I Survived First Year: How?!

Roughly eight months ago I started my first year of University. I kissed my parents goodbye, and watched them leave me to face the real world. Alone in my room: a bare pinboard, no internet, the worlds smallest single bed and exposed brick wall - I set about making it my room. I set up the internet, put the radio on and wedged the door open. After dealing with the duvet (moderately difficult), I began artistically arranging my carefully selected photos. There were a few wobbly moments when I questioned my photo choices: did I really want my new friends to know about the time I broke my foot falling off a pavement?! But I persevered and continued to lay out my nick-nacks. All of this happened with the door open, which is exactly what Student Forum had told me to do. Apparently all my new flatmates were meant to walk past my open door, hear the music, step inside and offer to help me set up my room.

They didn't say hi. 

In fact I can't even remember the first time we all sat down and had a conversation. But together we grouped and went around our building knocking on doors. Introducing ourselves to everyone, and promptly forgetting their names after we invited them down to our flat for the first pres of freshers. First impressions were made, nicknames created and courses forgotten. I didn't realise that roughly 7 other people in my building also study English until term 2. 

The first night out was crap. The second night I pretended to be Lucy Watson's cousin. Third night we watched The Great British Bake Off. Forth night I dressed up as a baby for a cheer social. Fifth night we covered ourselves in neon paint. Sixth night was a drama social. And on the seventh night we Lemmy'd. 

Remember to eat during freshers.. 

That was pretty much the extent of my freshers. It was an alcohol fuelled haze of meeting people and quickly forgetting them. Everyone was on their best behaviour, and conversation was on that line between awkward and cautious. Personally it was quite over-rated and the real fun began in Reading Week. By then everyone knew each other, friendship groups had established and we all felt safe in the knowledge that someone would hold our hair back when if we drank too much. 

SO what are my tips to surviving freshers week?

1. Bring condoms and use them. 
2. Actually sign up to the doctors before you need to go there. You will get freshers flu, and wont exactly want to remember all your GPs details whilst dying.
3. Bring a big box of chocolates/crisps and plonk them in the middle of your communal table. 
4. Bright bedsheets are the easiest way to warm up a bedroom. 
5. Photos are a must. 
6. Prop your bedroom door open, but don't expect people to say 'hi' first. 
7. Don't bring heels. 
8. CHEESE GRATER: in a flat of six only one of use thought to bring one. 
9. Plasters - although I have got through this entire year using my flatmates (I don't think they've noticed yet). 

And important things to remember?

1. Everyone is just as lost, and just as confused as you are. If they don't seem worried they're either good at hiding it, or really fucking weird. 
2. Smile. Breath. Say Hi. People will appreciate it if you make the first move. 
3. Go to a social for a society you have no intention of joining. The cheerleading night was one of my best freshers night. 
4. Don't worry if you've forgotten their name - they've forgotten yours too. 
5. Its okay to miss home. Equally its okay to get to the end of week 1 and realise you haven't even thought about home once. 
6. Suggest a night in towards the middle of the week. People will probably be needing a rest too. 
7. Things wont go to plan. Don't freak out when they don't. 
8. Someone broken your plate? Used your knives and forks? Welcome to communal living. Chin up. 
9. Say yes to everything - but avoid doing stuff that might kill you. 

Ultimately, you are about to experience one to the weirdest and funniest situations of your life. Never again will you be thrown into such an alcohol fuelled, hormone riddled environment. Embrace it. You may not meet your future best friend in the first week, you might not meet them in the first term, but you will make friendships that last a lifetime. Hazy memories will become anecdotes. Come on, who doesn't remember that time Lucy forgot his name, or Bryman's obsession with the letter C  or when Ailsa shared some food with the DJ and Holly at that house party! 

Or what about the time I threw up black sick, took my tights off in the middle of Arena, went to the Sexual Health Clinic over a scratch (better safe than sorry!), the time I cracked an egg on Liam's face. The time we all tried to limbo under a construction sign. The night we got into Arena for free with no queue. Doing cartwheels up Penny Road and ending up in a bush. When Bryman discovered how to make fire. The cheesecake disaster, but the triumph of the avocado cookies and pesto pasta bake. 

There have been tears, midnight talks and spooning. But there have also been so many times I've laughed so hard I couldn't breath. And these are the memories I'll treasure:

THIS is why you study in the South 

One of many Arena toilet pictures 

Beginning of Term 2

We may, or may not have just taken a bum selfie..

First Cheesy Tuesdays 

LADz

Chums!

Halloween 

The Arena man!

