The end of an era...

After three years, hundreds of thousands of words and more deadlines than I care to remember, that’s it. I have finished my degree.

Yesterday I submitted my dissertation; my very last piece of University work. Printed, bound and proof-read a ridiculous number of times, I popped it in the box and said goodbye to three years of Undergraduate study.

It’s a surreal feeling; there’s a mixture of excitement, pride, terror, nerves, relief and then pure happiness as friends congratulate you with the news that now you’re free! It’s almost as if Uni had us tied down in chains for the last few years…

But it does feel like a huge weight has been lifted. The deadlines are over, the stress has gone and there’s just a wait now to find out whether the hours spent in the library will pay off. In the meantime though, the fun can begin - I’ve begun to notice that University pretty much starts with a party, and ends with one too…

Heads or Tails.

I’ve spent two hours folding clothes into the smallest shape possible, calculating how much make up it’s possible to wear in 2 weeks, and prioritising work by how light the book is... it can only mean one thing. It’s the end of term.

Every time it’s the same :
- you pack light, and still have a heavy bag.

- you give everyone the biggest hug goodbye, and then remember it’ll only be a few weeks until you’re reunited.
- you excitedly get on the train home, anticipating the overjoyed welcome you always exaggerate in your mind, only to spend the journey terrified that your bag on the overhead shelf will fall on that small lady with her head stuck in a book. What a shock that would be...

But this time, it’s different.

This time, it’s the last time.
Reminiscing with friends this week about our very first day at University and the nerves involved with moving into halls, we all realised something. That feels like ages ago. And it is.

Next time I pack to go home, I’ll have finished University. I’ll be leaving...

Excuse me while I take a quick break to run around the house in a state of panic...

Regaining some composure, let’s have a look at the main issue here. As a final year Undergraduate, thoughts inevitably split between current study, as essays come out of your ears, and future plans. What am I going to do with my LIFE? I hear my friends moan. How do I pick a CAREER? HOW do I pay this loan off? and... it’s so UNFAIR we have to decide our future path at the horrifically young age of 21... That’s my personal favourite.  

Despite some insistence that student debt isn’t ‘real’ debt, students facing graduation feel the intense pressure of picking a career or gaining an internship and ultimately earning some money.

First arises the decision about living arrangements. Every student is terrified of going home. Although it’s a financially viable option, allowing you to eat proper food (rather than cereal for dinner), it can also be seen as a step back as you wave goodbye to the independence of living with friends and settle into the family hierarchy as if you never left.

Then there’s the choice of further study, an internship, or a direct job application. With the first two, there’s a further issue of income because, quite frankly, it’s unlikely you’ll have one. Facing the bank of Mum and Dad versus ANOTHER loan, further study is quite scary.

But regardless of these concerns, think about the real problem here. Every step is a risk. Moving back home is risky - what if you get stuck living with your parents for longer than expected? Living independently is risky - how are you going to afford it without the many loans and bursaries you’ve previously been used to? Further study is a risk - it’s another year between you and a career and another drain on the bank balance, but it could land you in that dream job. Applying for a career straight away is also a risk - you might hate it. Or you might rise up the career ladder and love it...

The way I see it, it’s all a big, fat risk. But surely at our age, now is the time to face it. The student loan will get paid back eventually, the job will eventually be landed, the dream flat will eventually be rented... it will just take time. So why not do what you want to do now, and chase the dream you have even if you do think it’s unattainable. If it doesn’t work out, you still have the rest of your life to change career and reconsider your options. So stop panicking and just go out there and do it. And if you don’t know what to do, it’s not the end of the world - you’re young enough to still have time to work this out. Remember the wise old words of Baz Luhrmann - some of the most interesting 40 year olds still don’t know what to do.

So yes Graduation is terrifying...it’s the end of an era. But it should also be stupidly exciting as it’s the start of another one, even if you haven’t planned everything about it yet.

With that thought, I’m off to flip a coin to decide my future now. Oh don’t judge...everyone knows no-one can take their own advice...

Flamin' hell it's cold...

Following on from my last entry, any of the mid-term meltdown stress I was suffering from has well and truly disappeared with the traumatic incident that happened in our student house this weekend. Although it most probably should have contributed to my very own breakdown, it actually injected a bit of perspective and a strange amount of adrenaline.

Let me explain.

