I Would Really Like A Reading Week…

Wow what a fast week! I’m afraid to say that I got outrageously drunk on Wednesday night in the club Why Not in Aber. So drunk in fact that I lost Bex completely, an Irish guy was involved somehow, I know I was sick, I didn’t get in till about 4am, fell asleep in my clothes with the bedroom light on. I remember little about the night. I trust it was good though.

I found out yesterday morning that Bex had come home 3 hours before me. This means, I must have spent 3 hours in the toilet at Why Not being sick. It’s all very vague to me but I have vague outlines of memories from it.

I have a Creative Writing portfolio in for Monday. I’ve barely started it to be honest. I have to write two more poems (one has to be in iambic pentameter… won’t happen!), write a critical commentary about my own writing and do a bibliography of 5 books we feel could help us when writing our own work. I also have to read Titus Andronicus. This is something I’m really not looking forward to. I’ve heard it’s stupidly and unnecessarily violent. I also need to watch the film. I probably won’t do this.

I am also upset that I have no reading week this semester. I was under the impression we had one next week but a lecturer confirmed yesterday that we don’t have one until next semester. Mega sadface.

Halloween Weekend At Home

Oh wow, what a weekend it was! Seeing everyone I love in the same couple of days after 5 long weeks blew me away! My bedroom has had a makeover, with a new wardrobe and chest of drawers, which are all mirrored, so my room now looks huge. Sleeping in my own bed was the best thing ever!

Luke has been offered a modelling job with Diesel. Random, I know. Some girl he knows sent them a photo and they phoned and asked him down for a shoot! He’s never wanted to be a model, by the way. He’d hate all the make-up and being told what to wear. However, they pay great money and he’s considering it. Because he’s only 16, he needs parents’ permission but my parents appear to be fully behind it. He would hate it and I’m sure he won’t do it more than once.

Sophie’s Halloween party seemed to be fun for everyone apart from Sophie. Sadface. She was ill and her niece was trying to sleep upstairs, so her parents kept coming down and telling us all to be quiet and then they got angry that things were being broken or ruined. Thing is, for some reason they blamed everything on Sophie. I didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t having fun. I gave her as many hugs and kisses as I could throughout the night but she was still sad. She went to bed eventually, which was understandable, as all the people who no one knew were making too much noise, even though they knew Sophie would get in trouble for it.

Dan and his best friend Lewis were there. I loved seeing them as they made me laugh SO much! Was the first time I’d met Lewis and I really liked him, so that was cool. Dan seemed to like my friends too, so that was awesome!

Had my first roast dinner in 5 weeks yesterday! Oh my god, it was SO lovely!!!! My nan is the roast dinner queen and it tasted SO good. I guess I won’t get another until Christmas now though. Sadface.

I like the fact that I have another opportunity to do some more music journalism in the form of a Facebook message I got about an online magazine wanting journalists. If this is genuine, I’m incredibly excited!

After an amazing weekend, I’m back in Aber now. Gave my assignment in this morning and it’s all back to my routine here. I want to go back home. Badly.

Living For The Weekend

I cannot describe how excited I am about going home this weekend! It’s actually off the scale excitement!! I miss everyone SO much, its crazy and I just can’t wait to get all the hugs and for everything to be just how I know it and how I love it.

I had a nightmare of a Creative Writing seminar today. I didn’t want to read out my rubbish page of fiction about a creepy old house on a hill but I had to at the end because I was the only one in the group who hadn’t read it out yet. I hated it, to say the least but we’re not allowed to say that. It was terrible and it was even worse when everyone else pretty much agreed. It was silent when asked to give comments on it and then the comments which were said were just obviously looking for the few good bits and repeating them… Wow, how bad.

We have a new housemate. She’s called Sandra and she’s from Latvia but I’ve already had more conversation with her than I had with Dominike in 3 weeks, so it’s looking good so far!

I’ve just had an e-mail about the blogging space on the uni website and it sounds like they’ve got it together now. FINALLY! I’ve had the laptop they gave me for almost a month now and I haven’t had any contact from them since then. Was beginning to think they’d given up but it doesn’t appear they have, which is AWESOME!

I have a Coleridge assignment due in for next Monday, which I really should start soon, as I won’t have this weekend to do it. It’s not very long, only 3 pages and apparently it doesn’t count for very much but I’d still like to do it well.

Me and Dan are doing better and he’s coming with two of his friends (and a car!) to the Halloween party this weekend. SO excited!

I love you and miss you all very much indeed but Alex will be back in Bromley soon. I promise!

In Two Minds

So Aber uni is going pretty well for me. I like everyone and they seem to genuinely like me. I like my two days off in the middle of the week too, they’re so relaxing and my timetable is awesome compared to some people’s.

I miss people though. I can’t wait for Halloween weekend at Sophie’s. I might not want to go back! I’m just sad it can’t be a longer stay but at least I’ll get to see my favourite people.