Because sometimes you need a cuddle.

Edgerton Park Road beauties! 

Every girls flat needs cake

Our first roast! 

Alcohol 

Alcohol #2

Our first photo!

Realising TP is full of dead people

Freshers Ball  

Edgerton Park Road do a Miley 

I forgot this happened... 

Before the blood

THE pasta bake

Christmas Dins

Girl. Oven. Fire. 

Because I did some work too...

Thanks for everything! I can't wait to see what Year 2 brings! 

Humanities are Worth More

I study English and Drama at the University of Exeter, and am a constant victim of ridicule for it. I've been told that it's a ''girls degree'', a stranger once told me my subject choice was ''so cute'' and another random girl at pre-drinks questioned: ''so you're doing a degree in bullshit?!'' - and she was studying law! Isn't that a career in bullshit?!

Throughout my entire educational life my love of Drama has been a subject of mockery. Considered to be the ''dumb'' subject at GCSE, only taken by those who can't be arsed to do something ''more serious''. And yes, I can appreciate that my drama lessons may not be the most serious, but they are however some of the hardest things I've ever done. I mean, Jesus, have you ever tried to melt into the floor and breathe out the soles of your feet for three hours? It's impossible!

Yes, we're being a tree.

People often assume that I want to be an actress or a teacher. They can't comprehend that a degree in the arts would lead me anywhere else. Truth is, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up - but there is a whole range of careers which are open to me. Marketing, PR, advertising, journalism, production, directing, sales.. The list goes on. Drama is more than standing on stage and pretending to be someone else: it teaches you presentational skills, and focuses heavily on inter-personal interactions. In both English and Drama there is a heavy focus on 'words' - spoken, written and read. I am studying our language, appreciating how others use it and developing my own skills constantly. Now please, don't tell me that's ''useless''.

I'm frequently asked and told: ''Why don't you do something more serious? English and Drama... Those are just hobbies!'' The quick answer is: I can't actually do anything else. I have a real admiration for someone who can learn formula after formula, and I appreciate their hard work and dedication - but here, let me ask you, 'why do you have to do something so boring?'. Doesn't quite work the other way round does it? People have different strengths and weaknesses, it just so happens that mine are humanities based.

Yes, we don't have traditional exams. The examination process behind drama is actually really gruesome! For example: a group of 20 people were given two weeks to devise a 40 minutes performance in a style of theatre no one really understood. Those 20 people then had to perform this three times in a row, and were then all given the same mark. I repeat: for every performance you all get the same mark. No one makes you sit the same exam paper three times in a row, in front of an audience, then gives your entire class the same mark! As you can imagine, tensions arise, people don't pull their weight, people do too much and become controlling - doing a Drama as a subject will perhaps teach you the most important life skills ever. You very quickly learn how to negotiate, comprise and understand other peoples point of views.

My flatmates are going to save lives with their degrees in Human Bioscience, and Medical Science. I couldn't be prouder of their future discoveries and how this will impacts our lives, and when you look at it like that, it's easy to write a Humanities subject as a ''waste of time and money''. But humanities are worth more than people realise.

Farage

My views about Nigel Farage and UKIP are incredibly similar to Leon’s from channel fours hit show: ‘GoggleBox’. When watching ‘Nigel Farage: Who Are You?’, Leon could not help but turn to his wife as exclaim: ‘I know who he is – he’s an intolerable idiot’. I could not have agreed more.

There is a common misconception that Farage was educated at his local state school – and this is something that he and his PR team have tapped into. Farage is constantly portrayed as having a pint with the locals, or smoking in his office. They’re desperate to have us believe that he is ‘one of us’, when in reality – he isn’t. Although he frequently talks out against both the Conservative and Labour party for having almost exclusively privately educated MPs, Farage himself was educated at Dulwich College in London, and many of his MPs were also privately educated. In all honestly his ‘man of the people’ selling point is utter bollocks.

He recently appeared on ‘Have I Got News For You’ where they played a special game of ‘Fruitcakes or Loonies’. The presenter read out quotes from prolific UKIP MPs and the panellists were asked to vote either way. Here are some of the things that UKIP MP’s and prolific member’s believe to be true:

David Silvester believes that the flooding we experienced this winter was caused by the legalistation of gay marriage. Whilst Jan Zolyniak and Dr Julia Gasper believe that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia which we’re all ignoring. Douglas Denny just simply wants them to leave him alone because “they’re not normal”. Godfrey Bloom rather famously wondered why we give so much aid to “bongo-bongo land” and believes all women who do not clean behind their fridges are “sluts”.