It’s Friday morning. I’m deservedly rather excited about the prospect of a night out after what feels like a year-long week. I spend the day working out at the gym and wading my way through more reading and yet another essay.  I do all of this with a little shiver; not out of horror at the work, but because the house is slowly getting colder and colder. So much so at one point, I’m sure I felt the house itself shivering.

My housemate and I investigated and linked the lack of hot water with the ominous red light on the boiler. Pretty sure that was green before… Wisely, she phones the landlord who comes and resets it and all is funky-dory again! J

 He’d probably only been away for an hour when the main bulb in my bedroom blew. Now, we’re not the type of household to have spare bulbs lying around, so I just phoned our landlord and he came straight back. It’s a good job he did too – the red light of death returned on the boiler. We waited anxiously on the stairs whilst he slowly took apart the metal box on the wall, both silently aware that we needed the hot water to come back on so we could shower for our night ahead…

He emerged from the bathroom with a grin (to this moment I still don’t know what he found so amusing.)  He told us that the boiler needed a new part and he didn’t have a spare one! YAY!

So to sum things up, we had no hot water and no heating and we hadn’t showered yet. Sometimes I just can’t believe my luck.

Our landlord did try to help…but that’s when things started to turn rather dramatic. He showed us how to get the electric shower to pump out hot water and said that he’d wait in his van for 20 minutes with a clip on one of the boiler tubes just to heat the house up for that duration. Then, once we’d showered, he’d come back in and take the clip off – that way we’d at least have taken the chill off the house. It sounded like a good idea at the time…in retrospect we probably should have considered that by clipping a tube he was blocking whatever was running through it and letting it pile up…

My housemate showered and came out with a shiver saying the temperature of the water dropped. I attempted to shower and could not for the life of me get any hot water. I was just thinking about giving up when I smelt gas.

‘Don’t be stupid Steph. Why on earth would a bathroom have a gas leak?’  I thought. I turned the water off and poked my head round the shower curtain to look at the boiler.

The monster in the corner of the room. 

Or rather, the blue monster in the corner of the room as a tidy gas flame had engulfed the box.

I jumped out of the shower and grabbed a towel before the less threatening little blue flame turned into an ever so slightly scary real flame of fire which was coming from the boiler and into the room. The very room I was standing in wearing only a towel and my owl slippers. I freaked.

Yelling ‘FIRE!’ I grabbed my phone and reached for the door, which, by the way, is right next to the boiler. Yes readers, that’s right. My only exit was right next to the flame that was potentially endangering my life. And all for the sake of a sodding shower and a little bit of warmth.

With my housemates shouting at me to come downstairs, the landlord ran up and it was extinguished, mainly thanks to the draft of air I’d let in when I legged it out of the room.

Danger averted.

Well, the good news from all this is that our fire alarms work! The bad news is that I was ever so slightly shaken up and spent the next hour when I was meant to be getting dressed and excitedly putting make up on drinking tea, having a little cry and then having group hugs with my housemates. And I still hadn’t had my shower.

So where are we at now? We still went on our big night out – we saw the life threatening situation as more of a reason than ever to let our hair down a bit and de-stress with some cheesy tunes at Ocean nightclub.  And I finally managed to have a quick shower. But the boiler still isn’t working and the house is still rather cold. But we did learn a few things from this.

1.  Student life is not only damaging to your mentality with the threat of a mid-term meltdown, but it’s also rather unpredictable. Unpredictable but never dull.
   
2. Blankets are better than flames....

Mid-term Meltdown...

There comes a time during a University semester when students begin to look a bit tired and pale. They are non-responsive in seminars and when they do finally say something, it's more of a grunt or a sniff. A vacant stare will appear over their face.

No, this is not an attempt to get into the Halloween spirit and create some ghostly account of University. This is a phenomenon I have decided to call 'mid-term meltdown'.

Think of it like a mid-life crisis but for overwhelmed, and tired, University students. (Oh woe is us!)

I almost had one of these this week, when (as luck would have it) everything just seemed to come at once. With no reading week this year, I was wary that I had an essay due in, meetings to attend, and a mountain of books to read, all for one week. It got to the point when, on the verge of tears in one of campus' coffee shops, I considered calling mountain rescue and just giving up.

But I persevered. I manned up. With the help of litres of caffeine and a combination of late nights and early mornings, I did it all. (You really don't need as much sleep as you think y'know!)

