From my experience of freshers week and the experiences of my friends I can say this:
Freshers week is extremely overrated.
This may very well be due to the choices and in my case mistakes that we make during freshers, but in my opinion, from the very moment you make your decision to go to uni, you're fed the story that freshers is a must and that if you miss it then you'll simply have no friends or social life for the rest of your time at university. This is wrong on so many levels and I'd like to describe to you my experience of freshers week here in Nottingham.
I arrived on Friday 23rd September. This is my room.
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| My room. Complete with pictures of friends, a lover and Brandon Flowers. Oh, and my red fairy lights. |
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| My home from home 80's wall. |
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| My nice tidy desk. (It won't last). |
My bed is usually surprisingly neater but I am coming down with the old' Freshers flu at the moment so you'll forgive my temporary lapse in bedsheet OCD. I'm living in accomodation called The Glasshouse and as the name suggests, it's similar to living in a greenhouse in that 1. You can see into everyone else's flat and they can see into yours, and 2, it's about as humid in here as a greenhouse. (Seriously UK weather, what are you doing? I want it to be cold so I can wear my scarf).
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| The View from me' room. |
I like my room. It's cosy and I still have a nice bit of 80's wall. Plus Perry the platypus and my Totoro make it feel like home. The flatmates also like to congregate in here because I play quality music and it's fairly tidy. (For example Andy has just been flailing around with a fluffy pillow in my room to Careless Whisper). Cracking.
I live in a flat of five people with a fairly good-sized kitchen/living room in which we have Chris' 42" plasma that he brought from home since his parents moved to Saudi Arabia! Between the 5 of us we have 2 bathrooms which I was kind of apprehensive about but since getting here I've come round. It's not so bad, they're just really small. In the flat it's me, Chris (my friend since high school), Andy, Heather & Cheema (Danny). They're all really nice and I feel pretty lucky to have been put with such a good bunch of people.
Friday 23/09/2011
The first night. We went to a club called gatecrasher and i'll be honest, it was really good. They had so many different rooms for different music genres. My highlight of the evening would be when Mr. Brightside came on. Being the die hard Killers fan that I am I went slightly mental in front of many people who i'd met that night. Again, cracking. I suppose I'm slightly biased in my opinion of freshers being rubbish however, as it was through no fault but my own that I ruined that night and the following day. Hence the previous post. But I don't want to go into that.
The first night. We went to a club called gatecrasher and i'll be honest, it was really good. They had so many different rooms for different music genres. My highlight of the evening would be when Mr. Brightside came on. Being the die hard Killers fan that I am I went slightly mental in front of many people who i'd met that night. Again, cracking. I suppose I'm slightly biased in my opinion of freshers being rubbish however, as it was through no fault but my own that I ruined that night and the following day. Hence the previous post. But I don't want to go into that.
Saturday 24/09/2011
Friday's hangover only brought feelings of regret and remorse, the initial good time completely forgotten. I spent the majority of the day crying and feeling extremely guilty before finally being able to sort things out. Again, I can't go into too much detail as it's rather personal. Needless to say I didn't go out that night although after things were sorted the flatmates returned from the "beach party" and invaded my room to tell me all the evening's tales. An overnight stay from Mark however, made everything good again better.
Sunday 25/09/2011
Woke up beside my man which is always a good start. Felt very secure and settled for the first time since arriving here. He left for Yorkshire and I did wish I was going with him, although I wasn't what you'd call homesick. I just missed Yorkshire a bit already. Everyone I've met here has pretty much been from the south or the midlands, where are the northeners?! Pshh. Anyway, Sunday night was Trent Army night. (Being a student at Nottingham Trent obvs.)
We dressed in our Trent army T-shirts, the collar of which I of course trimmed down. And obviously I rolled the sleeves up aswell. Keepin' it real. We also bought some cheap, crappy face paint and proceeded to camo our faces. I say camouflage, I thought I looked more like a cat to be honest. We also made ourselves some camo headgear and wristbands.
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| Heather, Chris, Myself & Andy. |
Here's all of us. Cheema was away for the first few days in Malaga, the lucky bastard! As you can see, we looked quality. We decided, in order to save some money, we would pre-drink and oh my goodness- did we do just that. We had a good laugh pre-drinking, a highlight being singing "Hello" by Lionel Richie very loudly at Chris, with Heather & Andy. We then proceeded to Oceana, a club that is literally 5 minutes down the road from us. However, being taken there by reps meant that the entirity of our accomodation were led on a bigger route, all the while chanting "T.R.E.N.T. we are the TRENT ARMY!" and other such gems. Oceana was pretty good, the main dancefloor was absolutely packed but we managed to find our way to the middle of the croud with some girls who we'd met on the first night. (One of whom, Gemma, is on my course).
