As of last night I wasn’t going back to Uni. I was so stressed, complete with feeling very ill this morning. The closer I got though I started to relax (Chloe 1 Anxiety 0), right now I’m watching the balls play pool and waiting to perform. I’m ok but missing home too. Now I’m back I’m anxious but hopeful I can turn this around, fingers crossed after a stressed afternoon it’ll be ok. I’m so excited for Ali’s 20th tomorrow! I have some surprises in store but for now I’m enjoying my last night with my teenage boyfriend 😉
A different kind of Halloween…
Many of you will have headed out to Halloween parties tonight dressed as many different things (hopefully not as a slutty pumpkin, sorry I couldn’t leave out the How I Met Your Mother reference). I, however, spent my Halloween a little differently to how I normally would. After going to the kids party last night I decided to be a good big sister and cousin and watch them at Tae Kwon Do. It was just my luck when we arrive that they said they would be playing Halloween games most of the night instead, brilliant. So I spent most of my Halloween night in a car park with my Mum trying to get used to driving again.Â
In other more interesting news I got my nose pierced today, with my friend Sammy by my side, to match my new hair colour. I’ve wanted to do this for quite a long time and to answer what seems to be everyone’s question, yes it did hurt. I quite like the way it looks though despite having to wipe blood from my nose every 20 minutes, who knows maybe this is the start of a new, slightly more rebellious, me!Â
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The beautiful Sam and I before I had my nose done. 
My beautiful new piercing and smudged eyeliner from my eye watering after…
Always getting ahead
At the age of seven I stood up in front of my Aunt’s wedding reception and sang ‘Eternal Flame’ by The Bangles. I was not bothered in the slightest I just stood up and sang while adults got all misty eyed and I was none the wiser. Since I was small I’ve always been confident and I’ve been ahead of my class most school years (so much so that at one point they thought I might end up at Oxford or Cambridge). Even at the age of five I couldn’t stand being read too, so instead I’d read to my mum at night, not bothering with silly voices I just wanted to read it. As I got older my confidence as a performer grew and so did my skills in reading and writing I was on top form. Even when I was bullied I may have lost the majority of my confidence but apart from Maths I was generally either one of the smarter ones in my class or at least ahead of what I was supposed to be.Â
Why am I tell you all this? Not to show off I can assure you. Once I started Uni I realised I wasn’t the smartest any more and there are things that I didn’t know, even about myself. I’ve been finding parts of Uni a struggle, things I shouldn’t. For me this was really tough, I’d been the smart girl for the past 2 years, what was I now? This started to have a real impact on me, for the last few weeks I’ve been really uncertain. I spoke to people and now questions are being raised about me being Dyslexic. This doesn’t surprise me as I knew I already had tendencies but after a talk with my tutor she said usually brighter children find way to compensate and hide it. It got me thinking and academically I love pleasing people so maybe I held off in the other dyslexia tests? I wont know for a little while but it has been agreed that I will have a test paid for by the uni to see if they can give me any help and find the cause.Â
I think I need to relax but I do worry about being behind. I have to be organised, I have to be on time and usually I need to know what’s going on. Sometimes (as I mentioned before) it’s a blessing but it’s also exhausting so I’m trying to take a leaf out of Ali’s book and be more relaxed about things. I need to learn to go with the flow, we’ll see how that works out! Anxiety plays it’s part and I’m hoping when CBT starts working I will be able to be that little bit more relaxed. Apart from worrying about going back to Halls I haven’t had to use CBT today but it’s still going to take time. This is something that I can’t get ahead with, a new way to learn I suppose!Â
Sister Time
Today I was able to spend some quality time with my baby sister who is, in my opinion, beautiful inside and out. Now sometimes darling Summer-Rose can be a total teenage and a total pain in the arse. She knows what she wants and she tells people what she thinks. To me this is more of a relief than anything, my sister will not be bullied because she wont let anyone bully her. As I’ve move out I feel like we’re closer than ever and our phone calls get longer every week (our poor parents who pay for them!) and I get surprised about how grown up she is. She is no longer that little girl any more. It isn’t playing with make-up any more she thinks carefully, she hates her school work because she already knows it. She questions me about Uni and College trying to work out what she wants to do but at the same time she wants to see the Lego movie with Ali next month, she loves cuddles and she loves anything pink so actually she still is my very little sister. There is a seven year age gap between us so I’ll always see her as a baby and I think I find it harder than Mum to let her become a teenager.  I like to know that she’ll come to me with problems or when someone is doing her head in, I also like that she is now her own person. In short I am very,very proud of my baby sister.
