Blogging Goodbye to Butterflies

Tag: University

  • From Surviving to Thriving – Student life is taking a turn for the better

    I should be the size of a hippo after eating everything I’ve eaten this week. I blame Papa Johns for tempting me with their 99p offer Tuesday night and Just Eat for making it so easy to order Chinese take away when you get home late on a Wednesday evening. My equivalent of comfort food has become the occasional piece of healthy food I eat. For example, when I ate an orange after the Chinese on Wednesday, I could have sworn I felt the vitamin C loving bits of me jumping for joy.

    On Sunday night, this week terrified me. Now I’m sat on my bed, thinking about what I’m going to wear out tonight, surrounded by laundry that I discovered dries quickly hanging from the open sky lights in my room, procrastinating expertly and wondering what all the fuss was about. I’ve spent the afternoon curled up on the sofa drinking tea, reading the book on British History that I have become slightly addicted to and feeling productive despite the fact the book I was supposed to read today was based on the Dreyfus Affair in France.

    I didn’t get into either the Opera or the Operatic Society concert. The audition went surprisingly well considering how ill I’d felt the day before. Expecting it to be a complete disaster, I was pleased when I left and I had managed to at least sing the whole piece. Monday evening, after the audition when I met one of my best friends for coffee, I was feeling positive. Aside from managing to sing my piece, I’d spent a few hours in the library covering the reading for the lecture Tuesday morning and I’d been to my first music lecture of the year without freaking out too.

    Tuesday, I think, was the best day of the week. I had to get up at 7:30 for a lecture that exhausted my brain because it lasted an hour and a half, but I finished the day with the previously mentioned 99 pence meat feast pizza, attended my first Chinese class and went on a night out. Chinese class was brilliant. By the end of the lesson I was ridiculously excited about the fact I could say Chinese numbers 1-10, say hello, goodbye and thank you, tell someone my name is Bronwen and I am British and ask their name and nationality in return. Me and my flatmate spent the entirety of the walk home having the same conversation in Chinese over and over again. The night out was a good one, as they always seem to be, but the early start had got the better of me and I was home and tucked up in bed by two in the morning with McDonald’s chicken nuggets in my belly and a whopping great smile on my face.

    After my lecture Wednesday morning (which I was very happy I made it out of bed and into) I went job hunting again. When I went to hand a CV into The Entertainer Toy Shop they wouldn’t take it. They said they had finished hiring for the Christmas period already, but told me to wait a moment so they could double check. I ended up in a group interview for two hours having much more fun than I would have expected to have in an interview. I was completely unprepared, but the staff all seemed friendly and welcoming and the spontaneity of it all meant my butterflies didn’t make even a brief appearance. They said they’d call me on Friday if they wanted me to attend the Christmas meeting and work with them over the season and on Friday I got a call. If everything goes well at the meeting I can consider myself employed. I am trying me very hardest not to jinx things by mentioning how excited I am about the idea of working at a Toy Shop over Christmas helping children choose what they want from Santa, but I AM SO EXCITED. Yes, Santa is real.

    The rest of the week has been just as amazing. I had a lecture on Chinese history which I know I’m going to become geekishly interested in. I wore my jelly bean wellies out the house and successfully resisted the urge to jump in puddles or sing ‘Singing in the Rain’ whilst spinning my umbrella. I planned on heading out last night, but at the last minute chose to curl up with chicken, chips, an awesome friend and a disney movie instead of heading to the club. Tonight I am going out and I’ve spent so long trying to decide what to wear that I’m starting to wonder if I actually own nice clothes. Tomorrow I’m spending the day with my head in a book again, hopefully the right one this time.

    I’m not an opera star just yet, but I am a Toy Shop sales assistant and I have conquered a week of lectures and loved it. I’m hippo-size and happy.

  • Powering through Fresher’s flu

    Can you still call it Fresher’s flu when you’re in your second year and you’re not a fresher anymore? Student flu perhaps? University flu? An adult cold?

    Whatever you call it, I’ve been poorly this week and had I written this just 24 hours ago it would have been filled with complaints.

