At some point over the summer I had a change of heart about the prospect of starting university. Beforehand I would feel sick and scared and emotional just at the thought of it. But after my exams and a bit of travelling I started to become excited, and ready.
Despite the excitement surrounding starting uni, results day was a day that everyone secretly wished would never arrive. After a sleepless night and an emotional week I woke up to a 'Congratulations!' email from UCAS. Phew.
So here I am, sitting in my flat in Sheffield, where I am studying Journalism. Wow.
I've been here almost two weeks and I can't believe how quickly I've settled. So I thought I'd talk you through some of the things that have happened in the last couple of weeks.
It was a sunny Sunday morning and I woke up to see the piles..and piles...and piles of boxes, bags and baskets full of all of the things I thought I'd need at university. I reluctantly forced down a dry scotch pancake before loading up the car.
The 2 1/2 hour journey felt like a lifetime. I was anxiously Facebook messaging my flatmates, praying that they felt as nervous as I did.
On that note, something I'd definitely recommend after finding out your accommodation is making a group chat with the people that you are going to be living with. This meant that the last thing I was worried about on moving in day was meeting my flatmates. We'd been speaking for around a month and seemed to get on pretty well, so I wasn't concerned about that at all. It definitely takes away some of the mystery!
We stopped at the service station to kill some time, I had a peppermint tea in an attempt to cure my crippling stomach pains- it didn't work.
To this day I'm still not sure what made me so nervous on that day. As soon as we arrived at the accommodation my stomach settled and I felt nothing but excitement. My sister and I jumped out the car to pick up my keys and then began the mission of unloading my piles of belongings up 6 flights of stairs. Lol.
I opened the door of my flat for the first time to meet 4/10 of the people I'd met through Facebook messenger. I can't explain how surreal it was to actually be moving in. It was something we'd talked about for so long and at that moment it was actually real.
My family and Michael helped me set up my room and my cupboard in the kitchen. We then went for a walk into Sheffield and I showed Michael and my sister around some of the places I'd seen on the open days.
It would've been rude not to have a Nandos, so obviously thats what we did. After lunch we walked back to the flat and thats where they left me. By myself. All alone.
Except I couldn't have been more wrong about that image of loneliness that I had created for myself when thinking about moving out. I'd managed to forget about the fact that I now lived with 10 other people. Who turned out to be 10 amazing people. That evening we sat in the common area, chatting, drinking and getting to know each other.
I can't believe how settled we all were even after just 2 days. Now it feels like we've lived here for months.
Freshers Week or 'Intro Week' as the uni like to call it, was an interesting experience. There was lots of drinks, dancing and most importantly, daily introductory meetings for our courses. Aside from those things I spent a lot of the week walking around the city and the local town, exploring and getting my bearings.
One of the things I've struggled with so far at university is organising my cooking. I now appreciate the effort that my Mum goes to, planning meals for a week and buying the food to fit the plan and the best before dates. HOW?!
I guess it's something I'll figure out soon. Doing washing is easy- but expensive, a clothes horse is a good investment!
I haven't yet needed to iron something so I'll let you know how that goes.
One of the biggest things I've noticed in the last couple of weeks is that, the things I was most excited about, independence, eating what I want, going where I want to when I want to, being totally responsible for myself and only myself, are the things that have been the hardest to adjust to. Making these decisions for yourself isn't always easy!
I'm so settled and so lucky to have landed myself a great group of flatmates and a lovely group of course mates that have made these few weeks so much easier. My next challenge is to overcome Freshers Flu, urghhghhhghghghhghg!!
I hope to be blogging more now that I have the time to do so, I will hopefully learn how to do a better job of it too!
I've had a bit of a change of aesthetics on my blog so let me know what you think.
If you have any questions about starting uni or the application process feel free to ask me!
I vlogged my first week if you want to check it out :Starting Uni
I also made a video about applying to uni: Applying to Uni
I hope you enjoyed this little update,
'til next time,
Hannah xo
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