university musings – Honest Lies

There’s a beautiful mess inside

So, it seems that time is just flying past again. When I last updated I was getting ready to leave halls. My sister came and picked me up as my dad was unavailable. She arrived in a bad mood, annoyed at having to pick me up and then more annoyed after getting lost. She sat and watched as I packed, making sure that I had every last scrap boxed up before we could take a break to head into town in search of food. We eventually ended up in town, wandering without destination until we finally came to agree that we wanted Thai food. She googled it and we found a small Thai restaurant tucked away on a side street, where we were early enough to be one of only two groups there so it was lovely and quiet. The food was delicious and it was nice to spend time with my sister, chatting about this and that. (No matter how terrible a mood she is in my sister will always become mellow after eating.) After dinner we got the bus back to campus, then walked through campus making stupid jokes, saying silly nonsensical things that would make no sense to anyone who overhead, and laughing too hard over it all. I was really happier than I had felt in long time. I read through some of my entries over the past few months and they were really pessimistic. I felt like reaching into the screen and shaking myself, telling myself to get over myself. But its easy to say that when I have achieved what I wanted. Just as it was easy to laugh then, the reality of moving abroad not set in yet and therefore none of the anxiety. I was just really happy to have achieved it.

Once back at halls we started to pack up her car aka lugging boxes through halls and trying to get them to fit into her tiny corsa. We bickered the whole time- my sister complaining, and me telling her to get over it. Half serious, as always. We got some amused looks from the people we passed as we so often do. Somehow when we are together we often end up being loud and silly together, like we’re children, and I often see someone nearby glancing at us with a certain expression, kind of amused, almost surprised. Not that I care. It’s fun. It took a while but we got everything packed up then I poked around my empty room to check and recheck if I’d left anything behind. It was strange to see the room so empty and to think of never going back there. I handed in my keys and then I left and… it was really easy to do. I didn’t feel sad and I don’t miss it. I was relieved to be coming home. In the end when I come home I more miss independent living than living in halls. Living in halls is exactly as advertised- grimy, loud, bad food (although admittedly that last couple of weeks of the semester the food was pretty good and the dinner hall was always quiet which was even better) .

So now I am home. I have idled away the time in the usual ways, although I have been good and I have been trying to study Japanese so I don’t forget everything I learned over the course of my lessons- it would be a waste to spend so much money on lessons and then forget it all- right? Besides, it makes me feel productive. Apart from that I have gone out to the cinema twice. I went to see the 5 year engagement with my sister which was enjoyable enough. And last night I headed out with my sister and her friends to see Magic Mike which was just awful. They tried to inject plot into a movie which would have been better without. Really, the plot was flimsy, the lead actress was awful and the ending was abrupt- worse than the flimsy plot, the flimsy plot was never resolved. ugh.

Really, right now, everything’s pretty boring and I’m slipping into a very comfortable and lazy routine- which can’t be a good thing as in less than two months I’ll be totally uprooted, flying off to live in a strange, foreign place. I’m playing the waiting game at the moment- waiting for the confirmation letters to come through, waiting for accommodation to be allocated, waiting for the term dates to be given. In fact both me and my friend got bored and fed up of waiting so we already booked our flights to Singapore, where we’ll stay a few days before heading onto Malaysia. We’ve not booked the flights to Malaysia yet so I don’t know when my life will start there, but I know I leave the country on the 12th of September. The way time is slipping through my fingers that is uncomfortably close. I started a to do list and it is already half a page long, all the things I need to research and organise and all the preparations I need to make. Although I am excited the glamour of moving abroad has faded, revealing the reality of the fact that moving abroad isn’t as easy as throwing stuff in a suitcase and going, which is the romantic ideal right? But no, so much to do… and so much I’ll have to leave behind. It’s going to be hard to resist the temptation to try and fill my suitcase with things I don’t need for any reason than sentimentality, than wanting to cling onto some part of my comfortable every day routine in this country.

I’m excited, but nervous, and very scared. I say that its sunk in that I’m going, that this is happening, but it’s half a lie- I don’t think it will truly sink in until I am on that plane.

