My Honest University Experience

Hello, there.

If you have been following me for a little while you will know that I was in my final year of a criminology degree. 

I finished my degree a couple of days ago (yippee!). 

DISCLAIMER: I am going to be completely honest here. If you are one of the people I talk about then sorry, but not sorry also. 

A lot of people always ask me what university is really like, and I always find that a lot of people sugar coat things, and make it out like it's all party, happiness, and generally great times.

NEWSFLASH. 

This isn't true.

Sorry if I burst your bubble... 

Overall, university is a great experience. 

If you are thinking of going because you need it for a career then go for it. However, if you are thinking of going to uni to put off getting a job, or think you will "find yourself" (I cringe as I say that, ergh), or if you think it'll be an easy three years....do not go. It's a very expensive way to find out that none of those things happen or are true. 

University is hard. It has been a difficult three years. There is a lot of work, especially in your final year. If you don't work your ass off and commit to it fully then you won't get the grades you want. 

Hell, there will be a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. 

I have gone through some of the hardest times of my life at university. Dealing with being cheated on rather a lot, my mum having cancer, some nightmare situations this year that made me reconsider my entire degree, and some severe homesickness this year. 

I also made the decision to stop drinking back in October because I was starting to get a tad ill after drinking far too much (sorry, mum) over the previous two years. I found that this meant I essentially got left out of things - told you I was being honest - and actually meant that I didn't get on with my house mates any more. To be brutally honest, that has been absolute hell for me. I kept myself prisoner in my room, I was always scared to be in a room with them, and now I am extremely happy to be moving out. These are all things I never thought would happen to me, especially when I was really good friends with them beforehand. But advice I have been given is "you win some and you lose some". 

But it has also been a really great time. I've met (a few) people that I will consider lifelong friends, gained a degree, had amazing opportunities, and been able to develop myself in ways I wouldn't have done without coming here. 

The bad times were unbelievably shit, I won't pretend they weren't. Yet I have way more positive memories of the last three years, particularly more from my first and second year. 

The one thing I think I have learned most from being at university is that you can't please everyone, and you shouldn't try to. People are going to go out of their way to make you feel like shit, believe me it happens a lot. You have to be strong enough to know when to walk away, whether it be from a friendship, relationship, or anything group work-y. 

Oh, a second thing I learned (the hard way) is that you get out what you put in. If you put your everything into an essay then you will get the results. If you do them the night before you will (mostly) not do too great. 

Remember that you are coming to university to gain a degree, not to party your life away. 

I may consider doing a university Q&A sort of thing later on if anyone has any questions. I will be doing a "my degree in pictures" next week, so keep your eye out for that! 

I want to know what advice would you give to someone going to university/starting a new job/making a big life decision? Put your answers in the comments below!

As always, thank you for reading, and I will see you all next time!

PS. sorry for not blogging for a while, dissertations are hard.

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Dissertation?...DISTRESS-tation!

Well, it has been a while. 

Where have I been?

Writing a freaking dissertation. 

There are not enough words in any dictionary to express how much writing my dissertation has stressed me out and make me hate words. Actual words. Especially "euthanasia", "death" and "treatment" - as you can tell, I am writing an extremely uplifting essay...

As I sit here tapping away on my keyboard, the sun is shining, birds are singing, and it's warm. 

Yet here I am. 

Tucked away in my room doing this freaking dissertation and munching away through an entire punnet of red grapes and listening to Disney World park music, pining for the next 132 days to go quickly. 

Thrilling, eh? As is final year life. 

Considering I have typed 11,000 words - and done some nerve damage to my elbow in the process - I am feeling more stressed than I did about 6 months ago when I first put pen to paper to plan this bloody thing. 

This dissertation (or dissy for short, said preferably with a slightly unimpressed tone of voice) is restricting my (totally non-existent) social life, critical EastEnders viewing time, and most importantly...food time, which now often occurs after midnight.

