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Finally Getting my A*

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After months of hard work I finally got the phone call I had been waiting for, my EPQ ‘ The Presentation of African American women in post 1900s Literature, had been marked wrong I now officially have an A*!!! For some people it wouldn’t matter as I already got into uni but for a girl who was told she would never get anywhere after school this is a huge step. I don’t want to put a downer on this post and talk about the bullying so I’ll just say I’ve proved a lot of people wrong. After a few doubts this has given me the confidence I needed about uni, I can do this!!!

The day of my leavers ball, I’m smiling because I’d already left but the best was yet to come I got 13 GCSE’s and  2 other qualifications in Spanish and Business.

Me now, watch out Kingston I’m coming to get that degree! 

Feeling Lonely

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After a lovely weekend I think it’s fair to say I was lonely. With two of my closest friends back at home for a few days and Ali having fun with his new friends I felt a little left out. When I went to the train station to sort my friends Oyster out it was like the train for Basingstoke was the only one I could see, I just wanted to get on it and run away from everything. I really hate being negative but what I’m trying to say is that it’s ok to feel lonely, uni is totally new and your bound to feel out of place.

I hope this helps,

Chloe

Being looked after

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Ali and I this weekend…not our best picture

As you all know I’ve been pretty poorly lately with my kidneys. After making the decision to come back to Kingston Ali has been incredible and I honestly needed it. I’m making this a blog about the whole weekend because the two days were very similar. I was cuddled a lot, kept an eye on and fed. Ali knows about kidneys so I was under his watchful eye for three and a half days, which really makes him a saint as I’m not the easiest person to deal with especially when I am sick and stressed. The up side was that I was able to sleep properly at Kingston Hill and although I was upset and didn’t want to leave on Sunday night.

You have to understand that Ali and I have been together for over five years now so it’s odd living 20 minutes apart and having new lives and new friends. I hope this will make us stronger and more independent but it is hard being in a relationship at uni, even the same one! Either way I’m so greatful I had someone to look after me up here, Ali really is one of a kind.

Tonight Alive!

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No zoom this is how close we were 

It’s not every night you get to stand right in front of one of your favourite bands, touch their tour bus and keep one of their drumsticks. It’s not every night you get to see an intimate gig with Tonight Alive. After storming the stage in Camden the night before an The Peel in Kingston seemed to be just perfect for the Aussie pop punk band whose album The Other Side is taking the world by storm (Ok so that’s me trying to be a journalist).

The best thing about this gig? It had to be Jenna’s fuck you attitude. When you listen to their older EPs and albums I think it would be fair to say you imagine Jenna to be sweetness and light let me set you straight she has fight in her. She definately kicks arse but not in a way that alienates her from the rest of the band. They are a group, although most people would recognise Jenna first she doesn’t play on this. I liked that she was totally a part of the band, too many singers just think it’s all about them and use the stage like that.

To put it simply I loved this gig. I may have been exhausted and in a lot of pain from my kidneys but it was worth it. Hey I even got to sing into Jenna’s mic and get her spit on my head, multiple looks from the guitarists and a drum stick. It’s things like this that remind me why I love music and how I feel at gigs. I might not have known all the words to the songs but the ones I did made me go completely crazy!

It was a great night back in Kingston followed by Pizza and a lovely evening of Ali look after me (well this is after making me lunch and making sure I was actually well enough to go).

Feeling inbetween

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It isn’t often that I pour my heart into this blog, generally speaking I really think about what I’m going to write. Tonight it’s more of a need to write more than anything. I’ve found that University doesn’t solve everything, it makes you think even more about things. Since being home I’ve just felt this kind of restlessness about it all. When I’m at home I just want to be at uni but when I’m at uni I’m unsure and miss home. I want to be the girl everyone loves and wants to be around. I desperately want to go on nights out and have endless friends and to some extent I do. I always know someone where ever I go at uni, the only exception to this is on the bus, where I go to escape some times. The majority of the time I love uni but sometimes I get agitated, sometimes I get bored and wonder why I’m paying so much money or why I pay rent for halls when about 3 times a week it’s impossible to sleep. After that the sensible part reminds me that I’m over reacting and to think of all the good points again and how hard I worked to be here. 

My mind never stops, I’ll debate all of this every other day and I’ll never get the same conclusion. I want to go out, I want to just have fun like everyone else but sometimes I can’t. Yes I’ll admit that I’ve been poorly and just as the anxiety settles down and I’m ready for a night out my kidneys flare up and I’m stuck with anxiety again. I think I need to make myself go out, who knows I might even enjoy it but it’s the initial going that is the problem. I hate to feel like I’m blaming my illness but my anxiety does make simple things that little bit harder to deal with. I also have an issue of being ahead, I’ve spend so long working independently that in first year working with others is proving really difficult for me. At college I was normally 2 or 3 assessments ahead of everyone else and sometimes I can’t do that here and it is really hard. I don’t know if this is just a part of me or if it’s linked to my illness or both, I try really hard not to relate absolutely everything to what I have because then you just become a stereotype or a label, something I don’t want to be. 

I wrote this because sometimes I just need to let it all out and this is how I do it. I hope this could help someone else at some point as well. I love uni but sometimes I don’t. I love home but sometimes I need to get away. I feel like I’m going insane but maybe that’s normal for a student. I’ll keep plodding along as see how I go. Let’s just say this is going to be a very long year full of ups and downs…. 