Listening To: Far, Far - Yael Naim
mood: sleepy

Thinking Out Loud

I am currently…

□ eating some Droste extra dark chocolate. It’s so bitter and utterly delicious. My dad recently came back from a business trip to South Africa and bought lots of edible things from there, and the Droste he bought as he changed over at Schiphol. :D

□ thinking of re-learning how to crochet…again. I learned it when I was child, and again when I was a slightly older child and although it was exciting at the time I never actually did anything with the skill and quickly forgot it. For some reason I want to start again. I don’t know why. I’m just bored and looking for things to do with my time. I should really learn how to knit because there’s a hobby which will be somewhat useful (I could make scarves! and hats!) Alas, I cannot knit to save my life. So, crocheting. Yay? Nay? I could totally crochet a scarf…is that possible? idek. Maybe I’ll start cross-stitching again or finish off the millions of unfinished got-bored-of-it cross stitch projects I have lying around (I have a short attention span when it comes to 80% of my hobbies. I cannot do the same thing for too long before I get bored and give up. I know that is a less than desirable quality to have.)

□ thinking about driving and how I should have really been done with my theory test by now and well into practical lessons. I am wondering if I am being an idiot for not taking the chance to learn to drive this year, and if it’s already too late, and if it even matters and at the end of the day. I don’t actually want to learn to drive…I just feel I have to. But do I? Can’t I rely on public transport, as much as I hate it? I will admit for the first time that driving completely petrifies me. The fact that if I got distracted just for one second that I could kill someone(s)…petrifies me. Having that much responsibility is not something I want. I don’t know. I go over it again and again in me head Should I? Shouldn’t I? and in the end nothing gets done. At this rate I don’t think I’ll be learning to drive until I’m in my twenties. Is there anything wrong with that? Should I be ashamed of that? I don’t know anyone else my age who hasn’t already gotten their drivers out the way already :/

□ Reading Happily Ever After by Adele Geras and The Cup of the World by John Dickinson. The former is boring me so I began the latter. I am disappointed in Happily Ever After as Troy by the same author is one of my favourite books ever, and although Happily Ever After is beautifully written the story…feels flat. I am bored of it. I don’t get love at first sight and love that consumes you so totally that you would sacrifice anything for it. I don’t know, I guess I just don’t know much about love in the end. The Cup of the World I am re-reading. I adore this book. It is wonderfully written and the medieval world with just a little touch of magic, romance, and a load of political intrigue is everything I search for in a book. I cannot wait to get through the rest of the medieval trilogy by this author.

□ Worrying about how in a moment of stupidity because of being sleepy from painkillers and boredom I signed myself up to go to the 21st birthday party of a dude in my class. So lets get this straight: it’s a) a party b) for someone I don’t know c) with loads of people I don’t know. Why did I put my name down?! D: I am currently hoping he’ll check tomorrow we are all still up for it and I can make excuses, or I’ll text him on…Friday the night before and say “Something came up!” or “I’m currently and not at all conveniently sick!” idek. I might just not show up: I highly doubt anyone would notice or even care if I wasn’t there. I don’t really have any friends in my class. Most likely cos I’m awkward and unfriendly and slightly weird (not to mention boring and totally uncool). To be honest, I’d much rather stay this anti-social for the time being. There’s a certain safety in being alone.

□ Worked up over the whole university thing and what the hell am I going to do next year?. I have visited two universities thus far and I think I have an idea of where I want to go next year but nothing is set in stone. Not to mention I need the grades. I am constantly thinking about this, constantly worrying. What do I want? Where do I want to go? Why do I want to go there? Can I acheive the grades required? I wish I could switch my thoughts off but the more I try not to think about it the more I do.

My thoughts are all over the place- one moment here, the next moment there. Over-thinking is a terrible, terrible thing. I shall now eat more chocolate and watch something fun in an attempt to distract myself.