All I want is a few days to play Sims, where dissertations do not exist (yippee!) and eat cheeseburgers without getting fat. Is that too much to ask?

I actually just purchased a stress therapy colouring book and a set of colouring pencils. Don't judge me. I am in no way artistic, and I can barely draw a straight line with a ruler, but colouring is just so therapeutic for me. So I have that to look forward to. Yay, procrastination!

I keep thinking that I see the light at the end of the tunnel with a huge Domino's pizza, an even bigger Ed's chocolate milkshake, and a lot of Netflix. 

Then something bonks me on the back of the head, sending my hurtling head first back to reality and I realise it is in no way over.

May 21st cannot come soon enough; no more dissertation, no more placement, and no more law exams. 

As soon as I come out of that exam I am getting in to bed and only moving to pee. 

Maybe once everything is over I can post some things about how to succeed at university. Maybe I will actually get my mind together and work on the USG. If you don't know what that is then you'll just have to keep coming back until you find out. 

As much as I adore you all, I am completely procrastinating now and should be getting back to my dissertation. 

If you have any tips to help me unwind, or ideas of things to do when university is over post them in the comments below!

Toodles!

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Ramblings of a Rambler

Hello there, buddies.

Well I was unsure at first as to whether I was actually going to post anything today for a start because my mind has been completely blank for the last few days apart from my "inappropriate life rant part two" post (which you can read by clicking back there).

So I thought I would just ramble on about general things that come in to my mind as I type....This will probably turn in to a rambly rant....Yup, new word. *adds to laptop dictionary*

I don't think I have a good sense of humour at the moment (sorry) so I am unsure what turn this might take. For all we know I could be going on about something I saw on Tumblr....Now I have written the word "Tumblr" I think I am going to kick this off with talking about fanfiction. 

For all of you who are avid Tumblr users like myself, you will probably have stumbled across fanfic at some point. For all of your who have never stumbled across it, keep your sanity! I have read so much shit that is just so....disturbing is the only word I can think of...yet I can never seem to stop reading...Fanfic, why you do this to me?! There are various different types of fanfic on Tumblr, and you may have read them about the central person in your fandom (mine being Danisnotonfire and Amazingphil). Yet no matter which fanfic you read, the main subject seems to involve sex. No lie, 90% of Tumblr is sex or porn. Now I am slightly worried as I know various people on my Facebook read my blog and are probably like "holy shit, what kind of fucked up person do I know?!". I assure you, my Tumblr is used mainly for stalking YouTubers, and not for stalking porn. Anyways, I have read some fucked up shit about Dan and Phil (aka "Phan") like OMG you would not believe. The best bit is that I think the majority of Dan and Phil's fanbase are like 13 year old girls. I am not sure whether to be disturbed that they are writing about this sort of thing, or admire the fact they have some crazy imaginations and the patience to write a 36 chapter fic....The mind boggles.

As a bit of a side note....the government needs to find a way of making the price of petrol considerably cheaper.

As I am writing this, I am staring at a wall in my room full of so much random shit it is unreal. I have my You Me At Six posters, a gorgeous post of Tom Daley, my Duke of Edinburgh award, my Welsh flag, a mass of autographs and my world map that I drew a while back...so I am going to talk a little bit about these for a while. Hope you don't mind.

So You Me At Six have been a band I like for a few years now, and if you haven't listened to their music you best go do it now. Listen to the album "Sinners Never Sleep" which is their most recent one. Track one is the best, along with "Bite My Tongue" (such a good song). Josh Franceschi should marry me for that shit. I have been lucky enough to see them twice so far. I saw them once up in Birmingham like 2 years ago where they did an album signing and then a live set which was a bit of a pleasant surprise because we didn't know they were doing that. So I have a signed album stuck up on my wall! Then again at one of the Olympic Torch things in Cardiff where Kids in Glass Houses and Emeli Sande perfomed, too. So I have loooooved that. But go to YouTube and search for them - they are awesome.

