adios first year

28 July 2019

Well lads, what can I say- first year was certainly a ride. One of the best rides. The transition from my uni home, to my original home is strange. Going to uni I became accustomed to things; I became accustomed to meeting my friend in the kitchen in the morning and telling each other our plans for the days over an essential cup of coffee, I got used to meeting my flat mate in the kitchen when I was making my late night cup of tea and catching up whilst he tried to cook his pizza without burning it (spoiler- it always burnt). I got used to nights starting late, the constant company, the comfort of knowing there are always friends around. Now coming home I have to stray from such normalities, I make my morning coffee alone, have to make my nightly cup of tea earlier than usual, nights have become earlier and lonlier as my best friends no longer live five minutes away. My original home isn’t all bad though, it is nice to be with family and it is easy to slip into old routines, but I miss university. I miss my friends, I miss the city, I miss the culture, I miss the learning. First year was a ride, but I had some absolutle bangin times.



highlights of first year
-going to a venue with only one toilet so everyone was peeing outside, and at the end of the night people were roasting marshmellows outside
- seeing avengers and walking around the cinema absolutley baffled as to where our screen was
- getting pep talks from my flatmate when the fear of exams became crippling
- mistaking an awful chest infection for something more sinister then going out for dinner with my friend to celebrate the fact i was healed with a
-seeing Mid 90s with my friend and recieving the text we need to get sweets whilst I was on my way (fuck yeah need, not want!)
-facemasks and cigarettes and wine after the gym with marta
- Sneaking back into our flat during pres
-getting too drunk when you just pop out for one
-Going to free jazz nights
-The group effort to hustle a deliveroo
-Ball season
-Galentines night
-Spending far longer in the park than intending to on summery afternoons (especially after the english exam- what a glorious park sesh that was)
-Late nigh library seshes with popcorn and chai lattes
-Relaxing in my friends kitchen whilst watching wacky Louis Theroux documentaries
-Saying the B word (best friends) to one of my best friends
-Drunkenly swiping through Tinder with my friend after nights out
-Playing banagrams
-Going to film soc the first time by myself and making new friends
-Trying to eat melting magnums at the park whilst surrounded by beautiful boys
-Early morning walks to the library with my flat mate
-Walking back from a house party whilst the sun and the birds were waking up
-A quick coffee and a catch up between lectures
-Watching my friend make a bib out of a towel so she could eat her soup without spilling it all over herself
-Getting lost in the club with my friend and spending the majority of the evening just us two
-Literally meeting all the people I did. I met the best people.

things I wish I learnt sooner
- my limits with alcohol
- to trust my gut, sometimes saying no to a night out is just what you need
- the importance of taking your mental health into your own hands
- A bar in the union has Articulate
- Not to tumble dry all my clothes (rip my favourite jumper)
- the importance of washing my bedding
-keep a washing up sponge seperate from everyone else (pretty sure the communal sponge had more bacteria on it than a festival toilet)

I just looked at my grades, despite them having been published for a while. People kept feeding me the mantra of not to take first year too seriously as it doesn't count and I think everyone should hold on to that mentality in first year. First year is about settling in, about making friends and learning about the new city you're a part of and you can't do that when entirely immersed in your studies. It's interesting seeing my grades, I can fully see how much my nerves effect me (doing the worst on the exams I actually cared about despite preparing massivley for them, and doing the best on an exam I did not give two shits about). I'm looking forward to second year, to buckling down and striving for the grades I really want to get now that I have found my footing in Leeds.

It's funny because I always used to think I was a loner. I love my home friends but I was always happy with time alone. Since university though something has changed and I don't know what exactly, but I want to be around people, I want to chat to people and I'm not so afraid of meeting new people. University man- good memories, good changes, good people, what more could a girl want!


the realisation of maturity

6 July 2019

shout out to my dad for giving me his old fancy camera, I have no clue how to use it but get ready for some dank pics when I do ! 

I feel like things keep happening in my life at the moment that remind me that I am maturing. Not even growing up, but maturing. In a seemingly normal 24 hours of my life, four things happened that made me realise I am growing the f u c k up:

  •  I found out my friend has chest hair (a completely normal thing for most boys my age, just surprised me, then I was surprised at my surprise, and then surprised at the fact that chest hair on my friends isn’t meant to be a surprise for me anymore)
  • My friends sixteen year old sister spent hours on the phone talking about clothes 
  • An old friend posted a new Instagram 
  • A boy at work (who had turned 18 but a mere two weeks ago) tried to hit on me 

Woah Libby we get it, you’re 20 now! No longer a teenager! Get over it! You see, I can’t get over it though. I am an overthinker. Things don’t just happen in my life. Everything lingers on my brain for longer than it should, there is no happening moment in my mind-  just a constant blur of past and present. Therefore, I can’t really seem to get over it. So here we are again!

I seem to be constantly noticing things that set me apart from younger people. On a regular basis I catch myself thinking how young some people seem, but when I was sixteen I did not feel that young. I didn’t even recognise how much I had changed until my work life surrounded me with 18 year olds and I found myself constantly noticing the difference in maturity. Well differences, but also similarities. When the younger boys at work make crude remarks, or throw in offensive words they look to me confidently, as if to assert a maturity and confirm that they are now able to say such words. It’s funny though, because me and my friends use equally as vulgar language (all in good jest dw) but there is no sneaky looks aside afterwards to clarify that everyone heard the dick joke they just made, there is no laughs afterwards at the swear word used. Things have just become accepted now. The humour doesn’t stem from hearing the swear word, but from the way it’s used. Flirting is different now, conversations with friends are different now, everything is different now because there is no hidden desire to be older, the need for acceptance has lessened and just everything has changed, but not really, but it has. It hasn’t changed, so much as morphed into something more natural.

It’s strange acknowledging your own maturity, because you just grow up and mature and so does everyone around you. It all happens invisibly, at least for me it did, until a normal moment triggers a thought of how sophistacted you seem, or of how strange it is to be having such an adult conversation creating an abrupt feeling of misplaced maturity, except it is not misplaced at all. Then there is also a strange feeling of grown up-ness when I am around friends from secondary school who I only see intermittently. I once used to spend every day with them, and I loved them and cherished them then I see where they are now and they are vaguely recognisable but so unfamiliar as well. They’ve achieved the same level of ‘growing up’ as me, but I haven’t seen the development, and then it becomes hard to process the new people they have become, because the memories of them that form who they are in my head aren’t the same as the reality. It is strange.

What is equally as strange is that the boys I am friends with are now able to grow attractive facial hair, rather than wispy moustache and patchy beards. Or is it even weirder that I am now able to appreciate facial hair? I don’t know! All I know is, we’re all growing up which is cool and great but fuck me I find it weird to see friends at twenty, when I haven’t actually seen how they have become this twenty year old.
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