Listening To: Taru - KASIO
mood: content

So school has started a lot of people. It’s weird, because for me it’s still holidays. On Monday I was walking with my sister to the train station and I saw all the kids in their uniforms walking back from school and I realised I was never going to be them again. In a way I already wasn’t them. I’ve spent the past year in 6th form, where already it was different from them but the 6th form was still part of the same school so it wasn’t that different. I realised I was never going to have to struggle through every kind of weather to walk the familiar route to and back school, never going to study certain subjects or have the same teachers. On one hand it was like HAHAHA SUCKERS (I hated high-school and 6th form. I hated the school, most of my teachers, my subjects, and I didn’t really like some of my friends either. I hated that place and that time of my life and am glad to get away from it, in a way). On the other it’s pretty scary. No way do I feel that grown up. I’m still petrified about this whole going to university thing and it’s only getting worst as the days pass by.

I feel more sorry for my sister though. If she gets into her last year of university then she’ll be graduating next year. That has got to be terrifying. (To be honest I haven’t quite gotten used to the fact that my sister is getting closer and closer to being a ‘grown up’ either.)

So yes, let my use the “school” tag for the last time today. From now on, I guess I need a “university” tag…

Listening To: Zetsuai OST- Bronze ~Saishuushou~
mood: OK

“I want to be as empty as the sky”

A collection of random thoughts and not-very-major events for today:

— My dad is currently on a business trip to south Africa. He left last night. I never ever wake up for him, because he leaves at like 4am but last night was different. Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, though I had wanted to keep reading longer I tore myself away from my book and switched my light off. At 3am comes a knock at the door. I am just falling asleep, in that nice place where you’re not quite asleep but rested and comfortable. I waited for someone to get it but nobody got it and then the phone rang. So I blearily got up to answer it, and turns out it was my sister outside home from the party she went to last night. I had no choice but to drift downstairs to go answer the door. My dads alarms went off 10 minutes later and thus everyone was up and I was completely awake. I went back to bed but quickly realised there was no way in hell I was falling back to sleep. Went downstairs where my mom was sitting on the couch, and my sister and dad were at the table eating cheesecake. I ended up joining them; despite the little voice in my head telling me that there was no way that it was going to be digested. Straight to the hips. the voice in my head told me, but I ate anyway and in the end I felt sick (served me right really). There was something strange and surreal about gathering together at 3am to eat cheesecake. I was so tired but at the same time so awake. It felt like I should go and eat breakfast, even though I’d slept barely an hour my brain still registered that it had been asleep, and now it was awake and light and thus time to begin my day. My dad left at 4am and it must have the first time that all three of us (my mom, my sister and me) were there to say good bye to him. And you know what I might as well have continued reading before, because I ended up reading until 4am when my dad left, and then until 4:30am after that. I went to bed at 4:30am and eventually fell asleep, waking up at 2pm this afternoon. I feel perfectly crap. I have such a bad headache :x

— Tried to bake a carrot cake this afternoon and it turned out horribly. It tasted like earwax, and I wish I was joking but I’m not. It was the most gross cake ever. It could be seen as an achievement that it was that bad. This cake is the sort you’d use on variety shows to test endurance. It wasn’t even edible. My pride was bruised, I got even more pissed than I already was (I have been in a bad mood all day; see above) and thus I set out to bake another cake, one I knew would turn out good. It came out the oven now and it seems edible. My pride is still somewhat damaged due to the unfortunate carrot cake incidence but I am reassured: I am not a bad baker, I just can’t make carrot cake to save a life. Also I saved my mother a piece of the unfortunate carrot cake (threw the rest way) and I warned her, to eat it and get it over with because it is so terrible but she is saving it for tomorrow. Tomorrow holds an unpleasant surprise for my mother…