Me and Dan are going through the worst bad patch we’ve ever been through. It’s killing me to be honest. It was my fault of course, because he’d never do anything to hurt me. It involved another guy who was nasty to him with regard to my promiscuity and tartiness, basically. I hate myself for it because I do love him and I care about him more than anything.

I have a Creative Writing assignment that I’m unclear of what it’s actually about. It’s “write a piece of fiction foregrounding one or more of the following: description, dialogue, character or voice” but it’s not allowed to be just a page of description of something or a page of dialogue. So surely, you have to use more than one of them? I think it’s an opening of a novel or something but I’m not sure. I guess I should ask someone on my course or a tutor or something. I’m confused, it’s all very ambiguous.

I went to this Carnage event last night, which was basically a pub crawl around Aber. I was with Bex and her friends from school and the people in their flat. Hayley and Leanne hadn’t bought the t-shirts we needed to be able to go, so it was just me and Bex from our house. I met more new people and they were all lovely, with an exception of a serious attention seeker but I hate bitching online. It always gets back to the wrong person and becomes a huge drama. Alex hates drama. Fact.

Dominike Has Left The Building

The past few days have been somewhat relaxing. My train tickets to go home arrived, which made me more excited about the whole idea of seeing everyone again. Really can’t wait now.

Had my first Creative Writing workshop on Monday, which was scary, although I didn’t get to read my short story of the dog, as there wasn’t time and I didn’t want to be one of the first. The pieces which were read out, however, were SO good I felt intimidated a bit. Lauren, the girl I’ve recently got quite friendly with was sitting next to me and she said mine was good. I didn’t believe her!

Almost finished one of my course books. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, which is a collection of short stories showing a darker side of fairytales. It’s not the most riveting thing I’ve ever read. In fact, it’s odd but I should really take a bit of an interest in it, if I’m doing a module on it. It talks about werewolves and vampires. The vampire in the story I’ve just finished reading The Lady Of The House Of Love is meant to be Count Dracula’s daughter, who feeds off men who she lures to her castle by offering them dinner and bed for the night. It’s all very odd and silly and it ends with her being dead because she falls in love with one particular man, who she lures there and finds she can’t eat him. That’s pretty much it, to be honest. Great.

It would appear that Dominike (as I’ve since learnt how to spell her name), our Polish housemate has moved out. She is now an ex-housemate. We didn’t receive a goodbye from her though. We just noticed a man carrying her things down the stairs in boxes and put them in the back of a taxi outside. Her room is now empty but all her kitchen things and her food are still in the kitchen. We saw her in the club Pier Pressure, where we were last night (which was really good actually) but she didn’t see us and we didn’t want to disturb her clearly good night with a cute boy who had war paint on his face.

So this probably means, we will find ourselves with a new housemate in due course. When this will be, who they will be still remain a mystery. We are hoping for someone we can talk to this time. Someone who will go out with us and share our fun.

£63 Short

Lectures have started now. The first few were TERRIBLY boring but today’s were considerably more interesting, thank god.

I had a phone call from Sophie on Tuesday, after I’d got a LOVELY letter from her, which made me cry because I miss her. It made me SO happy to hear her voice, although I now miss her EVER so much more! Copper spoke to me too and now I’m SO excited about going home for her Halloween party. I booked the train tickets today, which came to a total of £63 (!!!) for an off-peak ticket, which is what I need, as I’m staying there for the weekend. I was incredibly upset about this expenditure but I didn’t have a choice, it seemed. Sadface.

As a result, I can no longer go out on lovely clothes shopping trips, which I’m VERY sad about. However, I do need to find something to wear to the Halloween party. Hopefully Dan can come. I miss him LOADS too.

I’ve had a Creative Writing assignment to do with memories. The girl next to me in the introductory lecture to the course wrote a memory about receiving a puppy one Christmas. Oddly enough, I wrote about getting Felix. I’ve decided to write this girl’s memory of getting the dog from the dog’s point of view, which I’ve done before in the OU course I did on writing fiction. I’m quite proud of it at the moment, although it is a bit long and needs to be cut down.

I’ve decided I need a job. It certainly would help a lot financially and it would be something to do with all this seemingly free time I have.

Everyone is still being nice at the moment. Maybe they genuinely are nice people and I just got lucky with who my housemates are. Hopefully we’ll still like each other next year, so we can maybe think about getting a house together then. However, they’re nothing like my real friends who I LOVE silly amounts!

Blonde Home Alone

So Aber freshers life is going GREAT! I have my new laptop now, which is just so much better than my old one, it’s insane. I met my team mates who I’ll be blogging with, two guys. We had a discussion about how the blogs would be written and we showed them our blogs that we’ve been doing every day. They said they were awesome which raised the confidence, of course.

Bex managed to slice her thumb with a carving knife while the rest of us were in Morrisons. We left her at home because she’d been ill for a few days but we came back to find an unbaked potato, a huge knife and a first aid kit strewn across the worktop in the kitchen. We assumed she’d just come down to get some paracetamol, until she came through the door a while later with her thumb bandaged up, saying she’d been in A&E for two hours! We didn’t leave her alone for very long! Apparently she’d phoned Nick, who lives at Number 28 (we live at number 134) and he’d come over and taken her to hospital.

