The Seven Stages of University
1: Denial
I am now long used to the looming feeling of a change of
institution what with my flitting from school to school, but when I moved to
Aberystwyth uni it was still possible to liken me to the wide eyed year seven I
had once been. I was there, books in hand, an apple for the lecturer, trying so
carefully not to scuff my new shined shoes. I toned down on the look I had
developed through my teenage years: I now dressed as Lottie the Fresher, not as
Lottie the stoner hippie mess. I was neat and I was excited.
Walks on the beach alone at night, the unusual heat of the
Indian summer and the thought of the red kites and bottlenose dolphins apparently
abundant in this area filled me with a euphoric sense of joy. Every night I
gazed out of my sea-view window, satisfied and sleepy like the idle water, and
I said to myself: ‘there’s no place I’d rather be’.
My four flatmates were fantastic! The politician slash gamer
with whom I could discuss both ethics and Gears of War, the cheeky Welsh boy
who made me laugh, the unusual but interesting diabetic wonder child and the
pleasant, friendly, motherly girl who cared for me with tea and chocolate. I
was so sure that this would be great! Look at us, here we are being
independent, being free. Embracing not only a great education but a beautiful,
colour filled, ice-cream and rubber dinghy town and a fantastic group of
friends who are bound to get on… like a house on fire.
2: Anger
Houses on fire are hot as hell.
They destroy everything in their paths if not tackled.
The politician slash gamer never came out of his room and we
never ended up having those fantastic thought provoking discussions. We never
put the world to rights. To wrongs perhaps…
And where do I even start with this supposed wonder child? I
should have liked him. I would have liked him. If he didn’t leave his shit all
over the place, if I didn’t end up in the same state as the floor, the table,
the chairs and somehow even the walls: covered in Rice Krispies. And it didn’t
stop there! If I could only just have five sweet seconds of peace without his
shite blaring pop music thumping my belongings across the room, jolting and
pulsating in my very core with every ‘ooh baby’ and ‘yeah yeah yeah’ that had
ever been produced in horrific pop music, I would stop and think… ‘hang on, I’m
not sure if I like this guy’. Maybe if he hadn’t have gone running off telling
tales on me, if he hadn’t reported me for that little cigarette – that one
measly cigarette – then maybe would have
liked him more.
And the same for the Welsh lad. I mean, cheeky?
Understatement. A downright arsehole,
more like. Keeping me up until five in the morning with his stupid friends and
their stupid drinking.
It seemed the only break from this infuriating band of
pricks was the girl, who still brought me tea and chocolate to soften the rage
at this bunch of idiots. I’ve gotten on better with some of the head lice I’ve
had as a kid than with these morons.
3: Bargaining
“Maybe if I just do this semester, then have a break for
like… 5, maybe 6 years… then come back once I’ve settled the wanderlust.”
“Or maybe I should just quit… surely I can get a degree with
the OU. Then I won’t have to put up with all this crap.”
“If I was a better student and stopped playing so many video
games then I’d have a better time. They say you get out what you put in… can I
just read the York notes instead? Or look up some semi-trustworthy synopsis on
the internet? I don’t actually have to read
all of these books to know what’s going on… do I?”
“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry I never believed in you before this!
But please – I’d do anything to fly in your magic time travelling machine and
go back to the summer when I was happy and free.”
4: Guilt
It dawned upon me what a poor student I had been. Throwing all
my focus onto how miserable I was, how I didn’t want to be here. I thought that
surely it would be a much better idea to just… try.
To try to be a better person, a better student and most
importantly not cry down the phone to my poor boyfriend who had to listen to my
pathetic whimpers every night. I became encased in feelings of guilt that I could
ever be so selfish, and that, well, I was just a limp wet blanket. I was a
soggy day of spoilt chips with too much salt.
I needed to man up, as all of this was my fault. Of course I
wouldn’t enjoy uni if I spent all of my time sitting inside on my own thinking
about how much I wasn’t enjoying myself! So I stood at window and looked out
for a while. The sea lay in wait, colder now – greyer. I stood at the door,
hand grasping the handle, ready to go. Ready to go out into that world and find
something for myself, something that would make me happy again. But I just
couldn’t open the door. It seemed there was a vacuum on the other side, and I pushed
and pushed but it would not budge. I gave up. I went back upstairs and fired
the games console back up again. This will be my substitute for real life for
three years now. I couldn’t open the door. I deserve to stay up here.
5: Depression
Need I say more?
6: Acceptance
The video games grew tiresome. My thumbs were stiff and my
eyes were square. I think that was why the people around me had begun, somehow,
to pixelate.
Every night the texts came in from the few friends I’d
managed to accumulate and mostly, I ignored them. Stay inside. Stay inside the cave.
The boring, sterile, boxlike cave which was driving me mad…
I had to go out. Reluctantly
I donned my furry jacket, got a tenner from the bank and trudged in holey boots
to meet the folk who were desperate to drag me out. I’m lucky that they didn’t give
up on me really. It was a good night. Not reminiscent of the nights I’d lost,
the times with my best friends in my hometown where I knew the ropes, I knew
the scenes, I had my foundations. But here I still achieved some form of foundationless
fun; I had enough fun to think that maybe, just maybe, I’d be okay.
7: Hope
Thumbing through the pages of all the raw emotion which had
consumed me over the last few months, I thought to myself about what it is that
makes me the most happy. My love, of course. The love which I find in my
friends and my family and my boyfriend. I bought myself a little pot of
tete-a-tete daffodils: my favourite flower.
‘Daffy-Down-Dilly has come to town, in a yellow petticoat
and a green gown.’
I love them because they lie there under the dirt, brown and
dormant in the snow of the harshest winter, asleep, waiting. So patient are
these dingy bulbs, but I know that the patience pays off. In comes the spring,
the melting of the frozen soil, the breaking of the sun. And just as that sun
strengthens, warming the faces that never thought they’d be warm again, they
erupt into golden smiles.