    Yesterday, I had a horrendous day: I broke a glass when I was washing up, I found loads of important unread emails from my university, the internet kept crashing while I was trying to send replies, I nearly blew up the kitchen because I didn’t realise there was oil in the bottom of the oven when I turned it on and let it heat up to 200 degrees celsius… Ok, so the day could have been much worse, but with a runny nose and a head that felt the size of Jupiter I found myself curled up in bed with a sad face on wanting to do absolutely nothing, except perhaps head back to Chelmsford and curl up there with a cup of tea and my family.

    My cold ridden self did however manage to book herself an audition for Cardiff University’s opera this semester and did manage to reply to emails despite the lack of internet connection. The audition is Monday evening and I’m… I’m not saying I’m terrified, not if admitting that means risking the return of butterflies just as I’m enjoying a beautiful and much needed bowl of Crunchy Nut cereal.

    Once I’d had dinner I started to feel slightly better and my amazing friend gave me a glass of wine and convinced me out of the house and into a night club for the night. (My decision may have also been influenced by the fact it was ‘Propaganda’s Giveaway Party’ and they claimed to be handing out Nandos vouchers.) I had an amazing night, forgot all about my nose and my head, bought McDonald’s at the end of it and still made it out of bed and to enrolment this morning.

    Despite the fact I felt a little nervous when my alarm went off and I realised it was time to head into the music department for the first time this semester, once I was up and about I was surprisingly calm. By the time I was walking towards the university I was on a high just because I’d conquered step one: Get out of bed and make it out the front door by nine. Enrolment was much simpler than it was first year. Maybe because there was less to do, or maybe just because I was better prepared and less scared.

    My cold is back to haunt me this afternoon, the Tesco near me aren’t selling the Beechams’ cold medicine that until now I haven’t made it through a cold without and the audition is on Monday but my throat hurts and my cough doesn’t seem as if it will be going away anytime soon. I’m eating a late breakfast and I’ve drank more orange juice than is healthy, I’ll spend the rest of the day keeping warm and maybe cook something hot and spicy tonight. I’ll speak through my audition piece later; running through pronunciation doesn’t require a healthy throat. If I wake up with a voice as low as a man’s and as croaky as a frog’s tomorrow morning then perhaps I will panic, until then I know I have three days still left to recover before my audition, I can spend all day in bed tomorrow if I want to and I’m feeling positive.

  • Singing goodbye to butterflies in the shower

    Caught myself singing in the shower, wondered ’round with a towel turban on my head, left my stuff all over the sofa while I went out last night, sung opera in my bedroom AND let my iTunes music shuffle freely without cringing when The Circle of Life started playing. One week here and it feels like home already.

    Feels so good to be sat on an actual sofa, curled up among the cushions writing this post with a cup of tea on the go. Being a fresher, sat on my bed hiding from the outside world, feels like a distant memory. As does nervously heading to the communal space in our university halls and sitting on a hard, plastic chair at the kitchen table.

    Life as a second year student so far has been different to life as a fresher in so many ways…

    As soon as I wake up in the morning I come downstairs in my pyjamas.

    My bedroom door here is almost always open and so are everyone else’s.

    Heading out in the evenings is easy now we know where to head and on which nights.

    I know the quickest route into town and into university and back, and I didn’t have to try three different routes to find the best.

    I feel so much more comfortable living with my friends, in a beautiful city that I now know and love.

    We may still be lacking internet and our washing machine may be broken, but the butterflies that lived in my stomach permanently last year seem to have temporarily fallen asleep this year already. Who would have thought it!? Now to conquer the world.

  • Thank goodness for dongles, wellies and hairdryers

    Sat on the sofa jumping every time I catch a glimpse of a van as it turns down our street in the hope it’s either the delivery man with our TV or the man from virgin here to set up our WiFi. So far every van has turned in the opposite direction. Luckily, I’ve discovered the dongle: A magical device that connects your laptop to the internet through the mobile network.

    Moving day was a success. We may have left two hours later than we’d expected to, but I managed to gobble up a burger king on the way here despite the nerves and I remembered everything besides extension leads and screw drivers.

