What the bloody hell have I signed up for?

Ok wordpress, I’m back. Hi.

The person writing now is barely recognisable from the miserable sod who used to write on here. In fact, over the past few months I think I’ve changed massively, mainly for the good. In the period between this and the last post I was accepted to Newcastle University to study Law, I got the A-Level grades I needed, I had a summer with people who almost literally dragged me out of my shell, I learned how to cope with new people, and I learnt how to take things easy, and work without a plan.

It should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that I am absolutely shitting myself.

The day after tomorrow, that is to say on Saturday 19th September 2009, I shall move out of the family home in a quiet(ish) town in Lincolnshire, make the 3 hour journey to Newcastle and move into my new room. I shall then show my parents and brothers around; I’ll show the family where I’ll be studying, where I’ll live etc, and then say goodbye to them. They’ll leave and then… [delete as applicable]

1. …  the world shall end. A huge hole shall open up and swallow me whole. I shall never be seen again.
2. … I shall stay in my room for the next week, then venture out into the open, only to be eaten by wild dogs.
3. … I shall forget where my room is and end up wandering the city streets at night. I shall then be kidnapped and brutally murdered.
4. … I shall sit down on my bed, realise what the hell has just happened, panic, probably cry, then throw myself head first into a totally new life. A life in a new city, with new people, new challenges, new goals, new risks, new places, new faces. Newcastle. Ok, I got carried away.

My point is, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what to expect. I mean, this isn’t like going away for a weekend. I’m taking enough things with me to LIVE somewhere else. I’ll be responsible for my own life, my money, my food, my routine, my social life, my academic life. Now, is it just me or is that one massive step? I’ll go from living in my parents’ house with my family, with 2 meals a day (I don’t eat breakfast,) bills paid, cupboards full, warmth and water in abundance and a cat to a room, in a halls of residence, in a student village, in a big city, somewhere up North.

Even as I write this, the enormity of it all is kind of sitting on my head laughing, but refusing to sink in. Yes I know how massive the step is, but I simply can’t comprehend it. Which is why, when my parents say goodbye and I’m left sitting on the bed, I’m pretty sure I’ll be hit square in the face with a catastrophic wall of realisation.

I don’t feel ready for university. Yes I was ready to leave college, yes Law is what I want to study, and yes I can’t wait for the social experience of university life. But HELLO, this is me! I’m nowhere near mature enough for this kind of step, I’m certainly nowhere near organised enough for it. And so, as so often, it seems that a leap into the unknown is the order of the day.

I’m very sorry for not making a point in this. I’m very confused. My emotions seem to swing from petrified to excited to apprehensive to elated and back at least twice a minute. I’ve always known this time would come, but I could hold a gun to your head and tell you that I was going to shoot you, I could promise you  was going to shoot you, I could count down, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, yet you still wouldn’t believe it until it was too late. I knew the time would come when I moved out, I’ve hoped that I’d go to uni for years. Yet now, I can’t seem to convince myself. I haven’t packed yet. Yes, I have almost everything I need, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to pack it all yet. Oh no, that would make it all too real!

:s

What am I doing?

I hope I can swim!

Pothole

Around two hours ago I arrived home from college to a letter. The letter, from Oxford university, told me that my application to read the LLB law degree had failed, and was no longer under consideration by any of their colleges. This was the second such letter I had received in the space of a week. In many ways this spells the end of an ‘era’ yet in many ways I think it may have been exactly what I needed.

I applied to UCL and Oxford, as an early applicant, back in October. Both were ambitious applications; both for courses with less than 30 places and both to incredibly prestigious universities. I applied, because I knew that I would always regret not doing. And now, even though slightly crestfallen, I don’t regret either at all.

I had almost become complacent that all applicants were offered interviews and that, because I have a ridiculous invincibility complex at times, I would be no exception.

I am.

The context of the situation makes the blow slightly harder; many of those closest to me have already received offers from their first, second and third university choices. As far as I’m aware I’m the only person in my year to have received a rejection so far, and I’m currently on two.

