get to sleep. The ones that are plausible, tangible, but still a dream, just with a hint of reality. That’s what this has been like. But now, it’s strange. It does slightly feel as if I am waking up, as if this actually is my reality now. Expecting to wake up back at home and this be a dream isn’t what’s going to happen. Because this is real. So very real.

And it’s been an experience. I have always gone on about how I have never truly lived in life. I’ve been surviving. But there have been moments that I can say have been lived not survived. For once anxieties haven’t kept me locked in a cage and it’s been surreal. I haven’t worried about something that it has prevented me from doing it, I’ve just done it.

Here I am a clean slate. No one here knows who I am, I can be whoever I want to be. Not that I am trying to be someone I am not, but I am just able to be myself free from expectations or prior knowledge. Perhaps I am truly waking up more than I realise.

I already have memories that I know I will have way down the line; moving in, my first shop, going out for the first time, first ring of fire, playing swivel-chair hockey, playing frying pan tennis, first film i made in filmmaking society, first lecture, first seminar, first workshop. All these memories have been made and sure there will be some memories that’ll be forgotten but others will be cherished. It’s all part of the experience.

But, now, suddenly I feel lonely. I feel so very far away my friends and family and am yearning for those relationships. In truth I just want a hug. I’m surrounded by people who are acquaintances, these people who I only know a little about and what I could do with is a friend. A proper friend, but I haven’t made that sort of bond yet. And right now I’m slightly worrying if I am going to make a proper friend. People always say you make friends for life at Unversity; I’m just hoping I make friends

Thought no. 20 – University

I am only in my first year of A-levels but I have always been 95% sure that i didn’t want to go to university. Mostly because I have no idea what I am going to do with my life and didn’t want to ‘start’ my life in debt and with some degree and no job. I thought I would just go straight into working. But today in tutor we had someone come in and talk to us about university. Now I am on a 50/50 opinion on where I am heading after a-levels.

I’ve learnt that the whole debt thing, really isn’t as bad as I thought it would be and know it is something that I could manage. I also know that if I do a degree in something I enjoy and love I then have 3 years more to try and work out what sort of career I would like to persue.I know what sort of field I am heading into due to my likes and passions. So for being against University for so long, I have finally been properly informed and have been able to ask questions and get advice, and look at the difference it has made. I have gone from 95% sure I don’t want to go to university to 50% and I have only just started to look into possible courses and I can already feel that percentage getting smaller and smaller.

The truth is, my previous opinion came from a place of a lack of knowledge and the fact all the media I consume and the people around me have only ever given me negative images of university. Then those who do have a positive attitude have never phrased it in a way that has been well informed and has catered for me. I may not have a clue what I want to do for a career or where I want to be in four years time. But at least I can say I have more options now, options that I can willingly consider. After all I am only young, I should spend as much time as possible doing things I enjoy rather than just trying to make money so I can ‘live’.