You Me At Six - I would post a picture of my album but I can't find the picture I took and my internet is too slow for me to upload a new one.

Not sure I need to say much about Tom Daley. He is just sex on legs. He also lives in Plymouth like me, so I have had the pleasure of bumping in to him on several occasions. I will put a pic below so you can see. I bump in to him quite a bit on nights out, and have met his mum once (totally in there now, you see). He is such a lovely guy, and didn't mind having his picture taken with me despite being out with his friends and being surrounded by screaming girls (I was not one of them!). He also has a nice bum. 

The gorgeous Tom and I. This was taken in Oceana in Plymouth back in September last year, so I no longer look this awful!

Erm, not much to say about my DofE award apart from the fact that I did a lot of work for it, and went camping (ergh) and also discovered I am really badly allergic to ant bites. So that was a lot of fun. 

Ah, my wall of autographs. Now I bet you are thinking that I have a load of celebrity autographs on my wall. Well I don't. I think I have like 4 well known celebrity autographs. Those are Tom's, Nicola from Girls Aloud, Julian Clary (I know his dad) and I have another one but I can't think who it is....The rest are Disney characters. I shit you not....Well that and characters I spotted around Universal Studios. As you can tell, I am a child at heart. Before you ask, yes I have Mickey Mouse's autograph. 

Ermmmmm, ah yes, map. So as you know I am hoping to travel the world after university. Then I got all depressed because it will cost like £10 000 which sucks. But now I have a considerably better and well-paid job that I can come back to during the summer, so travelling has become an option again! So you can imagine I am a happy bunny. Although travelling the world is still off the menu for now, I can afford to travel Australia for about 4 or so months, which is so awesome! So if you live in Australia write in the comments where you think I need to go! Also, maybe I can meet some of you guys?

This (sort of) brings me on to YouTube...as you all know, I love YouTube, and I have been saying for ages that I will sort my channel out properly. Well I have good news! I am going to start shooting my videos in September (ish)! So hopefully I will turn some of these posts in to videos, and do some of the typical YouTube challenges, too. So let me know in the comments what sort of things you want me to do! I would do an "Ask Lovely Chubly" but I am not popular enough to do that *sniff sniff*. I have also roped some of my housemates in to do some videos, too, so you will finally get to meet them properly!

Also, Vikki is currently like half way through her holiday over in Italy where she is staying with her family, so I am feeling abandoned at the moment. I am sending her (almost) daily updates with all the YouTube links in them so she never misses out! I am such a good friend.

I have also managed to get more Pepsi Max in my system, so hopefully I will get myself back to normal soon. I was starting to go a bit funny without it. Stupid addiction.

Finally, I am going to be back in Plymouth on September 10 so I will be back to posting daily! You will also get to hear about all the crazy and stupid things I do in Freshers week. Yes, I am making sure I am back in time to go mental with the Freshers again! Prepare for me to be making a fool out of myself on a daily basis considering last Freshers and first term I think I ended up painting myself about 5 different colours....Anything for a good night out, eh? Also, if you want more posts about my university life then do let me know because I am not sure whether it is something you want to read about. 

Long story short, I am looking forward to being back with my Plym-fam as they are called; I am missing them lots. They keep me sane (ish). So I am counting down seconds now until I am back there! I have even arranged my first night out (September 10) with Louise where I will get my typical dose of Nandos goodness! Stop shaking your head at me, you know how much I love Nandos. (Nandos, if you are reading this - free food?! :D )

I am also trying to think of a name for all of you lovely readers as most bloggers have a name for them. Someone suggested "Chubblies" but I think that sounds a bit harsh....comment below some suggestions if you have any.


So that is my post for today...I am not sure what to make of it to be perfectly honest with you. But you already know what my brain is like.

If you enjoyed this post don't forget to click "Join This Site" over on the top left for more posts by me!

That is all for now, peeps.

Toodle-oo!

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