— I start university in a week. ONE WEEK. I am all sorts of petrified. My sister is home at the moment so I did get a chance to ask her what I’d need, which means I no longer need to panic about not having the right stationery (these are the sorts of things I panic about, yes) but I still feel all AHHHHH I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING about it all. I’ve never been to university before, obviously, so I have no idea what to expect. Also I’m studying engineering. ENGINEERING. It’s what I want to do but that doesn’t make it any less daunting. I am so worried :/ Also there is that whole little thing called interacting with new people. I am shy and awkward and I make weird not-funny-at-all jokes and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind when nervous (and I get nervous when surrounded by people I don’t know so put two and two together and you can imagine what peoples first impression of me would be). I most likely won’t be able to join any clubs or societies either because I am not living in Liverpool, which puts another damper on any social life I might gain. I am so nervous about the social aspect as well as the academic side of things. :( Also I have gotten into the routine of going to bed at 1am and getting up at 10am. This is not good. I will most likely have to wake up 6am to get to Liverpool for 9am, which means going to bed at 22pm. Very much so different from how things are now. I don’t know how I will cope with the new schedule :| I just don’t know how I will cope full stop. I AM PETRIFIED. Only one week now D:

Listening To: Utada Hikaru- TAKE 5
mood: annoyed

and so.

As you may or may not know, August 19th was A level results day in the UK and also the day we (students in general) found out whether we got into university. 170 000 students were predicted not to get in, and yeah I was nervous about it all as I knew my grades weren’t the best already and I’d found the exams difficult. I could easily, too easily, see myself as one of the unlucky 170 000.

I dragged myself out of bed yesterday at about 9:00am and got ready like usual. It was only about 10:00am that I decided fuck it, just look already and turned on my computer and opened UCAS. My conditional choice had rejected me, but my first choice had not. There was hope, but not much. I kept refreshing but my first choice were clearly intent on leaving it as late as possible so I decided to go ahead and get myself to school to pick up my results. On the way there bumped into some of my friends, who had all gotten in of course. I acted like I hadn’t gotten replies from anywhere yet and congratulated them, brushing over my situation (I’m good at that, I’ve been doing it for a while now when they get SUPER AMAZING grades and I only get like U’s!) I got more nervous. Picked up my results and clung to them until I was well away from the school. The walk to and from school is pretty deserted so I opened them up as I was walking. My results weren’t amazing but fuck, I IMPROVED SO MUCH. My hard work had sort of paid off ;___; The subject I worked hardest at was maths and sure I mainly got D’s, but I got a B in my one AS Level exams! I was so happy with my results. Even as it sank in that I most likely wasn’t going to get into university I was actually happy, as weird as that sounds (as weird as it felt at the time). I phoned my sister and chatted to her, bought some ice cream from the shops and headed home. Checked UCAS and still no word from my first choice. I waited it out, and as every hour dragged by I knew it wasn’t happening but I wanted to wait until they replied before thinking about what came next. They finally rejected me at around 3:00pm (and hey, I should be grateful as apparently some uni’s won’t be telling prospective students until today or tomorrow whether they got in making their chances of going through clearing slim)

I think that maybe there was a part of me that was expecting such an outcome, so it didn’t hurt like it should of (perhaps). I didn’t shed a tear. (To be honest maybe I was still high from the fact I got a B in one of my maths exams XD )

I let it sink in that I would have to go back to school. I thought about what I would retake, and realised I’d have to do either RE or Chemistry which I hate. I still felt happy about my marks, but bummed at the thought of going back to school. So I decided to poke around clearing and see what was available. After some poking around I found an engineering foundation course. I decided to see if there was a university closer to me that did such a course. There was.

And thus A PLAN WAS BORN. I would not go back to school but I would not go onto studying for a degree. I want to study electrical and electronic engineering, and I decided I would spend this year doing an engineering foundation course. After that I can carry on at the uni I did the course at, or possibly transfer to another university! A university I wanted to go to this year! And I didn’t have to go back to school!