When I received the first rejection I was upset, I’d pinned my hopes on university and here was the first indication that my “master plan” might not fall out exactly as I’d envisaged. I felt an irrational anger toward those with offers, to those who had heard nothing as yet, must mostly at myself. Yet after a very contemplative weekend I had managed to convince myself that UCL wasn’t the place for me anyway, and that I’d be much better suited to Oxford. In hindsight that was probably a mistake.

Yet there was no surprise when I opened the letter awaiting me this evening, I even had a feeling of resignation when opening it. Having read through it at least ten times I phoned my law teacher, who as always, was incredibly supportive and told me not to worry and get upset again. I then did the mature thing and logged on to facebook and updated my status to make sure everyone knew, then MSN. Suffice to say, by this point I had slumped into a deep pothole of self-pity.

Yet, as one friend put it, I’d become far too tunnel visioned. Yes I’d been rejected, but by top end universities. Regardless of other peoples’ offers:

“Thats like saying I got turned down by angelina joley and kelly brooke and Flint [another sicth former] shagged dawn french; how unfair is that!?” And then it hit me – It wasn’t the rejection that I was annoyed about, it was the dint in my pride.

It is so easy to become entirely surrounded by your own bubble that if and when it burts, it feels as if the whole world has turned upside down. In actual fact, you’re simply open to more possibilities. And it’s taken a lot for me to come to this realisation – the past two years have been nothing but working towards one ideal end goal. So much so that I have become tunnel-visioned and narrow-minded as a result. Yet strangely I now feel under less pressure, yet have more motivation. I know that what’s to come will be damn hard work, but I have to do it as me, not as somebody aiming to become something. I really do feel mightily stupid for having become so incredibly narrow. Well, I guess at least things will be different from now on.

Incidentally, should you ever feel crestfallen and incredibly self-pittious then might I suggest writing a blog about it and listening to Port Blue’s “The Albatross EP.” It reallydoes help to put things into perspective.

What today seems like the end of the world will tomorrow be a memory.

A fall?

I don’t particularly know how to describe my current feelings, namely because I don’t really understand them so could not possibly begin to give them wordly justice. A lot of things have happened since Monday and they’ve all left me feeling slightly confused, disorientated and very much out of the loop. So, as normal, I am drowning in my own apathy.

I was quite nervous about going back to college after Christmas. I knew there would be awkwardness with certain people, as indeed there has been, and I knew that previous routines would perhaps be broken. I also worried that the new people I have met would have forgotten me over the break and that the new friendships I had made would be nothing, and that my “new start” would simply be “return to start” – now that’s paranoia!

Thankfully I still have some enthusiasm (perhaps drive would be more appropriate) towards my studies, mainly because the thought of university is currently one which I cherish in every spare moment. Less than two years, I’d like to say it’s come quickly but it hasn’t.

I also feel at the moment that things (by which I mean life, the people around me, and just general…things) are moving on at a pace I can’t keep up with. And subsequently at times I can’t help but feeling slightly left behind. Not a wayside feeling, but more of a lagging-behind one. I’m possibly just over analysing everything at the moment.

I’m very sorry but I actually find this entry really hard to write, normally things just flow out. Which, to be fair, reflects how I’m feeling. I have to actually think about how I feel, which means that I don’t feel as at ease as normal because I’m hindered by some sort of apprehension or subliminal retardation.

I’m desperately trying to identify what it is that’s bugging me so much but I just can’t put my finger on it! ARGH! I just don’t feel particularly in control at the moment, and because of this I seem incapable of normal thought processes. What the hell is going on?

I hope next week will bring some sort of light to the situation, if not then I shall probably turn into an extremely miserable (by which I mean more miserable than normal) git.

Sorry about the shortness, general depressing nature and sheer stupidity of this post – I’m currently trying to run up a hill that seems to be getting steeper and I have no idea how much further I have to run.