Upon hearing these crackpot theories from members of his own party, Nigel just laughed.

The subject of women, and how little they’re worth, is a common theme amongst the UKIP party. Stuart Agnew believes we don’t have the ambition to succeed because our biological urge to reproduce gets in the way. Treasurer of the party, Stuart Wheeler, told the BB4 Radio Four listeners that women just aren’t as good as men at “poker, bridge, or chess”. The UKIP Kent candidate, Geoffrey Clark, in his personal manifesto has stated “mothers with foetuses detected to have Down’s syndrome and other disabilities should be forced into a compulsory abortion”. Nigel Farage himself believes that women must understand they are “worth less” when they decide to have children, and it is essentially our fault that there is a pay gap because maternity leave makes us “less valuable”. The attitude of ‘not our problem, love’ and utter intolerance that comes from the party about matters like this is absolutely sickening. 

Farage’s big policy is that we ought to leave the EU, and he rather famously won a debate against Nick Clegg on the matter. Personally, I’m undecided. I see both the positives and the negatives of remaining in the EU. However, what alarms me is the brash and arrogant nature that Farage seems to be going about it. During the programme ‘Nigel Farage: Who Are You?’ we witnessed Farage addressing an EU assembly and the president. He points out members of the audience and claimed they look “frightened” and “as if they’ve seen a ghost”, and then, the icing on the cake he personally asks Van Rompuy: “who the hell do you think you are?”. People have applauded him for being so forthright, and whilst that may be a good quality to have – it is not to address a public audience. Acting like a total bellend does not win any brownie points with me, and I’m quite surprised so many people were impressed by his behaviour. He was rude, arrogant and fundamentally: a total dick. That is not how you successfully negotiate on an international level.

I’m a little surprised that so many of my peers are in favour of him. In all honesty: if I see one more person on my newsfeed claim that Nigel Farage is a man of the British people I swear to god I'm about to leave this country. He does not represent me, or what I believe.

It's My Vagina

This blog post has been sparked by a conversation I had with my friends at dinner last night. Two of my male friends, let's call them Metro and The Caveman, currently disagree on how women should deal with their pubic hair. The Caveman is in favour of a full on bush (though it must be a tamed bush), whilst Metro believes that women ought to be as hairless as the day they were born. It was only towards the end of this conversation that I realised: when did it become okay for other people to dictate how women styled themselves down below!? 

And I don't mean just men telling us what to do, but Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow too! 

At some point in the late 1990's it became fashionable for women to be completely pube-less. This trend continued to grow in popularity up until around now.The negatives of shaving became apparent and a new torture form was introduced into our lives: the wax. With styles ranging from the bikini line, to a Brazilian, a Hollywood or for the most adventurous of us all: The Bollywood. Gemstones and hairdyes were introduced. Before I knew it, the beautician was offering to shape my pubes into a heart, dye it pink and add a couple of gem stones - all because it was valentines day. Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather not style my vaj into something wouldn't look amiss in a Hello Kitty shop. 

It's been well documented that waxes are relatively embarrassing procedures. Stripping down from the waist and being covered in hot wax by a stranger is all very well and good, until they start ripping hair follicles from your body and telling you to get on all fours. I've been bruised twice, and someone even made me bleed. This is not an activity for the faint hearted. Despite all that, I'm not actually bothered by the whole procedure. I'm (hopefully) being dealt with by a beautician who has seem more vaginas in her life than I ever well - and at the end of the day it's all over and done with in under 30 minutes. 

And this was all considered normal. And then the rumblings began. Women started to question who they were actually doing this for. Magazine articles began stating that women who went hairless were 'bad' and that they couldn't call themselves 'feminists'. Gwyneth Paltrow took to her blog to inform the world that she is currently sporting a massive bush, and Cameron Diaz has appeared on numerous chat shows telling us that ''WE NEED OUR HAIR GOD DAMN IT''. Once again we see that its not only men that dictate how we should look, but also women. 

So yes. I took a moment and considered what they were saying. Yes, if you are going completely hairless because that's what your boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife/partner/fuckbuddy prefers - then maybe you should consider what you want. But if you decide that you're going to continue styling yourself in that manner because it makes them happy - then so be it. Maybe you personally prefer a completely hairless look. Perhaps you're vagina has more rhinestones on it than Dolly Parton's cowboy boots. Equally, if you've decided to let nature take its course and are currently sporting a Gwyneth, then so be it. 

Fundamentally, they're your pubes - do what you want with them.