After pretty much 3 months, I'm finally back to my blog. Why, I hear you ask. Well, sadly I've been without a regular access to the interwebs since day one of my University adventure (due to the silly network Nottingham uses for its Internet), and many an interesting incident has happened since then which shall be revealed in due course, but I think a summary of University in general is the first on my list.
The University of Nottingham is fucking incredible. No word of a lie, it's amazing. That's just my personal experience of it, I'm sure everyone else's Universities are also amazing, I'm not trying to make mine sound better, I'm just saying. My accommodation is brilliant, although kind of expensive (just under £4000, eesh), the people in my building are absolutely awesome and my course is almost perfect, as long as we skip over my Linguistics module, which I detest. It's unbelievable here. I'll give Freshers its own paragraph after this one because it was so good. I've genuinely enjoyed every minute of it, and though I did just say Freshers was brilliant, I think it's gotten better and better.
Freshers was superb. Absolutely superb. I didn't go out every day, I thought best not completely destroy my liver before the end of the first week, but I think 5 out of 7 nights is good going. My first impression to everyone else however, was not so good going. I made a complete arse of myself by being sick after a bit too much alcohol. (Sorry for that by the way
CrazyDistortion, I know how much you don't like people saying stuff about drinking a bit much, but I felt I needed to put it in!) Brilliant. I was in bed as a result by around 10:30. Not great. Although, that did work to my advantage slightly. I was terrified that no one would like me in University, that not many people would like me, but the next day people were coming to talk to me about last night, and I made a name for myself there. Not a good one to be perfectly honest ("chunder kid" and "chunklet" were floating around...), but a name at least! Over the first bump, the rest of the week wasn't as sick filled, but it was incredibly fun. Actually thinking about it, a lot of it is now a blur. I've been saying how I enjoyed it, but when it comes to actually thinking about it, it's all very vague in my mind. In fact it's much like my sex life - non-existent. Lack of detail here, but I can guarantee it was amusing. Perhaps that's why I think it got better because I can actually remember things. Ho hum, onwards and upwards.
In amongst the seemingly uneventful Freshers, I had to sort out some extra modules to take alongside my course, French Studies. French gave me 80 credits out of the 120 I needed. If you followed my extensive series, if you will, of my choosing a University, you'll know that my second choice entailed a French course that came with Italian, which I've always wanted to do. When I found out I could do an Italian module, I was mega excited! I signed up straight away, no issues whatsoever, and that gave me 20 credits, so I needed 20 more and I'd be sorted. After that however, things became tricky. I had to sign up to another module by 4:00pm - it's was just after 3:30. I had to choose a module in 30 minutes, and sign up for it. I thought I'd be fine and be able to sign up in my course's reception, but no, it wasn't that easy. I opted for a history module, just because I'd done it before, and I couldn't find the Film Studies place. So, I had to run off from the Trent Building (French HQ, if you will), unlock my bike and hurl it down the hill towards history. Typically, I'd even forgotten my bloody watch, so I had no idea whilst on my bike what time it was.
Thankfully, it was downhill all the way, and I signed up for it with about 10 minutes to spare, but Christ it was a close one. I felt like I was in one of those films or tv programmes trying to go catch the love of your life at the airport before she leaves, Friends springs immediately to mind. However, what differs to that, is that History isn't the love of my life. I enjoyed it (past tense being the optimal form of the verb in that phrase) no doubt, but University History is different league. At A Level, it was simple-ish, the period we studied wasn't particularly long and we learnt about specific countries. In University, I'm studying the Early Modern Period, between 1450 and 1789. The mathematicians should know that that's almost a lot of years of history. Quite a lot, in fact. And, it really is the whole of Europe, even the places that don't exist anymore, like Prussia. What's weird about this period is that real historians don't know what the Early Modern Period is. I bought a book, a pretty monstrous one at that, and the introduction was around 100 pages long, debating what this period was. It's insane. I'm not taking that next year (if I pass this year) I can tell you that.
The following months were, truthfully, hard work, that could've been made much easier for myself, mostly with the lectures. For an 11 o'clock lecture, I'd set my alarm for 9:30 to have breakfast and get changed. However, I always pressed snooze on my alarm. And, I always pressed it one time too many. In doing so, I would have to leap out of bed into my jeans, grab a random t-shirt and hoodie, and leg it out of the door. It takes a good 20 minutes to get to most lectures, and then I have one dreaded lecture over at the furthest point from me on campus, which takes pretty much half an hour. My trusty bike hasn't let me down yet however, even though it did break one Friday afternoon on the way back from my last lecture, which was lucky, but it's stayed strong. I just hope it hasn't bloody frozen in the month I have to leave it at University.
That's pretty much all of the University I can fill you in on at the minute, it'd be far too long a blog if I continue. However I will finish on a slightly amusing story from a few months ago. Me, Simon (lives in the flat opposite), Paul and Sarah (both in my flat) set off to go to the Varsity Bar Crawl, which we thought would contain competitions between our University and its sister University (I'd call it a second cousin three times removed University, but as you were) Nottingham Trent. No such events took place, which irritated me very much, a drunken tug of war was on the cards in my mind, but I was left disappointed. Anyway, I digress. We could to the 2nd bar and all was going well, we were having a laugh and playing Eliminator in the pub (side note, we had a question where we had to name 8 comedy partnerships (Laurel and Hardy etc.) out of 16, with names to put you off like Lauren and Harry for example. You could only afford 5 wrong choices, me and Simon worked well and got 7 right with 4 mistakes, and then up pops Paul, important to note he's a massive Might Boosh fan, who on his first click, chooses...The Mighty...Whoosh. The Mighty fucking Whoosh?! We lost the game (and you did too, ha) and we carried on our night. This is where my story actually begins, that was a tangent I didn't mean to go on. The drinks were flowing, and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, let's just say a....well-rounded girl waddled up to yours truly. I thought nothing of it, the bar was pretty packed. But, she was getting closer and closer, when eventually she started grinding on me. I shit you not. Inevitably, I was terrified, and looked at Simon mouthing "Can we go?! Now?!". Simon was very drunk, but he understood, so he grabbed Paul and Sarah and we legged it out to the next bar. Paul, however, had a very puzzled look on his face, he missed the incident. "What are we running for?!" he asked as we took a breath out of sight of the bar. Then, which remains my quote of the first few months, Simon burst out with this classic - "Rhys nearly got raped by
Rick Waller - RUN!" I was in stitches, I physically couldn't run I was laughing so hard. By the way, if you don't know who he is, have a look at the link on his name and guess which one is good ol' Rick.
So there we have it. A first post in a very long while, and a rather successful one at that I think. I'll do my best to keep up to date with the blog next term, maybe once a week with a bit of luck!