That piece of the puzzle that just doesn’t quite fit
I’ve been at home since Friday. The up side is that I can sleep in late and get an early night if I want too, the down side is that it gives you a lot of time to think. I’ve known for a long while that I don’t normally fit in with people my age but I thought university would be different.Â
The easiest way to say this is that I don’t see my childhood best friends, I still speak to one of them but she lives in Australia meaning it’s hard to talk or see each other. Everyone talks about people they’ve known since they were children I don’t really have that any more apart from Grace who I met in year 5/6, she’s a year younger than me. Similarly for Secondary I never had one best friend, each year we’d drift apart and I’d start again the following September. I still speak to one or two people from school on a semi regular basis but not really enough to say we’re best friends. As for college? My so called best friend got whipped and decided that our 3 1/2 year friendship wasn’t worth anything and has nothing to do with me anymore.Â
I started to think that I was a bad person, it must be my fault that I don’t have a best friend and then I went to Uni. There isn’t one student I don’t get along with. I may be honest with people but I am certainly not a bitch. So I have friends, flat mates and few people who I consider very close if not best friends but I’m always paranoid about if it will last. There are very few consistent friends I have had through my life Grace, Lucy B, Jordan, Erin and Ali are the names that spring to mind I never have to try around them we just pick up where we left off. I know I sound confusing here and I am confused. The only person who I ever feel totally in sync with is Ali and that’s why we’re always best friends first.Â
The problem is that now I have to make new friends and I do but I just feel different. The girls talk about things like make up and hair stuff, something I know absolutely nothing about. There aren’t many boys around to talk to at the moment either and the ones I am good friends with are on different courses mostly. I just feel like I should have made a group of friends and should be going out a lot, unfortunately I spend way too much time in my room.Â
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So as I’m writing this I’m trying to put my Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in place. I have to try and realise why I feel this way and if possible how to change it. So here we go blog readers I’ll share this moment with you.Â
Anxiety – I haven’t made a close group of friendsÂ
       – Coming home has made me upset as I have only seen a handful of friends and had them talk to me since moving
       – I feel like I’ve missed out when I don’t have many people who can visit me at uniÂ
Solution? Â
      – Remind myself that it has only been 6 weeks, I have 3 years!Â
      – Keep talking to people
Anxiety – I don’t go out as much as everyone else
Solution – I have asked my flat mate if I can try going out with her and her friends more as I’ve had a good time before
        – Call Bekkie tomorrow and have a chat
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Anxiety – I messed up my hair todayÂ
Solution – Attempt to fix it with mum tomorrow
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So there you go I’ve tried working through it, I already feel more positive oddly enough!Â
I think I want to be a Journalist
It seems to me lately that everyone knows what they want to do when they leave Uni, vaguely at least. I on the other hand am one of those people who have no idea what so ever what they want to do…until today at least. Most people in Creative Writing were not impressed with the whole idea of a journalism lecture, I on the other hand was intrigued. I genuinely wondered what they could teach us in Creative Writing.Â
Overall I agreed with what the lecturer said, other elements not so much. I will say though that it was the most enthusiastic I have felt in a Creative Writing lecture for quite a while now. I found something I was genuinely interested in. I’ll admit it wasn’t a sudden epiphany I’ve been toying with the idea of going into journalism for quite a while now but while I’m so close to London, why not? Â Â
Who knows if this is something I’ll still want to do by the end of my degree? I might completely change my mind and want to go into teaching again or I might do a law conversion. I think the thing with uni is that I can try new things and not have to completely make my mind up just yet.Â
What I want to be when I grow up
You know when you’re a kid? You dream about everything you can be and there are absolutely no limits. I’ve changed my mind so many times about what I want to be my ‘proper job’. You see I want to be a musician, I want to do it more than anything in the world but in my lecture today something came to me, a thought that is now burning through my mind like a flame. I want to be a journalist, well I think I do anyway. I swear I was the only one in the lecture today who was excited by a journalism lecture, even though I didn’t particularly agree with some of the things said I’m seriously considering some work experience.
