Tag: stress

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

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Look around any lecture halls right now and you will see the anxious faces of students when the lecturers start talking about assignments. Uh-oh we need to do actual work now, that might be a problem. I was lucky enough to have all my deadlines in the same week of term oh and one due in on the last day before break…score! 

I don’t want to write a magical post about how calm and relaxed I am because I’m just as stressed as everyone else right now! I think I’m going to end up dreaming about Queer Theory and referencing tonight seeing as I’ve spent almost 4 hours on this assignment. You see I don’t buy into this whole thing that ‘first year doesn’t count’. I am paying £9000 a year for this course, EVERYTHING counts. So while others are currently getting drunk outside my building I am sitting here trying to work out where this damn book was published and thinking about monologues. To put it bluntly this degree better get me a decent job because I can see lots of these long nights stretching out ahead of me for the next three years.

After a hellish day yesterday, I have managed to cheer myself up. Ali and I will be meeting one of our influences in  February and eating pizza with them, as you do. We also have Don Broco on Saturday as the tickets FINALLY arrived! 

Now I’m going to go and try and wake myself with a shower and read through this all again before tomorrow morning! 

Always getting ahead

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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. 

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. 

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! 

Sleep and the young Fresher (nature special)

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In the wilderness that is university, throughout the day young freshers sleep. At night we see them come alive in a variety of ways socialising, becoming aware of their surroundings and of course the famous mating call (often associated with the alcoholic beverage of their choice. Ok so you know I’m not any kind of a nature specialist here I’m simply commenting on student life, however it has come to my attention that the majority of students just don’t seem to sleep. I think I’m a rarity,there is nothing I love more than my food and my bed (while also being lucky enough to stay a size 8 mwhaha!!)  while everyone else is just going crazy! I have to admit though now freshers is over people are generally starting to calm down a bit, there are still flat parties but it’s relaxed a little bit. As for my nights out? I’m still waiting for a mad night out, if I’m honest though I want to get to know where I am before hand although Wednesday nights seem to be a good night to go out so maybe I’ll try that next week! 

As I said I’m a bit of a rarity but despite this I haven’t been sleeping. It’s hard to get used to a new place as well as listening to the other crazy freshers outside my window all hours of the night. The solution I thought? Go stay at Ali’s and get some sleep after all Kingston Hill seems to be calmer. So after trying and failing with even more buses (damn I hate the buses!) Ali’s friends are pretty chilled out and we all decided to give the pub a miss and instead just sit and talk, the rest of Kingston Hill didn’t seem to get the message. I’m starting to get the feeling that even though I don’t go to them flat parties follow me, I never sleep!  I asked Ali about the amount of noise (honestly it was like trying to sleep in a bar!) and he said he didn’t get it, it was never that bad. Eventually I managed to crash out then woke up about 6 hours later to get the bus, this was strike one. Despite the early start I woke up with a smile and headed off to wait for my new laptop and printer to arrive. When it did the guy pretty much made me trash my neatly and thoroughly organised desk and room which sent me into a whole different wave of panic. I had a new laptop though, I can’t complain about that although my idea for a quick shower and 1 hour nap went out the window, I surely wouldn’t be THAT tired right? Wrong. After almost 2 weeks of interrupted sleep the tiredness reared its ugly head. The problem is when I’m tired I easily slip into a low (as I had the night before), to cut a long story short I doubted myself all afternoon and ended up in tears (which my lecturer is now aware of, nice one Chloe, nice one) at the end of one lecture. The thing is getting used to all this on a few hours sleep is enough to make anyone’s brain hurt let alone someone like me who has a brain running at 100mph at all times. 

I lost all faith in myself today so I have decided that sleep is so important that I don’t care what people think of me. I need to stay healthy so I’m going to go out occasionally but make sure I get a good nights sleep most nights. I need to make sure that I’m okay because otherwise I wont get my degree and that’s what I’m here to do. I want to use this blog also to thank my lovely new friends as well as some old ones. I’ve been having a really tough time time this week and I’ve found freshers hard and a few people have really made all the difference. So I’m using this to say thank you and that I’m okay, well I will be in time. As a lovely man said to me today ‘take every day at a time’.