Sorted out my timetable now. I only have 8 hours of lectures and seminars combined, so lots of free time with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off. Quite happy about that.

Although everyone is nice, David (who is also here) upset me majorly yesterday by giving me lots of undeserved abuse and said hurtful things. It then caused an argument between me and Dan, as he got upset when he heard I’d spoken to David. It all got very sad and tearful and nasty. Not good at all, when you’re so far away from everything.

I want to go home. I think it is right for me to be here but I miss everything LOADS. Soon people, very soon.

Fresher

At last, I have a chance to blog! You know I miss you VERY much, if you’re reading this. If you don’t, then I do miss you LOADS!

Arrived in Aber on Saturday morning. Met my housemates, who thankfully are AWESOME! Bex and Hayley are Welsh and Leanne is from Maidstone. We have a Polish girl called Dominica (I’m unsure on the spelling). We never see her though and she doesn’t talk to us, so we know little about her. The house is VERY nice and cosy. As we’re living so close together, it’s really good that we all get along. The kitchen is quite big and we have two bathrooms between the 5 of us, so it works out well.

The first night I went to the Union with Bex and Hayley. Leanne’s boyfriend was here for the first 2 days, so she wanted to spend time with him. Bex knows loads of people here, so I’m constantly being introduced to people through her. It’s all pretty overwhelming. I’m usually good at remembering people’s names but I am struggling a bit here! I’ve met SO many people in such a short space of time, its mental!

Last night, we went to Bex’s friend’s house on the coast. It’s much smaller than our house but we randomly got invited to a party on the floor below, which we of course went to. Again, met LOADS of new people, who then came with us to Wetherspoon’s in the town. It’s odd being surrounded by mostly Welsh strangers, who apparently my accent sounds Australian (??) to. Bex told me that some words I say sound really Australian. No idea why she thinks that.

I’m relatively happy here for now. I have to choose my optional modules by tomorrow, which is actually quite a bit harder than it sounds because I don’t want to end up studying something I’m going to hate for the first few months.

I do miss home. I really hope I do manage to get home at least once before Christmas. I want to go to Sophie’s Halloween party, so hopefully I’ll go back that weekend. Seeing photos of everyone on Facebook back home make me miss them more but I’m thinking of them all the time and I know they’re the best friends I’ll ever have, so I do plan on keeping hold of them!

Memories Preserved Forever

I am going to uni in 3 days. It does scare me somewhat but I am incredibly excited too!

I’m pleased to see there are a few guys going of reasonable attractiveness. I only hang out with gorgeous people, you see, so it is important to me. I’m not shallow at all because I wouldn’t judge someone based on their looks, I just like being around pretty people.

Sophie made me cry with her wall posts. She’s so amazing and I’ll miss her SO SO much! I’m coming home, in order to go to her Halloween party, so I’ll see her and everyone then. Can’t wait already!

I’m a lot more relaxed now, which probably means I’ll forget something but oh well. It’s good not to have the tension anymore.

Almost completed my leavers notebook with photos and comments from my friends. I printed the comments and messages out from Facebook and stuck them in there like the geek I am! I just want to make it something really special which will make me cry in a few months time. It makes me cry looking at it now!

But The Rain Keeps Falling Down

Last night we went to The Swan in Bromley. It was cool, as far as it was a nice sociable place. I never realised how shy I actually am in new situations though. I hardly knew anyone there and for some reason I found it hard to talk. I’ve never noticed myself being like that before.

I hope I’m not like that at uni. Otherwise it will be just as Jess said to me the other day, when I bumped into her in Bromley, when I was with Dan. She said “You’ll just be like the sad little English kid with no friends in Wales”. After reminding her that I actually have more friends than her, she left it. However, although she said it as a joke, maybe she did just predict the near future.

I saw Dan the other day. It was our goodbye meeting, so it was a bit emotional. Although we just laid in Churchill park together, it was nice to spend a day feeling beautiful and special, like he always makes me feel. I’ll miss him a lot and I know he’ll miss me. He was close to tears when I left him at the station. I hope he’s going to be ok. I really do.

It’s a depressing thought I know but I’m getting worried that I won’t make friends. I know I’ve always been a bit shy at first with people but not to the point where I can’t talk to them at all. At least everyone will be in the same boat at Aber.

I’ve had an e-mail from the woman who gave me this blogging position at Aber, telling me to start writing mini blogs every day, during the run-up to me going to uni and keep them in a notebook and bring them when I go to meet her, so that’s what I’m doing. They don’t really say much. In 150 words, I just talk about a certain topic that appears to have entered my head at some point that day. It’s not really like this blog, which I do intend to keep writing while at uni. This way, you might not miss me as much.

Last night made me realise that there’s not really a lot left for me here, so I guess it is time for me to go. I’ll miss a few people but Bromley is now a dead town for me.