Appreciation

So it is that time of year again, where I move out of London and back to university. Where I spend four days panicking and the last hour hurriedly packing everything that catches my eye. Even the three mini garden gnomes I somehow have managed to find in my room.

It all fills me with a bitter-sweet emotion because I love my family, and I love how I never have to pay for food, but I can't wait to see my friends again and party hard get my shit together this year.

It's like that feeling you get when you go back to school after the summer holidays and you just feel a bit like a new born deer. You've just been away from everything for so long, and you just never want to step out of your front door because you know it will mean that you have to leave all those long summer days behind.

But you do, you step out of your front door, you go back to school and it turns out to be okay.

Hopefully this year won't be go badly for me.

So after an eventful summer, where I begrudgingly worked at a superstore, gave a presentation at a conference full of lecturers, actually went to a conference full of lecturers, started my blog and learnt to appreciate my family, it's time to go back.

It's been a good four months.

Hello Fresher

Hey there,

So I know this might be a little late but I thought I'd make a post about some tips for freshers! Firstly, I would like to say congratulations for getting into university! You are going to have the finest, most memorable and crazy years of your life there.

We've all heard about the mental partying, missing home, not being able to cook for yourself and the work hard, play hard aspect of university. So let me not bore you with that and instead give you some small tips to overcome unusual/not so spoken about problems that I discovered last year:

1. If you live in a self-catered hall you will most probably have to do your own dishes and won't have a dishwasher. Now here's what you shouldn't do. Put your sponge in the sink assuming that it will not be destroyed and eventually have more food than sponge on it.

2.  You will run out of tissue paper. And kitchen tissue rolls.


3. If you are a girl you will have to shave/wax every other freakin' day for nights out. So be wise and get some tops with sleeves and leggings with patterns on it or something?

4. Eventually all your clothes will smell of spilled alcohol from nights out/generally smell because you just haven't washed them since you've gotten there. As will you bedsheets. And you'll have crumbs on them from all the times you eat in bed watching shit on your laptop. 

So either spray that shit with perfume/do NOT forget to do a massive wash. Or you will smell and drive all your shiny new friends away. 

5. You will meet a lot of people on nights out. But here's the thing, sometimes you want to meet people who actually like the same things as you. So a lot of people might tell you not to go crazy and sign up for a lot of societies but don't do the complete opposite and sign up for nothing.

Don't end up joining nothing and eventually realizing that it's too late to sign up for anything at all. 

That'll be THE best way to meet people who aren't in your course and live in your halls. Because by the end of the year you'll feel like you've limited yourself so much. 

There you are. All done. 

I really hope they helped and these aren't just problems that I faced. 

Once again, although I'm sure you've heard it before, don't get so pissed at freshers that you don't know what you're doing. And don't do something stupid while you're that drunk like losing your virginity or passing out in a field in the middle of nowhere. 

Also, try to redecorate the pavement with your vomit because I don't want to see that shit you animal.  

(Also avoid your kitchen table/bed)

On that note, good bye and RIP to FMF 

Revolutions, helplessness and other antics

I don't what it is about today but I just feel angry and sad and a little bit violent. Kind of sounds like the symptoms of depression. Don't worry, my job hasn't made me lose the will to live just yet. I'll see about that in a couple more weeks. 

I just feel like things aren't right. I feel so helpless and unable to do anything in relation to the topics I care about. Let me give you a few examples: 

- The current Syrian situation and how Britain can even contemplate going into Syria. Has history taught you nothing Cameron? Maybe the saying is true, that history does repeat itself because fools do not notice the patterns. 

- The continuous disrespect of the humanities in today's society. Because science clearly outweighs the humanities in importance. I am sick of hearing about things like new technology that can enable you to control someone else's actions through your thoughts. It's only a matter of time until that technology is going to be misused and no one else seems to care enough about this. I understand the importance of science. I know, being a History student, the fundamental role that Chemistry has in our lives from the materials around us to the sub-shells in an atom that allows it to have its functions. But why is it that History has become a dying art? History sculpts your mind in the best of ways, allowing you to think in unique way. 

But it's much more than just those two things. It's anger over poverty, the impacts of consumerism, greed, lack of morality and all these other matters. I guess it's just one of those days right? 

I just want to start a revolution on days like this. I want to join a march for something that counts, I want to stand up for what I believe in.

Alas, so lost am I in my thoughts I forget the coward that I am and the metaphorical cage that I trap myself in. I come up with excuses as to why I am helpless to do anything. I think of my bank balance, which is currently at a great big 0. 

And I come to the conclusion that maybe I am unable to do anything. Maybe it's not time yet. Maybe this just isn't my role in the world.

I imagine this is how all potential revolutionists die inside a young person.

Here I am, complaining, letting my inner revolutionist wither, as I think oh well, I feel like having a piece of red velvet cake.