In my week of stress, I noticed that I wasn't the only one around campus who looked like it had all got a bit too much. You know the feeling, the work just piles up, the colds set in and you start counting down the weeks until Christmas (or in my case the weekend and a well deserved night out!)

On the bus this morning I was sat behind a girl wearing a woolly hat.
'Wise', I thought to myself, 'it's like the Arctic out there.'
Then I looked again. I can tell you for a fact that her hat was from H&M. I can tell you for a fact that her hat was fairly new ... because she'd left the tag on it. Hanging cheekily down underneath her little pom-pom was the square piece of cardboard that she has most probably spent the rest of the day cursing for making her look so silly. Undoubtedly, this was a symptom of mid-term meltdown - too tired to notice that the tag is still hanging off the bobble on a woolly hat. Tragic.

I then waded through a room of what felt like synchronized sniffs and fits of uncontrollable coughing. The cold's have hit Uni, and they just make everything feel so much worse!

I persevered through my day and went to pick up tickets for the aforementioned night out. Bright eyed and bubbly I struck up conversation with the staff. Only to find out that mid-term meltdown doesn't just hit students... Struggling to remember what day it was, forgetting to write my student number down, and then almost writing my first name where my surname should be, we eventually managed to sort everything out and I sauntered smugly away with my tickets.

So yes, I've successfully dodged mid-term meltdown; I had a stressful week but such is life. I survived that mountain and I have a weekend of freedom to enjoy before it all starts again! So far, it's 1 to me and 0 to 3rd year. You have not broken me yet!!

But be warned readers. If you're mooching around campus and towards you comes someone who looks paler than you think possible, could carry their library books in the bags hanging from their eyes and is wandering aimlessly like a...well, like a zombie... don't be scared. Be sympathetic. It's mid-way through the term and they're merely tired. Besides, you could be next.

In the Grand Scheme of Things

I’ve been mulling over numerous topics on which to write my next blog on; my experience of sitting in on numerous court cases in the Magistrate’s Court (mainly drug crimes!), a traumatic weekend involving a spam, fraudulent email, feeling the pressure of picking my very, very important dissertation topic, or the release of yoga. But no. I’ve gone for something a bit more serious.

I’ve just watched the evening news, in which over half the programme was spent focusing on the war in Syria. Among about 185 deaths, two journalists have been killed and many Syrians injured(in the hundreds).

Now, I’ll admit…I didn’t actually know a great deal about this; so I’ve spent some time doing some research, (something I’ve actually been meaning to do for weeks, but obviously, being such a hardworking, manic student…free time is a rare thing…).

When my housemate asked why it’s happening, I said (in a terrifically accurate guess) that it was probably an uprising against the government and their regime.
Indeed, the president Bashar Al-Assad has come under fire for treatment of his people, human rights issues, freedom of speech restrictions and a violent regime. Barrack Obama even signed an order attempting to pressure the president into ending its use of violence and converting to a democratic state rather than their system of autocracy…otherwise known as totalitarianism (one person acting as the supreme power within the state –woop-de-doo for them but not  so exciting for everyone else.)

I’m not going to bore you with the whys and wherefores …this isn’t a news site. But two incidents really struck me.

1)    In the beginning of 2011, protests began against the government. According to eye witness accounts, soldiers who refused to open fire on civilians were executed by the Syrian army. Refusing to shoot innocent people.

2) In August 2011, Syrian security forces attacked Ali Farzat – the country’s most well-known political cartoonist. Think of the cartoons in our daily papers, playfully mocking David Cameron or Ed Milliband. A man, responsible for producing such cartoons in Syria, was hospitalized with fractures to both hands and blunt force trauma to the head, after the attackers threatened to break his bones as a warning to stop drawing cartoons of government officials.

If you think they’re shocking, consider the day to day trauma that is still on-going.  News programmes show the break of day starting not with an idyllic sunrise, but with threatening gunfire.
When you actually bother to find out the facts, the situation in Syria is horrific. It’s a disgrace to our supposedly ‘developed’ modern world, that such violence and oppression is causing hundreds of deaths every day.

So, it got me thinking, in the grand old scheme of things, it makes my daily traumas of what dissertation topic to pick, or whether to have cereal or toast for breakfast seem slightly trivial…