It seemed like a great plan and so I found a new determination. I was going to get into university no matter what. I was fucking determined. And so I googled what the fuck I was actually supposed to do when in clearing and what I read didn’t make much sense, but I did come to realise that I was very much on my own. I had to phone up universities myself and ask them to let me in. D: Started to feel stressed, and worried, and nervous. I looked through clearing at every uni and college reasonably near by to see if they did a foundation course. My first option (option A) was the first I called. By this point I was stressed and confused and scared. I was actually kind of shaking as I held the phone to my ear, having no idea what the hell was going to happen once someone answered. It wasn’t that scary, but my heart was pounding in my chest and I was still feeling shaky. They took my details and said they’d get back to me later. I continued to research and found option B. By this point my dad was home and I could discuss things with him before phoning up B. I was shocked that my dad was not angry or disappointed. He was supportive and a little proud and interested, and helpful and really nice. The only point of the day when I felt like crying was when my dad put his hand on my shoulder and told me something along the lines of “shame it’s been a tough on you with your depression and now all this”. I felt so loved but I was so shocked at how nice he was being, how nice he had been to me since he had gotten home, that I honestly wanted to cry. I was really expecting him to be angry and disappointed you know?

Anyway. Phoned up B and they were much better, they took my details and then offered me a place straight up! I HAD AN OFFER. I discussed it some more with my dad, thought about it, waited for A to phone me, phoned A and didn’t get through, phoned A again got through and was told they’d do their best to speed it up and they’d phone later. And eventually decided B was the right course for me and so added it as a choice. Oh yeah there was option C but every time I tried phoning I couldn’t get through and I eventually gave up, especially with an offer in my hand.

And so I got up early this morning to check UCAS and see if they’d replied and given me my offer formally instead of verbally. Nope. I was just…tired. I had barely slept the night before because I was so worked up and absolutely petrified about what was going to happen, and still nothing was certain. I was exhausted from the stress of it all. Phoned them at 9:00am exactly (which is when the phone lines open!) and asked them WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON (but obviously more polite) and was told they are still processing my application and would call me when it’s gone through. OK, that’s fine. A also phoned my back (as I was on the toilet ;__;) and offered me a place there, so I had a back up option too. I was still a little stressed out but I sat back and relaxed, watched some Junjou Romantica, listened to music etc. Around 2:00pm I decided to bake a cake too, which came out very nice, but the whole process of making it didn’t relax me as much as I hoped. I was still desperately waiting for B to call and of course my dad and my sister kept phoning to ask about what was happening, making me all excited each time thinking IT’S THE UNIVERSITY when it’s really…my dad or my sister. My sister has been cute during this whole process though. Very supportive of me ♥

It’s still not gone through even now. All I got is “Your application has been sent for consideration”. RAWR. I know there are 169999 others like me, but obviously I’m impatient. I think I’m guaranteed a place, but it would be nice to see it on UCAS itself you know? And really THIS IS SO STRESSFUL. I think things have worked out for the best in their own special way, things do happen for a reason…even the things we don’t generally like. And yeah so what all my friends are going off to university and doing degrees. Fuck them. I’ll grow at my own pace. I’ll continue to work hard at improving my motivation and try my best at this course. I’ll get where I want to, even if I have to take longer than everyone else.

I am glad I chose this. I know and I think I’ve always known I’m a bit behind my friends and I need an extra year doing something, but I did not want to go back to school at all. I think just having the new environment will be better than school you know? Rather than being stuck at school, where I’d have to do subjects I’ve long gotten sick of, and put up with teachers I hate and I can imagine I would be even more lonely and bored with all my friends at uni, it seems better that I go to university to get more education and a better, more specialised education before going on to my degree. My grades are improving, slowly but steadily, and I think this will be good to motivate me to improve them even more.

Oh but I’m staying at home and commuting to Liverpool from home. I will have to get up really early, and possibly get a train at 6:30am every day. Good training for the future- I guess? D:

Tomorrow I’m going to Liverpool tomorrow so I’ll get to experience ~the commute~ as well as see the uni. How rushed is this all? haha.

But everything’s OK, I think. It’s all working out, in its own special way.

(I will continue to remind myself that everything happens for a reason.)

(And I’m sorry if this post makes no sense to those unfamiliar with the British Education system…)

Listening To: JUNJOU ROMANTICA OST - ONE SIDED
mood: stressed

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