Oceana also had a more retro disco room, complete with the red, green, yellow and blue disco floor lighting! In this room they played such classics as S Club 7, Busted, Enrique Iglesias and hits from Dirty Dancing & Grease. Pretty quality room if I'm honest! However, by this point, the pre-drinks were wearing off and I decided I just wanted to go home (the flat). Plus my feet were killing me. I wandered back with some randoms and a very keen welsh guy who was desperately trying to come up to my flat for "a cup of tea". I kindly declined. It was then I first met Cheema who had just got back. That was pretty surreal since I was very tired and confused. I made it back to my room where all I wanted to do was speak to Mark. So I did. I felt a bit down because the flatmates had complained at me for leaving early (only an hour before them) and called me unsociable. I know they weren't being intentionally mean but I felt a bit rubbish nonetheless. Also I had gone off on my own, none of them offering to walk back with me. I know I was okay on this occasion because freshers reps were everywhere but I still felt a bit shit that they'd let me go alone. Mark reassured me anyway and I soon cheered up. Went to sleep very-nearly sober so I felt pretty cracking the next day.
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| Me & Andy |
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| Chris, Andy & Me |
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| Heather & Me |
Monday 26/09/2011
Monday morning and me and Heather (above) were expected to attend a big induction talk in the Royal concert hall. This was a massive waste of time as we didn't really learn anything new and the talk wasn't just for the art department. This meant we sat through talks by the law school and others I can't remember. The rest of the talk was about the olympics which, if i'm honest, is not a subject that I give a fuck about. This was because the vice-president or something of our uni is the man in charge of advertising-funding and ticket sales for the olympics. Also, I instantly disliked this man because his walk-on music was Muse. And everyone knows Muse are wank. That night I was knackered so I decided to stay in, not before a hefty dose of earache about how "you only get one freshers" and "you'll regret not going out". Pshhh. I prefer sleeping anyday.
Tuesday 27/09/2011
Wednesday 28/09/2011
Can't remember..Thursday 29/09/2011
I think this was the night we went to Rock City. If so then I liked this night briefly. We got rather pre-drunk with the girls from the maltings (another accomodation) who we met first night. The flat was rather trashed and there's a peculiar blue stain on the kitchen wall. We tried to wash it off since but the paint's come off. Me and Heather being arty types have discussed re-painting it. Anyway yeah, Rock City. We queued for a while, I had time to stroke a tramp's dog in the queue. We got in and it was pretty crowded and I was surprised that they played the usual "night-out" music (example, calvin harris, chart stuff, etc). And then, out of the blue, "IF YOU'RE HAVING GIRL PROBLEMS I FEEL BAD FOR YOU SON- I GOT 99 PROBLEMS BUT A BITCH AINT ONE". I was gone. In my fucking element. Getting my black on. And then Andy decides that it's time to leave, right in the middle of "son do you know what I'm stopping you for?!". I was not fucking happy! psshh. Nevermind.
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| Rosie, Chris, Liz, Becky, Andy, Gemma & Me |
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| Andy, Aleks, (Half of) Cheema & Chris |
Friday 30/09/2011
Saturday 01/10/2011
This was definitely the best night since arriving in Nottingham. I managed to convince Mark to drive down and spend the evening with me. Just the two of us. Heather was at home in Derby, Andy out with a course friend and Chris out on his first night with the Hockey team. Me and Mark went out at about 10, a good time to venture out I thought. We went to Cape, where I'd been during the day with Chris & Cheema for lunch after the Freshers fair. We only had one drink there though. It was alright, just a bit mehh. Then I took him to Spanky Van Dykes, a popular bar at the top side of the city centre. I hadn't been in yet so I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a pretty quirky bar. Decorated with record sleeves and action men- allsorts really. We stayed there for the rest of the night, drinking, talking and generally having a laugh. It was a really good night. Mine and Mark's first time out drinking together too. I played it safe on Vodka & Coke while he had Strawberry Beer. It smelled nice but I hate any beer. Bleughhh. Chris rung several times asking me to help him as he'd lost the hockey lot and was plainly fucked off his face. He didn't know where he was so I advised he just found his way home. We got back a few hours later to a locked bathroom door and a lovely puking soundtrack from Chris. It was fairly amusing. Me and Mark had a great night though and I'm so glad he came down to see me. It was just what I needed to bring me back up again after feeling a bit low for a few days. And not long until I see him again, next Friday :)
Sunday 02/10/2011
Woke up with my man again. I love doing that. And like the classy couple we are, we went to McDonalds for dinner. Nothing like a Sunday BIG MAC lunch followed by a walk around the arboretum. It was gorgeous.
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| My Mark. |
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| Me looking adorable.. |
*Please note;
When stated that "I can't remember" I should point out I was not drunk on these occasions. Most likely sat in eating and watching Nevermind The Buzzcocks in my room. I've done that a lot this week.
When stated that "I can't remember" I should point out I was not drunk on these occasions. Most likely sat in eating and watching Nevermind The Buzzcocks in my room. I've done that a lot this week.
Anyhow. Freshers is not all it's cracked out to be. I appreciate I could have taken part in more activities however this is not the point. It's built up so much and at times I've felt that we're only really going out cos' we had to. I've had a nice week in fairness, but I sit here bitter with Fresher's flu and just want a cuddle and a nice meat & potato pie made by my Nanna.
I'm not homesick, I'm loving it here.
Nottingham is beautiful and I've made the right choice to move away, it'll just take time to fully adjust. It's loud here and everyone is southern.
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| Wanker! |
❤
