GetDotted Domains

Viewing Thread:
"Student Life: A Reflection Thus Far"

The "Freeola Customer Forum" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.

Tue 12/10/04 at 20:21
Regular
"TheShiznit.co.uk"
Posts: 6,592
Well, it’s been almost a month so I thought I’d give you a little update on what’s been going on in the life of Alistair Grant Gray, aged 23 from Harlow in Essex. The more observant of you will already be aware I’ve just started a journalism course at the University of East London, and seeing as my course has almost no relevance to journalism of any kind at the moment, I thought I’d break my creative duck and spill my beans all over these forums (if you don't mind my horrendous metaphor butchering).

People
By far my biggest fear about leaving home and going to live at University was the people I’d be surrounding myself with. While I’m only a half hour drive and a one hour tube ride away from home, I knew I’d be cutting a lot of ties with friends and family, something which is scarier to me, someone who’s lived in the same house my entire life, than it may be to you. I have a friend who’s long regailed me with his tales of University life, and how he was the only English speaking student in a dorm full of Chinese kids (and not fun ones that can do karate either). Naturally, being the eternal pessimist I am, I was bricking it about leaving home, making all new friends and leaving certain aspects of my life behind.

Thankfully, most, if not all of my fears were unfounded. I live on a circular floor with 20 rooms, quartered into 4 flats of 5 students. Apart from a freshly vacated room C (young Iranian girl called Hanye was having family problems and moved out in about 2 weeks) I reckon I’ve got some wicked roommates:

First we have Caroline next to me in room D. She’s very tiny, very petite, dresses like a mini Gwen Stefani and is possibly one of the most adorable people I’ve ever met in my entire life; you can’t help but like the kind of person who had never used a toaster before she came to Uni. Anyway, she studies Media Studies and she rocks.

A few doors down is Emily, the resident booze hound. When she hasn’t got a bottle of vodka in her hand, she’s one of the most hands-down funny girls I’ve ever met, a little bundle of unstable energy with a devilish smile who’s always up for a good time, and indeed, a stiff drink. Emily is a film student. I like Emily.

Next door is Gavin, another film student. He’s pretty damn funny actually, and not in the knock knock funny sense either (within about an hour of the four of us meeting each other, we were calling each other c##ts like we’d known each other for years). He’s the kind of bloke whose door is always open if you wanna pile in and watch a film / catch the OC or play a few violent games of Pro Evo. Pretty sound all round really (even if his hair does look a bit gay).

Elsewhere there’s Ash and Jess (two friends from Kent), Nick (friend of Gavin’s from Norwich), Sam McFly and Sam Timberlake (not their actual names) plus the girl half of the floor that’s populated by art students, drunkards and South Africans (okay, there’s only one South African), all of whom are thoroughly pleasant people.

All of this, of course, means nothing to you, and neither was it meant to – I could wax lyrical for ages about how cool so and so is, or how funny it was when thingamy made that face, but my point is that almost every single person I’ve met so far is friendly, well-spoken and generally up for a laugh. It’s the biggest relief to know that I’ll spend the next three or so years conversing and living with people I can genuinely call friends. Phew.

Atmosphere
University life is pretty god damn fantastic for many reasons, but the biggest is definitely the atmosphere on campus. Everyone, and I mean everyone is of the same mindset, in that they’re treading new ground, want to meet new people and want to have a good time in the process – this makes socialising so bloody easy, because everyone wants the same thing, to get on with one another and have a good time. Compare it to the atmosphere in pubs and clubs in Harlow and there’s a world of difference – try introducing yourself to someone you’ve never met before and you’ll usually be met with one of two responses, either a stony-faced silence followed by sniggering, or a swift chiv in the kidneys, followed by an intimate looting.

However, I’ve discovered a part of me I don’t particularly like at all. Because I’ve spent the last month in close proximity with my group of friends (we eat together, shop together and drink together) I’ve realised that I don’t actually like my own company that much. That’s not to say I’m going to dye my hair black, put a crucifix on my bedroom wall and start listening to Staind, more that I don’t really like being on my own when there’s group stuff happening elsewhere. Fairly natural you might think, but I’ve found myself sometimes just wandering into the kitchen to see if anyone’s there, or just lying on my bed waiting for someone to get up first in the morning. It’s a tad pathetic, very needy and rather stupid, and it’s a trait I’m not overly enamoured with.

Something else that doesn’t sit too comfortably with me is my escalating paranoia. I’ve never been the most paranoid person in the world – frankly, most of the time I don’t give an ass whether people are talking about me – but in this new environment, self-doubt is kinda slowly creeping in. For example, I’ll have a wicked day with a group of friends, laughing, joking and being merry, but one unanswered question, unintentional dismissal or joke left hanging in the air and I’ll go to bed p****d off. It’s definitely something that’s amplified incalculably by the booze (I’ve drunk more in the last month than I have in my entire life; my wallet is not pleased) but sometimes all it takes to put me in a mood is five minutes where no one talks to me. Again, pathetic, needy and very stupid, but it’s something I put down to the beer rather than my personality, and it hasn’t happened very often. On the whole, I go to bed with a massive smile on my face (or candle wax in my hair, but that’s a whole other story).

