Tag: uni

5 ways to procrastinate

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As you can all guess by this post my day wasn’t as productive as I wanted to be. According to some of my lecturers this is an inevitable part of writing. So here are five things you can ‘get on with’ while that essay is waiting.

The television is now your best friend 

When else can you catch up on all 10 seasons of Friends? 

Go to the pub 

A few beers will DEFINITELY get those creative ideas flowing…  

Worry about said assignment while not actually doing it 

How will I pass? I’m never going to get this done? Why are there no words? WHERE DID MY BRAIN GO

Cook more than you need 

Because food might just give you the energy to carry on…. 

When nothing else is quite working you can always Snapchat everyone you know… 

Now you’ve finished reading this you should probably go start that assignment, good luck! 

The blog after the night before

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Pulling my best duck face with Jodie, Ben and Amy in the SU.

When I woke up this morning I was slightly surprised. My head didn’t hurt too badly and the need to be sick didn’t seem to exist yet, for a brief second I wondered if I could have been as drunk as I thought I was last night. Then things started coming back to me, Malibu, Archers, Vodka, Jager and more doubles than I should have followed by attempts at twerking, slut drops and dancing in the middle of the bar with just Amy…no one else. 

I know what your thinking, where has all this come from? First the pub on Wednesday now out at the bar Friday night? I really don’t know, I suppose I’m trying to enjoy uni more this semester and socialise. I’ve realised that uni isn’t just about getting your degree. So I’m relaxing on the work front a little bit and trying to enjoy the other parts. So far I have something on every night next week. 

Managed to get Ali to come out too! Victory!! 

Although I definitely couldn’t do it every night, the change of company definitely made a difference. I can’t wait to go out with my Kingston Hill friends again! Sadly next weekend is a no go but I’ll be spending a night in with my little sister instead. It’s kind of a relief actually that last night happened. I haven’t been brilliant with my blogging this week because I’ve been struggling at uni. Creative Writing is really starting to wear me down and a lack of motivation doesn’t put me in the best mood. I guess there is a silver lining though,  while I only have to worry about passing Creative Writing I can go ahead and meet up with friends a bit more and simply get on with passing and then being able to let go. 

So there it is my lovely readers I’ve officially been accepted into the fold of ‘the fresher’. Of course there are a lot more embarrassing moments that happened last night, not that I’m going to let you all know them! It was the most brilliant night, I had my band boys around me, I was with friends and I finally let my damn hair down! Here’s hoping this year has started how it means to go on…

 

 

 

Getting ready to head back.

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While many of us are getting excited about seeing friends again, the miracle of Student Loan and being able to order pizza at 3am there is one thing that stands in our way. Packing. As many of my regular readers will know my anxiety has been peeking for the last week or so, the thought of going back to halls of residence hasn’t filled me with much joy. If anything it’s made the whole issue of going back to uni worse. 

The problem is that when I’m stressed my mind goes into overdrive. I can’t sit still and I begin to get anxious and panic and then I start to have an anxiety/panic attack. I turn into someone I don’t recognise and say things I don’t mean. I do my best to avoid stress and put things in place so that if I’d under a lot of pressure I can deal with it but sometimes, like today, there isn’t a lot I can do. The reason for all this stress? Packing and going back to being alone in my flat. While I’ve made plans for in the week tomorrow night is going to be pretty tough and I know that. I’m hoping that the box of chocolates I have left over from Christmas might make it a little bit better. 

I’m hoping that once the worst is over I can try and see things in a more positive light. I have a wonderful boyfriend, some brilliant friends and a band that I’m going to be proud of. There is also talk of finding me some alternative housing in the next month and I’m realising that’s ok. I gave Seething Wells a really good try but when my health is involved I need to seriously consider what to do about it. So I might be writing to you guys again about packing for a move once again! We’ll see. 

Right now I’m going to catch up on publishing a few other posts I’ve missed and have my last night in a quiet room for a change! 

You’re kidding, right?

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I trudged back to London today with a miserable face, I hate going back alone. Unfortunately I had a lecture which I don’t normally have on a Monday so I had to go ahead of Ali. Luckily I bumped into my friend Jen so the journey wasn’t as boring as I thought. I went ot a fair bit of effort to get back for this lecture, one which I believed to be important. It was, but not for the right reasons. I have just learnt that the work I have spent so long slaving over now counts for nothing, absolutely nothing. 

I’m going to keep this post short, purely because I’m now going to go and do things I wanted to do while I’ve been working on the stupid module! 

