Vacation, Relaxation and a whole lot of Realisation

I’ve been struggling to think of anything interesting or relevant to blog about at the moment. Everything seems to have just suddenly been brought to a halt, and I seem to have nothing exciting happening at the moment. July has always been one of those months for me. No uni, no holidays, no plans, no nothing. But it’s OK to feel like everything has slowed down, I probably need this time to relax and have a bit of ME time…. which seems to consist of a lot of wine drinking and reading books. And yes – you’re right – I do sound like a divorced middle-aged woman. One thing I hate about myself sometimes is the fact that I always feel like I have to be doing something, going somewhere, seeing someone or having a plan for tomorrow. I can go a day just relaxing and doing nothing but once I’ve wallowed in my own thoughts for 24 hours, I seem to be unable to cope with another day of it. That’s what graduating is, that’s what finishing three years of uni seems to be 🙂 ( and I don’t even graduate until November haha!)

Pam is always a mood

What I’m trying to (carelessly) say is that its OK to have no plans and it’s OK to not have a holiday coming up next week! You don’t have to always be doing what everyone else is doing. Give yourself time to relax, binge watch all three series’ of Gavin and Stacey or read that book that’s been sat on your shelf for 5 months, and go sit in the sun with a cheeky glass of fizz. You have probably worked really hard this year so treat yourself and do whatever you want to do this summer – but christ, give yourself a bit of a breather beforehand. Uni work and jobs shouldn’t always have to be the centre of attention right away – your well-being should come first.

How I was the majority of the time at Uni
My dad lol – How I want to be this summer

Another annoying feeling that I have been getting at the moment is that little shit that creeps up on us sometimes after a great achievement – DOUBT. Doubting myself, doubting my abilities, doubts on what I should be doing after summer, doubting my ability to do a Masters, doubting EVERYTHING. The thing is, contrary to popular belief – success isn’t everything. Everyone has their own perception of success and achievement, and they will always be completely different. I find the smallest things an achievement some days, like ringing up and booking a hair appointment or even applying for a small part-time job. Don’t compare your successes to someone else’s – they can never be measured against one another. Your feelings of success should be personal to you. At this relevant time of year, when we are receiving dissertation marks and end of year results – just remember that success shouldn’t be represented by a number or a score out of 100. Your time at uni shouldn’t be just a score from an exam or an essay. You know how hard you worked or how many challenges you faced. That is success to me – your own personal achievements and your own feeling of pride for even the smallest of accomplishments. It’s sad that not everyone will see that, they will just ask you if you got a 1st or a 2:1, and unfortunately if they don’t know you well – that’s all they see. Yet, those classifications represent just the front cover of the book of your uni experience, it’s what inside that counts (cringe sorry). It’s the memories, the challenges you faced and overcame, the partying, the one mark you got that you are really proud of because you enjoyed that essay – little stuff like that.

It’s difficult, but don’t base your University success on your end of year results and marks. Success can be a 2:2 to some and a 1st to others, so don’t put pressure on yourself. Whatever the result this time of year was made for relaxing and sometimes doing absolutely fuck all, you’ve had enough stress throughout the year so it’s time to shake it all away and do whatever you want cos it’s summer time ayyyy!

“Success is not in what you have, but who you are.”

Helloooo

I’ve wanted to start a blog for just about a year now and for some reason never got round to starting it/ being too scared to so, here we are! I’m probably talking to myself for the time being but hopefully this can be a little place where I can let out all my thoughts and feelings inside my head, as it certainly is a very messy place! I’ve always loved writing, but I so desperately want to break away from the constraints of academic writing for my course – even if it is just for the summer. Instead this blog will most likely be a whole lot of waffle and a place where I don’t have to constantly use academic English or be grammatically correct. I mean, who’s brain actually works like that anyway?

I have just made it to the end of my three years of my undergraduate degree and so I feel now, more than ever, that I finally have some time to start a blog, something that I would never have done a few years ago! The few subsequent months after just finishing three amazing years of uni are without a doubt very scary, I feel like at the moment I’m just floating about with no real guidance or plans. Which is fine, not everyone has a mapped out plan of what they should be doing after uni. I will hopefully be starting my MA in September so I don’t have to leave York just yet, I love it way too much to say goodbye! In the mean time I feel as though this blog will give me a little sense of direction or distraction from general life. We all need a bit of distraction now and again.

Now looking back over my three years at YSJ, I really appreciate everything that I went through (cringe I know…sorry). It is hard to appreciate the little things at the time because you are always so busy either crying in the library or running late to a seminar, but once you finish, it hits you in the face just how important those difficult times actually were. In the end, they have made you the great person that you are today! It’s so overwhelming to think that I have finished, but wow I am so grateful to my past self for not dropping out of uni in the first two weeks. The first few weeks are undoubtedly very overwhelming in every single way; although I wanted to be sociable and join in with everything that freshers week had to offer (trust me the nights were great as I was distracted) I just couldn’t help but feel desperately homesick every day for the first two weeks. I really do feel sorry for my poor mum having to calm me down over the phone every day! Some people will say that going home a lot at uni is the worst idea and that it makes it harder to come back, yet for me this seemed to be my coping mechanism. Instead I would look forward to it for two weeks and the thought of not going home for more than that would make me feel so sick. I still felt like this even a few months ago, well into my third year of uni – and guess what? It is completely fine to feel like that! I gradually got used to it in the end and most of the time would look forward to going back to uni and seeing all my friends after having a weekend at home. Everyone works in their own little ways, and people grow at different rates. It’s not a race to see who settles into uni life the quickest; never compare someone else’s uni experience to your own!

Anyway, I have learnt so much about myself just from the little (and huge) break downs and dark times that come along with uni, so much of it gave me crippling anxiety and would turn me into a little ball of worry but I got through it and now I realise how much I’ve grown from being that little nervous fresher back in 2016! And of course the good times always out-way the bad times, and my god did uni give me a bunch of good memories! I remember thinking that I would never make any friends in the first few months of uni and that it would take me ages, yet I ended up meeting people who went on to be my best friends all the way through uni within the first three weeks, which probably saved me from dropping out! I definitely owe it to those girls, and they know who they are;)

This last year has definitely made me realise a lot about myself – about what means the most to me, what worries me, what I can control and what I can’t, and what I can do if i just put my little worrying mind to it! I really have made the best memories over the last three years, and third year definitely topped it off. I’m so proud of myself for surviving three years of University and everything that comes in between, and I’m so lucky to have met people who I can call friends for life. I feel so privileged to have had the honour to study and live in such a beautiful city. York is definitely my second home now and I’m so excited to have another year of making more memories with friends, exploring York even more, visiting every cafe (which would probably take a lifetime as the options are endless) and obviously getting to grow as a person even more than I have just from moving away from my safety blanket of Derbyshire.

Sooooo… after rambling on, this blog will most likely be my escape from feeling lost over summer and of course the dreaded stress of my degree come September! It will probably consist of me waffling about life (in general), uni, friends, family, fashion, photography, a few rants now and again (who doesn’t love a rant?) but of course will mostly contain happy smiley stuff! 🙂 So even if, by some miracle, someone comes across this blog – I hope that it gives you even just a little sprinkle of sunshine into your day or a sense of escape from the day-to-day stresses of life. And also remember to give yourself some me-time, in between all the stressful crap. Go and snuggle up on the sofa with some choc and watch a historical drama, or something cosy like that. ☆