An important part of uni is trying to work out just about what you’re going to do when they throw you out eventually, you know into the big scary world. The timers ticking, I have 3 years here and then I’m supposed to work it all out. Well that’s the theory anyway…
So what am I paying for again???
I’m writing to you from the university library. Now usually I don’t get up this early to go to the library, it’s only 9.39am, despite fighting myself to get out of bed I got to my lecture dead on time. Â I then waited 20 odd minutes and the lecturer didn’t turn up. If they had emailed I wouldn’t mind but I spent 4 hours of my Sunday reading the book for this lecture and I could have spent that getting head with other work. It wouldn’t normally bother me but this is becoming constant thing, especially in Creative Writing. I honestly love Kingston so much but I’m so glad I will be majoring in literature next year (I might actually have time to write my novel.Â
In light of my time at university I think it’s important because sometimes you realise you’ve picked the wrong course and I never thought this would happen to me. It’s not because Kingston it a ‘lower’ university if Oxford taught it I would probably still get frustrated. I do get angry when I realise how much I’m paying and that if the lecturers don’t turn up they still get paid.Â
Despite all this I am so happy today which is very odd because I’ve had a lack of sleep. I’m hoping that this good mood continues, it probably helps that I’ll be going home on Friday and I have Ali’s birthday to organise! You’ll also be pleased to know that I’m seriously considering writing a book for freshers, I feel like I’m in the right position to give advice because I am living through it! Let me know what you think in the comments section (below).Â
Getting things done
So today was a day for getting everything sorted. I didn’t inted for this to happen but after my driving lesson was cancelled I had some time on my hands. I’ve realised I haven’t had enough time to write much lately and it’s been getting me down. After looking at the way my life has been these last few weeks I’ve decided to get organised. I still don’t especially love my halls and as much as I love spending time with some of the people here I still think it would have been better to live in Kingston Hill.Â
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So I’m getting to that point in my course now where I’m starting to understand things, maybe even attempting to get ahead. Despite all this though I’m turning the job down. I still have a lot of work to do and I want to enjoy life as a first year student, I’m going to be working the rest of my life so I’m going to enjoy my studies. That said I do want to work through the summer I hate doing nothing!! Right now I need to focus on me for once, get a good grade and get the EP recorded (oh and actually publish some decent blog posts, sorry guys!).Â
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Thanks for reading again!Â
Chloe 🙂Â
Making Decisions
After being at uni nearly a month I’ve made a big decision, I’m dropping Creative Writing as soon as possible. I thought that I wanted to be on the course and I don’t, I don’t feel like I’m getting what I wanted out of the course and rather than being super creative I’m noticing a lack of creativity.
When I was deciding I thought I wanted something creative to go with the English Lit course, but I’m finding my self loving English Lit and struggling along with Creative Writing. I’m losing my passion, which is something I never wanted to do. It can get a bit lonely when other people are getting great feedback and ideas and I just feel stuck all the time.
So now I’m making the right steps to leave the course either by transferring now or next year. I just want to be taking something I’m passionate about and right now Creative Writing isn’t it. These decisions aren’t easy but I’m really hoping I’m making the right decision.
Chloe Metzger 