Monday, 14 December 2015

End of Term reflections

Okay so I know I've previously posted that I'm going to retire this blog, but dayre is a crap alternative for long posts. Also, nothing has changed, I still write horribly so read at your own risk.

The past 11 weeks (10+1 orientation) has been nothing but exhausting. There's just so many things for me to learn here, be it academic matters or basic things about myself I never knew. I'm finding a suitable place to start so I'll just do it chronologically perhaps (like I said, I'm a bad writer).

First few weeks mainly revolved around missing home, learning to cook and deciding which societies to join. Homesickness hit me like a speeding truck I swear. I didn't expect to feel that homesick, but there were just some nights I would mope around in my room and end up in a silent crying fit (because walls are thin and you know, flatmates are around). Other times the crying fits will start when I read something touching online, or re-read a letter my mum wrote. But I always feel better after dealing with myself, like I would think, yes I've dealt with my emotions, time to move on. Cooking wise, I can safely say that I've managed to cook decent food for myself so that I wouldn't have to eat out (expensive and tastes like shite). The strange thing about cooking for me was that initially there was a strange excitement about cooking for people and trying out new recipes. But by week 5, shortly after I fell sick, the excitement and eagerness for it just died completely. My friend said cooking has become more of something I'd do for survival and its not really about trying something new anymore, which I think is quite true. Before I arrived, I made a promise to myself that I would continue dancing, because it does make me happy. So I did, but after 7 weeks, I stopped which was quite disappointing.

There's tonnes more to say but given this blog isn't privatised anymore I shall limit it. Basically, I realised what I really need here isn't a bunch of solid friends. Truthfully, it's only been 11 weeks, and the friends I've gained and lost doesn't really mean that much to me, because it's still in its infancy. A lot can change in a matter of weeks, and I've got three years here so I don't wanna be to desperate to make that many friends so soon anyway. Nonetheless, I'm not belittling the importance of good, reliable friends but think what's more important right now is to be my own anchor. I need to be able to commit to my own promises, not let myself down, get my shit together. I need to take better care of my body and my mental state. To do that I need to have a routine. Once I fell sick in week 4, everything went haywire. I stopped cooking nice meals for myself, I made excuses not to play the piano in Church on Sundays and I started to fall behind on my work. It's really easy to make excuses for yourself over here when parent's aren't here to nag at you to sleep early (although they still lovingly do over Skype) or to eat your vitamins in the morning and all. It's entirely up to you to decide how you want to get through the week.

Term 1 was exhausting. I've done many things I'm proud of myself for doing (i.e., cooking, visiting the doctor on my own, first dance performance i've managed on my own), but there're also a lot of things I wish I'd done better. There's always term 2 to get more things done. This isn't how I really expected uni to be so it's obvious I need to change the way I deal with myself and things around me.

Family is coming up to visit me in 7 days and I'm so stoked! Wish I'd gone home for many many reasons, but this shall suffice.

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