 

Uni sure is a crazy place

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Today had been quite abnormal for more than one reason and sometimes you realise that moving from a town to a big city wasn’t your smartest move. Ok so let’s start with Surbiton where I currently live (and will be swiftly moving out of come June). There are two parts of Surbiton the nice part which is stunning and a weird grubby part, I’m kind of in the middle. Today after getting off the bus at the station I was shocked to find a woman look at me and start screaming at me. She ranted and raved at me and nobody batted an eyelid she she told me I was ‘f***ing miserable’ and to ‘get my tits out’, because apparently if you do that you get a fella…according to her anyway. Nobody stopped, nobody looked, nobody wanted to help, they just kept their heads down. So I done what any normal human being would do…I went and bought a whole pizza for myself and dessert. Well it is Friday. Plus I’m sure you guy would find me boring if I was on a constant diet like someone I heard today who is worryingly on a diet where she replaces food with cigarettes… something I will never understand.

Apart from the Surbiton divide halls have also become an odd place with reports of fights breaking out again and some drunk loser taking a s**t on the stairs outside our flat after we wouldn’t let him into the flat. It’s just becaomse accepted that people will get drunk or high and that is a ‘good time’. Now maybe it’s time I got into my granny pants but doesn’t it get boring? Maybe it’s just me. 

Either way the most abnormal thing today was the way people reacted to a lack of internet. 15 universities internet was knocked out, meaning my presentation went to pieces. I’m not good with presenting anyway unless I’m singing, not having material made me want to hide under the table ( I didn’t you’ll be pleased to know). Still everything just seemed to shut down for some reason, people completely panicked. I wont lie and say I wasn’t irritated that some moron stole the server but it just proved how reliant we are on technology now. It wasn’t all bad though I ended up spending the morning with my lovely tutor group after our tutor bought us hot chocolate and muffins today, due to not being able to do our online work (yeah we’re not grown up enough for coffee yet, well we don’t think we should be anyway). 

Now I’m off to a very loud and messy Christmas party…let’s see how this goes! 

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! 

So many countdowns…

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Here we have it, we are finally at the 1st of December, so many things to count down to. There’s the obvious count down to Christmas (24 days) , the count down until the end of semester (12 days), the count down until all my work is due in (nope, not counting that one) as well as various other things I am counting down till this month. I’m at home at the moment and if I’m honest leaving is going to be a little hard. I miss feeling comfortable around people, being in halls is hard work sometimes.

I don’t know how erratic my writing will be this month, there is so much to do meals to plan, presents to buy, packing to do as well as the damn assignments. I’m hoping everyone else feels this panic so I might actually get a little bit of sleep. You have to remember though this month has one daily treat. I think my advent calendar(s) might just get me through all the stress this time…

5 ways to make sure you are on top of your deadlines

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The time of year is rolling around that has students stressed, tired and caffine addicted. Just as some mothers will be making ruthless trips to Toys ‘R’ Us and hasty calls to Santa when toys arn’t in stock, students will be taking their frustratoins out on the uni/college library and that can of redbull (I am one of the lucky ones who has red bull sold in the library..score!). One thing is for certain, both of them want the run up to Christmas to slow the hell down. December/Janurary marks the first set of deadlines for me and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t strressed about one particular module, the key thing is I still have time.

This is where my total pain in the arse organizational skills come in handy, I’ve been reading these lists for a few weeks. I’ve tried to memorise when work is due in so that I’m not caught off guard. Luckily my module guides have been handy and I’ve also picked up some tips along the way.

1. Know when your work needs to be handed in

I think the absolute worst thing is having no idea when everything has to be done by, it can mess with your grade at the end. Now all of my deadlines are pretty close together at the moment, in fact I’ve just written them all out to see how much space I have between each. The whole point of knowing these isn’t so you can stress out for months on end, it’s so you can fit things in. Just make a note of big deadlines in a diary or notebook (believe me I am religiously obsessed with noting things down in my academic diary!)

2. Plan when you are going to do things

As I hinted at above I like to plan when I am going to do things. Not everyone works well with pressure, so why not write a to-do list. I find these help more as I can put things in order of what needs to be done and I feel satisfied when I tick it off at the end of the day. I also do a rough plan of when in the week I need to do things and what I have on that week, I’m not goign to lie and say that this can be concrete because things change but a rough guideline can make a world of difference.