If it sounds like I’m miserable, I’m not – I’m loving Uni life at the moment, really I am. It’s just that when you spend so much of your day with people, even five minutes of solitude can feel like a kick in the ribs. To be honest, apart from these minor personal niggles, I can’t fault the atmosphere at all – everyone’s friendly, intelligent and in the same boat as me.

Edumacation
This is where things get a little off. Y’see, when I enrolled to a course called Journalism & Print Media, I kinda expected the course to be vaguely related to both the themes of Journalism and the media of print (call me an idiot). However, of the three compulsory modules I’m taking this semester, only one actually interests me and holds my attention for longer than half an hour. Why I am forced to study Radio Journalism as a compulsory subject? Radio sucks, I hate it, and I don’t care about it. Why is the other module just Media Studies under a different title? Why should I care about what Marshall McLuhan thinks about how the media is an extention of our central nervous system? It’s an hour lecture of philosophical techno-babble, followed by a German-fronted seminar packed with obnoxious media types and people pretending they know what they’re talking about (when it’s plain for anyone to see that they’re just empty, husk-like meeja twerps).

Still, only a few months of this and the work is so embarrassingly easy I could do the entire semester’s project in my lunch break (instead, however, I have to do it over a month or so, in a group of people who’d probably rather be reading Sleazenation and shopping in Camden). Optional modules are still to come in January, including Film Studies (awesome stuff, apparently watching movies and bitching about them is education these days!) and How To Build A Website (or, as I plan to call it, Something I Already Know How To Do). Just got to get through the crappy first few months to get to the relevant stuff.

Student Life: Cliches and Stuff
It’s painful to admit, but most of the lazy-ass student clichés told to you by rubbish comedians are true. It’s certainly not new information that young people do stupid stuff when constantly drunk of their asses, but it’s embarrassing how quickly I’ve fallen into the role of the stereotypical student. Yes, there was a traffic cone in my bedroom, no, I don’t know how it got there, and no, I most certainly did not put it to my lips and yell ‘stop telling me what to do’ before scurrying away over a hill. And I’m pretty sure that shopping trolley in our hallway had nothing to do with me (although I’m assured I helped take it upstairs, so who knows?). Our kitchen is an absolute disgrace, it rivals that of Withnail and I for cleanliness and our daily diets usually consist of two of the following three ingredients: toast/beans/pasta. Weekly shopping trips are occasions to be savoured, with trolleys more often than not packed with as much alcohol and food, and yes, the reduced isle is most definitely the first port of call (I recommend the chicken tikka bites, they are so choice). Although it started as a joke, vast portions of everyday conversations are now converted into question form? Like this? Because that’s how students are supposed to talk? Damn you Tim Vine and your crappy observations!

But so what? Does it make me any less of a person? I know a few people who were worried I would come back from Uni a complete t****r, and I can see their disappointed faces shaking at me right now. So what, does doing a midnight raid on a school’s playground make me a b*****d? Is it wrong that we went on the death slide in pitch black, giggling like school girls? Is climbing the mind-rapingly dangerous climbing frame a criminal offence? Actually, stealing a bus stop sign probably is, but that’s another matter. My point? I’m enjoying myself, leave me alone. If I want to behave like a bell end, then I will, because quite frankly, I AM A BELL END. I’m in my natural environment, and if you want to pour scorn and take your seat as Judge Mental then feel free, because I couldn’t care any less if I tried.

Nightlife
Quick capsule London nightlife review: it’s expensive. Our union bar is pretty dull and uninspiring, but it’s £1.50 for a pint of Carling, the music isn’t quite as terrible as you’d imagine and there’s lots of pretty young ladies who are up for being made objects out of. Off campus, London is very big, very easy to get lost in and very pricey but I’m sure there’s a few undiscovered gems of clubs to find out there somewhere. So friends, just because I live in London doesn’t mean I know all the cool places to hang out – I’m just as much in the dark as you are.

Money
Perhaps the only student cliché I don’t live up to at the moment is that all students are stingy, reluctant to open their wallets and pay for items less than a pound by cheque (oh yeah, and I actually wash as well). Why? Because I’ve spent so much money over the last month, even my bank can’t keep up with me. Beer costs money, food costs money, rent costs money, clothes (and washing clothes) costs money – it’s just a constant drain on my finances, funnily enough. I’m not so naïve that I thought it’d all be free, but I certainly didn’t expect to still be spending like a twentysomething consumer this far into my student life. Mental note to self: stop buying vaguely recognisable people drinks in the bar, they never get you one back.

