The struggles of being a little lady and more

This is quite a personal blog entry but it's just something I want to write as a prequel post. This post is about insecurities because I hope you will also be able to relate to it and maybe it will help with any issues you are currently facing.

Ever since my 16th birthday I do not think I have grown a single inch, leaving me at a petite 5"1 height. 

I hated being small and I always had confidence issues to do with the way I looked, including my height. As I went off university a lot of small and rather big incidences shaped the way I thought of myself both positive and negative. Let's say it was a big learning curve and talk about all my dirty little secrets another time. 

My semester abroad was what really changed me. I began to become really comfortable with the way I looked. I learnt that it wasn't healthy to be put down by a funny look that a guy gave me and automatically assume it was because he thought I was short and funny looking. 

I shouldn't have based my confidence on how other people reacted to me, because it was my confidence. I should have more control over it. It was wrong to have all my self-esteem build upon what others thought. Worst of all, it probably wasn't even what other people thought, it was my assumption that they would judge me when in reality no one gives a flying fuck. 

When you are living in another country, you have no real wider friends circle therefore you stop caring what people will think of you, because you know that it is temporary and you will be out of there soon. The approach taken by me was, "so what! I'm only here for 6 months, like I give a shit if I tripped and fell off my bike. So what I'm 5"1 and shorter than my friends. Who cares? I don't really know anyone here." 

I made new friends but it was based on this outlook, therefore I didn't care if they liked me for what I was because I was only there for a few months. The friends I made became great friends. It was this attitude that I decided to keep once I came back from my semester abroad, 

I slowly came out of my shell in the exchange programme and grew as a person. Height does not define me, nor do my looks. It's okay to be the smallest person in the room! I shouldn't have to get comfort from others being smaller than me 

There are more important things, and being petite can be great! You feel a more dainty and cute. You can also get away with shorter skirts. 

Sorry for the rather long blog post, I shall try to make it less emosh and gushy next time bros. 

À bientôt, j'espère. 

Studying abroad

Hollaaa my long lost sweet blog,

It's been months! And I'm sorry, I really am. But there is a brilliant excuse behind this: I spend the last semester studying abroad in the Netherlands, in the most beautiful, exciting, quaint place called Maastricht.

I also didn't want to be that kid posting every week about my adventures because honestly, do you really want to hear about how great the ice cream was at Luxembourg (7/10 max.) and how I did all the clichéd things in Brussels? No. I am no expert when it comes to the best beer in Germany and this is not a travel blog. This is a fucking categorically confused blog so let's try and stick to that.

Dear me, what a great couple of months though. I had the fucking time of my life, and it was the happiest I could remember being. I swear to you there must have been something in the water in Maastricht because I would just be riding my bike to the shops, or to university, thinking about how beautiful everything was. Maybe because everything was beautiful in Maastricht, here is a sample:

(Maastricht town hall)

(My faculty, Fasos, at Maastricht University)

(A road near the inner-city library in Maastricht)

(Maastricht from the highest point in the Netherlands)

It was everything, from the good company of my flatmates and everyone I'd met, to the good food, good drinks and the lovely Maastricht streets. This has just increased my hearts desire to travel, and if anyone is hesitant about doing a semester abroad (especially if you're in England), DO IT. Don't even think, not for a second, just do it. You might feel lonely for the first couple of weeks, but the rest of time will be worthwhile. You'll learn so much about yourself, about your country, and about the world.

If you're studying at sixth form in England right now, seriously consider going abroad for university. I wish I had. It's places like Maastricht that make you realize that there's more to the world.

This is the thing, travelling changes you. If you have done it right it makes you wiser, more appreciative and you can be damn sure that your views on the world will not be the same as when you started. My heart aches from the lost piece that I left in Maastricht but isn't that always the trouble with travelling? You leave pieces of your heart scattered, miles away with people or places. Is it worth it? Always.

Leaving

My life has taken some pretty alarming turns since I last posted on this blog. If I remember correctly, I was mopey over a relationship that clearly wasn't meant to be but oh wow have things changed. I finally got the guy who I've been pining after since October (since the first time I met him, how cheesy), a guy who treats me so well, who's lovely and better than anything I could have imagined, and what timing too. About a month after we got together it turned out I had to leave because I was doing a semester abroad. I rarely fall for many men as hard as I've fallen for Pug (let's call The Boy that shall we?), which made leaving so much harder.

We've agreed to carry things on while I'm in the Netherlands studying at the University of Maastricht but boy does it suck.

I won't lie to you, I hated leaving. I didn't think I would be as emotional or regretful but I was a mess on the last day. Tears, hating every second of saying goodbye, more tears, lots of awkward silences as I'm not the best person when it comes to saying the right thing. God I loathed it. It seemed more like a final goodbye because the chances were, after this semester I might go on a placement year and my best friends will have graduated by then. As will have Pug, who is currently in his final year.

I don't dare to think how much I'll hate to say goodbye to my mother who might not be able to come and see me off.

I suppose goodbyes are always hard when you know that there's a possibility that you will never return to that same place in your life again. My heart breaks as I think of all the nights I will never spend getting beers in a pub with the friends I once made, or never spending another evening lazing around in someone's room, talking about all the people we hate and how unfair life is. As Hugh Laurie once said:

“It's a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you're ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”"

Maybe this is true. I know I've never been one to worry about being ready before, I tend to go with the flow but once you have something that is worth staying for, I suppose being ready is required. 

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.