    I took my time settling into my new student room, and may have hit my head on the slanted ceiling several times while doing so, but now I’m settled I’m really happy with it. The atmosphere in the flat when I arrived was amazing, everyone was ridiculously excited and the boys were already discussing ordering pizzas, buying drinks and heading out that evening. As weird as it felt to be back at university and to be going to Cardiff pubs and bars, we had an awesome night. Starfishing in my double bed at half one in the morning, in my new room, having just been out with my new flatmates, I was a happy Bronwen.

    Since then I’ve been to visit some of my other uni friends, who despite my fears haven’t forgotten who I am over the summer, been to a pub quiz that was no match for the one I go to every Sunday in Chelmsford (which made my heart ache just a little), bought hoodies to replace the ones I lost over the summer, handed out job applications and CVs and lost horrendously at chess.

    Today we braved the rain and gales we woke up to, grabbed wellies and umbrellas and headed out to complain at the letting agency about the broken washing machine and windows. The rest of our time has been spent playing card games and attacking the freezer, which frosted over during the summer, with a hair dryer in the hope of being able to buy frozen food soon.

    As is to be expected I miss home, but I am settling in here AND having a great time… With little time to stop and think, I’m yet to consider jumping on a bus and retreating.

    It’s my turn to cook tonight, so I’m about to head to Tesco. Breaking all of the rules and heading to Tesco with my tummy rumbling, but hoping I’ll still be able to resist buying the whole shop.

  • Two days till Take Two

    Just two more days left in Chelmsford.

    Part of me wants to ring Cardiff University and tell them I won’t be studying there this year after all because I’m sissying out and I’d like to stay home. I want to cry every time I consider saying another temporary goodbye to my friends and family. I’m meant to be a university student now, but I feel like I’m sixteen again and all I should be doing is spending time with friends at the park, going to Smirnoff Ice house parties and worrying about GCSE results . When I imagine waking up in my new room at uni on Sunday morning I want to run up to bed, hide under the duvet and never come out.

    The other part of me keeps telling everyone who asks just how much I am looking forward to going back to Cardiff and how I cannot wait for the fresh start. This part isn’t lying either, there is a part of me (quite a big part of me) that is exploding with enthusiasm. I cannot wait to unpack and decorate my new student room, to go out in the city with friends I haven’t seen in ages, to experience my first university house parties (now everyone has moved into second year houses all over Cardiff), to get a job, even to sit surrounded by books in the library studying a brand new and hopefully interesting topic.

    And I may be sad summer is over, but I was admittedly a little excited when I had to pull a scarf out of my wardrobe to wear yesterday and even when I left the house with an umbrella.

    How one Bronwen can feel so scared and so excited all at one time baffles me.

  • The start of a new journey

    I went and bought a beautiful new mirror for my university room today. I also bought a lovely new diary. It’s cream and pink with flowers on the front, but not in a way that’s too little girly (I don’t think). When I got home, I took a look at my enrolment emails from Cardiff University and made a note of the key dates, pencilling in essential information where needed.

    My anxiety seemed to be at bay and so, I even sat and worked out exactly how much money I’m going to have to spend each month and started googling retail jobs, hoping to find someone in Cardiff who wants to hire a Bronwen for the year, but doesn’t mind letting her go home for Christmas and Easter.

    Then, another email arrived from the university’s School of Music and I started reading about auditions for operas and choirs and it all became too real and way too scary. Just like that, I felt like my anxious, fresher self was back to haunt me and the idea of finding myself, conquering life and living independently suddenly wasn’t as appealing as a positive Bronwen would have told you it was.

    And now, I have to confess, the thought of going back for my second year in two weeks is terrifying. The anxiety is no-longer at bay and it’s coming at me in riptides. During my first year as a student, I struggled with anxiety like I never have before. Nothing scares me more than going back to face all the nerves of being a student again, except perhaps the thought of auditioning for operas when I get there! Or the spider that my dad just had to come into my bedroom and save me from.

    So I’m not a spider fighter just yet, but I can conquer university this time, right? There is a braver Bronwen in here somewhere.