5 things you need to know about depression (Mental Health Week 2013)

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This week it’s Mental Health week and as someone with a mental illness I thought it might be a good idea to let you know what I feel you need to know. Today I’m writing about depression which I feel is a very misunderstood illness so here you go!

You can still be/ appear to be happy 

Ok so this is  common problem, which I believe led to me being diagnosed so late. People think that everyone with depression lie in bed all day, don’t go out, don’t talk to people etc. This is definitely NOT true, if anything most people are the opposite of this. From my experience you get very good at hiding your feelings when you don’t have a choice. On the other hand however a lot of people have good days and bad days, ok so your good days arn’t amazing but it’s still a good day. I’d go from a week of hyperactivity to having a low but I still had to go to college and work. You can still be happy or people can fake being happy, it’s just the way this illness works.

Not everyone self harms 

 Again another stupid thing that has gone round. Everyone handles depression differently and unfortunately some people do self harm but don’t judge everyone!!

You’re not a  ‘broken’ person 

 I hate it when people assume you’ve had a shit life so your depressed. Depression can affect absolutely anyone for a variety of reasons and triggers. People with depression are as normal as anyone else they’re just having a difficult time right now.

We’re NOT ‘Emo’s’

 Nope still not emotionally unstable. We don’t sit around listening to ’emo music’ and doing nothing else. Some of the most successful people in the world have had depression, does that change your mind?

90% of the time you can’t see it

 Most of the time depression is an invisible illness, sometimes even the people who have it don’t know. That said don’t assume that they don’t hurt just as much as someone with a physical illness. There were so many times at school that I wish it showed how much I was hurting on my skin so people would understand.

That’s my little insight for you I hope it helped!

An update (hint, I’m still alive!)

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You guessed it I am still alive! In pain bust still alive, thank you for all the good wishes. After going to see a doctor again today I don’t have to go and be hooked up to an IV thankfully. I do however have to miss a whole week of uni which has really upset me but thankfully I have lovely friends who are willing to send me their notes. So for the next few days I will be resting constantly (which is beyond boring) before heading back to Kingston on Thursday and hopefully seeing another doctor Friday to run some more tests. So hopefully there will be another fairly boring post again tomorrow night about me…not doing much. 

Thank you for reading! 

A change of plans and a hospital visit

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Today’s blog post will be short and sweet. I’ve ended up back in Basingstoke again!!!! This time not by choice 😦 I had to go to the emergency clinic at Kingston hospital today as I have quite a nasty kidney infection, it’s painful to say the least. This is more of a quick note to say thank you to so many people from today. My best friend Bekkie who helped me get to the hospital and stayed with me despite hating them herself, my flatmate Christie who made sure I was ok and who’s going to sort out my kitchen stuff, to the lovely staff at Kingston hospital for looking after me so thoroughly, my lovely boyfriend for being so understanding and sending me funny pictures in the waiting room. Last but not least to my parents who drove up straight away to come get me and make sure I’m ok. So as annoying as it is to be ill it is kind of nice to be back at home but I just want to be at uni!!!!!

Don’t tell me who I am!

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So on October 5th I encountered something that pisses me off to no end. I had the pleasure of being told who I am and surprise, surprise they were wrong. Now I get really mad when people think that they can tell me who I am and what to do after meeting me for five minutes. I don’t care who they are, what they’ve done or even if they are the Queen I don’t give these people any respect. I came to university to pursue my interests, not to be put in a box. So I got worked up, I felt miserable and I let myself cry. After this though? I decided that I didn’t care and would take Sir Trevor McDonald’s advice and not let them decide where I can get to. So guess what? You just made your biggest mistake, watch this girl go,go,go!!

I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree…

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It’s taken 4 weeks of my degree to decide that, just like music, I cannot study creative writing. I was so desperate to fall in love with my course and feel like I’m enhancing my abilities but I’m so disappointed. I love Kingston, I love the lecturers and they definitely have talent but I’m honestly bored. This week my task is to read all about Villanelles and Sestinas and then write one, yep I bet you’ve never heard of them either. I used to like poetry, reading it, writing it, studying it. I never in a million years thought I would miss it at A Level, but I do. We have to write a poem that has about 6 different rules in regards to structure, rhyme and god knows what else, this is one of my pet hates! I hate it when your restricted. To me poetry or writing in general is a form of expression! I’m not interested in this mathematical madness of line 3 relating to like 12 which must be another way of saying line 6 before repeating line 42.

I’m sighing as I read my assignments list because it just bores me to tears, well one side of it does anyway. I was chatting to some friends about it the other day and in regards to novel writing they think that I’m being too advanced for first year. I’ve started character bios, plot summaries, chapter summaries and writing every day a year ago. I thought that we were expect to come to uni like this but apparently a lot of people have never tried writing anything like this before. If I’m honest the whole thing makes me feel a little awkward. I’m not the best by any stretch of the imagination but at the same time I know what I want to write and where my strengths lie. I don’t fully regret taking Creative Writing, I think I just prefer studying English Literature at the moment. Second year should be a lot more fun and more of what I’m into, I’ve decided to Major in Literature because the modules (well the modules at the moment) just speak to me more and seem more interesting than the Creative Writing ones and the only one I got excited about is a core module anyway.

I don’t want to sound like I’m moaning and I’m hoping that I will enjoy the course more as the year goes on, it just isn’t want I expected it to be. I really just want to write something that matters to me, something that could matter to someone else, I just don’t think a huge poem is going to do the trick!