3. If you are unclear on what to do ASK!

I think I drive my tutors mad with questions but apparently they think it’sa better idea than getting stuck. Tutors will be much more willing to help you two weeks before the deadline NOT two days. It’s a good idea just to get clarification if your unsure of what it is you need to do.

4.PRIORITISE

This is something I struggle with sometimes, I know that I have to get my Creative writign work done but it doesn’t mean I don’t try and skip. Try and stick to what is due in soonest not what you want to do first. It works both ways though don’t try to get ahead so much that you forget what you have to do for a particular week. Also consider going out, it is still important you know…

5.Make sure you have time for work and play

Which leads me to my last point. It’s all well and good to work hard and get a good grade but you need to have some fun. Fun for you  might be going to Hippodrome and getting so drunk you forget about that assignment until tomorrow or it might be reading a book. Basically whatever you do to relax/have fun make sure you do this too because otherwise you’ll wonder why the hell you’re here.

I’m Dyslexic!

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After 19 years on the planet and 14 years in the education system I can finally say I am dyslexic! Today I trudged to my appointment quite nervous but I didn’t need to be my assessor was so lovely and made me completely at ease. There was one thing though, I found the tests a lot more difficult that I thought I would. In the past I’d taken similar tests and hadn’t found them that hard, which is why nothing was made much of an issue, I wonder now though if I had been trying too hard. As you’ll probably know from earlier blog posts I don’t like failing at anything. If my assessor hadn’t been so lovely I would have got incredibly nervous and stressed when I started struggling.

The end result was that I was obviously dyslexic, something I should have known before. I don’t have the final report but I have a problem with my short term memory, the way I hear things such as phonics and sounds and the rate my brain processes things is a lot slower than the average person. There are a few other things too but I can’t quite remember, either way so many things make sense now! I got incredibly excited when she began explaining what the tests meant and when I asked her about certain situations she said it was part of my dyslexia.

I’ll be talking to my driving instructor about this too as now it’s confirmed there can be special allowances made in my test to allow for the slow processing.I would also like to point out that there are so many different types of dyslexia that it doesn’t just meant people can’t read and write there are many different things. I struggle in particular with spelling, grammar, punctuation as well as that I REALLY struggle with telling my left from my right (which was incredibly embarrassing the older I got). Now I have to talk to the DSA so I can get help with my studies in the form of a mentor who specialises in dyslexia. So a tip for any of you out there who are struggling and feel you could have dyslexia, talk to your uni! I was able to get my test for free because of my household income (otherwise they are £300). It really could help you get the grade you deserve!

Remember,remember the 5th of November…the day that I got off my arse

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Alright so unless you talk to my parents most people will agree that I try and get on and do things (if you’re reading this the dishwasher doesn’t count Mum!), after yesterday’s down day I woke up still in a foul mood..uh oh! I slept in late intentionally so I could try and see if I simply needed sleep to relieve my mood, I was wrong. I don’t know why I get like it really I just get in a foul mood and I can’t shake it no matter how hard I try. In my driving lesson things picked up, I can definately still successfully drive and not crash into anything (always a bonus). Then as the lesson came to an end my mood started to decrease after a few comments. I’m naturally nervous but this wasn’t too much of a problem today. Despite my progress and skills my instructor has made it clear to pass by Janurary I have to do 2 hours a week with him or go all the way back to Basingstoke and drive with my parents, both were pretty silly ideas. It takes me between an hour and two hours to get back to Basingstoke and a return journey is £30.00 roughly which isn’t happening, as well as the expense I moved away to be independent not rely on Mum and Dad. His other suggestion seemed odd, on the one hand I was being told I was a brilliant driver and that I could easily pass my test now on my driving skills. On the other hand here I am being told that I have to have 2 hours a week of lessons (at the lovely price of £40 may I add) or I wont be ready for my test. It makes no sense at all!! So now I’m in the game of attempting to find yet another instructor which is of course great fun.

So I felt slightly put out and not in the best mood to attend the meeting. Toi cut a long story short my lecturers are a great network of support. After a long discussion with my director of studies and a chat with my Literature lecture by chance I have submitted an application to become a full field literature student!! I’m so excited and scared at the prospect and it’ll be a lot of work but hopefully I’ll get my creative writing mojo back if I drop it! It’s very possiblethey will say no this late in the term but I have the full support of my lecturers. If not things have been put in place to make sure I will be a full field Literature student from second year onwards!

In the words of Katy Perry ‘You’re gonna hear me roar’ and that Kingston is what you are going to get.