Anyway, all of this is the first month – give me another 30 days and I could be married, I could be committed or I could be dead. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to be doing tomorrow (and can’t remember what I did yesterday) and that’s such a brilliant feeling to have, especially after almost five years in an occasionally stimulating but ultimately dead-end job (sorry guys, you know it’s true). There’s still jobs to find, assignments to be started, work to be done on the student paper (hello brand new videogames section and free review copies) and women to be awkwardly chatted up. I’ll leave it there for now, but for those of you who care, I’d like to make the genuine claim that going to University is definitely the best thing I’ve ever done, and if there’s even a scintilla of doubt in your mind whether you should do it yourself, then bite your lip, be a man and take the step – you won’t regret it, I can promise you.
Wed 13/10/04 at 13:02
"Darth Vader 3442321"
Posts: 4,031
Snuggly- beware the hastily made mate in the first few weeks, they can soon turn out to be an absolute "cook sucker" and the rest of your first year will be spent trying to avoid them.

The guy wore sandals! I still befriended him. He used the phrase "play stupid little computer games" in front of other people.

I still befriended him.

Don't make the same mistake I did.
Wed 13/10/04 at 12:42
Regular
"Pouch Ape"
Posts: 14,499
I got the hi-fi...for a decent price.
Wed 13/10/04 at 12:20
Regular
"Excommunicated"
Posts: 23,284
Awww are you and monkey_nuts getting divorced?
Wed 13/10/04 at 12:19
Regular
"TheShiznit.co.uk"
Posts: 6,592
For the record, I would like to point out that I do miss my friends and family a great deal; I just read it back this morning and it comes across a bit like 'I've moved on now' and that wasn't the intention. *sob*
Wed 13/10/04 at 11:24
Regular
"Long time no see!"
Posts: 8,351
I admire people who go to University for all the right reasons. You should feel proud you were willing - "ready"-or-not - to take the big-step-out and into the cold, cruel world all on your own.

Away from the warmth of the familly who raised you.
Independance all the way. YOU must pay for everything.

You're doing what you need to do for the sake of a future you're clearly interested in.


To you, University isn't like sex. It's not just something you feel you "have" to do because all your mates around you are doing it...

That's the kind of impression I've had from a lot of people I've known, anyway. Wanting to go to "Uni", yet, without an answer for one course they actually wanted to do. It's an awful lot of money to waste!


Well done and very good luck to you!

New things never start-off that easy and aren't always quite like that dream you had in your heard before-hand. But, it does get better! :)
Wed 13/10/04 at 11:11
Regular
"Pouch Ape"
Posts: 14,499
Heh, you fell into the 'buying people drinks and getting nothing in return' trap! I did this in my first year: bought a round for about 15 people as an act of generosity, week later "Monkey_man, can I borrow 50p?", "F**k off, get your crisps". I became stingy overnight, and whittled down my group of friends to 'non-losers' pretty quickly.
Wed 13/10/04 at 11:04
Regular
"Long time no see!"
Posts: 8,351
...I want to know what you've done to the Swear Filter!

:P

(Probably sold it on Ebay or broken it while drunk or something...)
Wed 13/10/04 at 10:59
Regular
"tall skinny latte"
Posts: 623
Mr Snuggly wrote:
> darkcrystal wrote:
> Mr Snuggly >I did a post grad course in magazine journalism at
> Harlow College.
>
> Heh, perhaps if I knew about that I wouldn't have spunked my money on
> a London education? Anyways, half the fun is living on site, if I
> did it all in Harlow it would have just depressed me further.

Not to worry, I thought the course was a bit rubbish. The teachers weren't very good.
Yeah, Harlow is a pretty depressing place. But I was there in autumn and winter, when it was rarely sunny.
Wed 13/10/04 at 01:12
Regular
"Puerile Shagging"
Posts: 15,009
Your real fear were being surrounded by hicks like me after a free ride for four years, but then you saw the women and thought, "it aint so bad". I know how your mind works.
Wed 13/10/04 at 01:09
Regular
"TheShiznit.co.uk"
Posts: 6,592
darkcrystal wrote:
> Mr Snuggly >I did a post grad course in magazine journalism at
> Harlow College.

Heh, perhaps if I knew about that I wouldn't have spunked my money on a London education? Anyways, half the fun is living on site, if I did it all in Harlow it would have just depressed me further.

Freeola & GetDotted are rated 5 Stars

Check out some of our customer reviews below:

Excellent support service!
I have always found the support staff to provide an excellent service on every occasion I've called.
Ben
Many thanks!!
Registered my website with Freeola Sites on Tuesday. Now have full and comprehensive Google coverage for my site. Great stuff!!
John Shepherd

View More Reviews

Need some help? Give us a call on 01376 55 60 60

Go to Support Centre
Feedback Close Feedback

It appears you are using an old browser, as such, some parts of the Freeola and Getdotted site will not work as intended. Using the latest version of your browser, or another browser such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera will provide a better, safer browsing experience for you.