The days blur into one.

I’ve decided I’m going to stop apologising for late blog posts as it seems to have become a bit of a theme – there just isn’t enough hours in the day! However, I’m being good. I’m sitting down and going through all the little outstanding things I needed to do and this, of course, is surely the most important one. I’ll set the Uni reading aside for a moment and fill you in.

So I shall begin at Halloween and Fireworks Night. Back home, Halloween isn’t a particularly big thing for me. We are one of those families that hands out sweets to the children down our road, but after a certain time turn the lights off and pretend we aren’t in. At University, Halloween is an event that just gives an excuse for us to party. The eclectic mixture of costumes shows student imagination at its best – a giant gingerbread man, teletubbies and Colonel Gaddafi to name a few.  Fireworks Night was lovely – a group of us trekked up to Tyler Hill, not far out of the University, and become Canterbury locals for the night. This is very much a town event and not organised by the University. After wandering down a country lane in an organised mob we came upon what came only be described as a quaint and hidden field filled with people. Not only was there a bonfire, there were fair-ground rides and attractions, candyfloss and hot food. Reversion back to childish glee commenced. All in all it was a lovely night spent with lovely people and a great way to kick off November.

I’m lucky that Kent has a theatre on campus in the form of The Gulbenkian – I feel so fortunate to just take a 2 minute walk to this cosy and compact little building (which does great hot chocolate) to watch some theatre. I’ve seen three very different plays since I’ve been here.  The best one has to be a fantastic production of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ by the theatre company Volcano. It blew me away. Having seen the Kubrick film in the first few weeks of Uni it seemed a good one to go and see – they really did a fantastic job.

Exploring Canterbury has also been great fun – whether it be a quick trip down to the local Poundland or getting lost in the back streets filled with small, unique shops it really is an incredible place to live. Every time you happen upon something different, whether it be a reptile shop, a second hand books store or a specialised nerdy shop, every single time feels like a discovery to be treasured. An adventure really.

As time passes, it feels strange that I’ve been here for over 2 months. I have to say it feels a lot longer. I think it’s to do with the people I’ve met – because we spend most of the day interacting with each other life just becomes such a breeze. It’s great to be around people who accept you for who you are and to share such an amazing experience with them. I wouldn’t change the late Mario Kart games, the hilarious Articulate sessions, the films, the random dinner conversations ,  the jokes, the laughs, the hugs and the smiles for the world. Thank you to all my Uni friends who read this – thanks for making this first term an absolute blast.

Here’s to what’s to come.

Once again, as always, thank you for reading.

So I walked into the haze..

I suppose I should start this blog post off with an apology – I’m an awful human being who promised she would post soon. That was 3 weeks ago. I do have an excuse – we had a sudden first batch of assignments due, so I found myself with 4 essays to contend with in 3 weeks. The entire University essay process is very different from that of school too. You have to do extra research unless specified, referencing and bibliographies are crucial and plagiarising is the biggest sin you could possibly commit. No one is there to bug you about deadlines, or remind you to plan and the handing-in process can feel like a trial in itself. However, I managed the task, I’m back and, until Wednesday, am assignment free. I have much to relay and I hope you enjoy it

So, last time I blogged I was about to go home. Ironically, I’m actually going home this Friday, but I’ll tell you a bit about my trip back.  I went home on a Thursday as I had a reading week for one of my modules (I don’t get whole weeks off, only certain days because the reading weeks for the modules I do don’t overlap). The journey was easy, but pulling into Guildford and then Godalming was the strangest experience. You start to realise that University can be such a bubble and that life back home has carried on – people are still living their own lives like you, but you can’t help have that little selfish notion that they should stop and wait for you to be there to. I was greeted with no major changes in my village but I definitely felt more appreciative of it as home.

When I got back to my house, I ended up standing in the middle of my living room and just taking a deep breath. It was the oddest feeling – disorientation and familiarity. It’s difficult to describe. Seeing my family after almost 5 weeks was amazing – after experiencing such change in my life it felt almost nostalgic to go back and just have a family ‘discussion’ in the kitchen, to eat my parents cooking and to argue over what to watch on the TV. Not being able to see my little brother is really hard too, so just to catch up with him was more than I could possibly ask for. You really take your life before Uni for granted too. For example, objects I didn’t know I would miss – dishwasher, sofa, washing machine that is free to use, TV, being driven in a car suddenly become luxaries. Either way, my trip home was lovely, but it was good to come back to my second home in Kent. And it really has become a second home. I wouldn’t be without both lives now in a second.

I’ll blog again towards the end of the week to fill in on the rest of what I’ve been getting up to. Until then, thank you for reading and thank you for waiting.  As always, it means the world to me.

xx


The title of this blog post comes from the song Spanish Sahara by Foals which I was listening to while writing. :) Also, I don't think I've mentioned that I have Twitter on here. I do - I'm @charlydrwhomad. (I'm a nerd, I know).  Feel free to come and follow me :)