Thoughts for Freshers – Top Ten Tips for Surviving Semester 1 (and beyond)

No matter what your age or maturity level, leaving home for the first time and heading to university can be pretty daunting. Using my own wealth of knowledge and experience from the last year, I have compiled a list of 10 tips to surviving the first year of the rest of your life (no pressure or anything) – Good Luck!

1)      Don’t Panic – Fairly basic, but definitely something you’re going to want to keep in mind. There’s no need to stress about anything, everyone’s in pretty much the same boat as you and if you ever feel particularly overwhelmed, then there’ll be plenty of people about to help you out; roommates, lecturers, 2^nd & 3^rd years just to name a few and they’ll be much more approachable and happy to help than you’d imagine.

2)      Work through the home sickness – Whether it strikes you in the first week or not ‘til Christmas, you’re almost certainly going to feel a little home sick at some point through your first term. The best thing you can do is to just keep going. If it’s particularly bad, then it’s actually better not to call home and see how everyone is; often this makes it worse. Just go out or stay in with some of your mates and have fun, you’ll forget your missing home in no time.

3)      Work hard, party harder – Whilst you may only need to pass your first year, it’s still very important to do the work you’re given. However, you shouldn’t let yourself feel swamped by it, so go out (or stay in) and have fun!

4)      Talk to EVERYONE – In the first few weeks, it’s worth talking to as many people as possible and going out with whoever’s going, make friends with people you don’t normally talk to and just generally be around people. Partly for company, partly because you never know – you might make a great new friend! And even if you don’t, it’s no biggy; you’ll find some on your course or at one of the many societies you join (and you should join all the ones that interest you).

5)      Be yourself – A lot of people think that Uni is a place to discover yourself and experiment, but you shouldn’t feel pressured into doing anything you don’t want to or being someone you’re not. People worthwhile knowing will respect you for being you.

6)      BUDGET – It’s very easy to get into debt at University, so keeping track of your finances is essential and a spread sheet on your laptop keeping track of your incomings and outgoings can be invaluable. Remember that your student loan needs to last you about 3 months at a time, so don’t blow it in the first 3 weeks, or you’ll start to struggle.

7)      Keep your room organised – Apparently, a tidy room is a tidy mind (or some other old wives’ tale of some description), but life’s just easier if you know where all your stuff is, so you should try to keep your room clean and tidy. It’s particularly vital to know where all your important documents are – health forms, finance letters, address books, lecture work; you never know when you’ll need them.

8)      Explore – Don’t just go from room to lecture to bar and back to your room again! Get to know the town or city you’re living in; you may find a great little shop or pub or picnicking spot you would never have known about otherwise.

9)      Keep in contact with home – After all, you’ll have to go back eventually! When you do, don’t expect everything to feel like it always did before; you, your friends and your family will have changed in the time you’ve been gone, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

10)   Look after yourself (and your friends) – make sure you eat well, drink enough (water, not just booze) and keep yourself and your room clean and healthy; it’s hard to learn or party if you feel rubbish. You should also try to look after your friends or else you could get quite lonely quite quickly.

Lent

Google define states that Lent is “The period of 40 weekdays that in the Christian Church is devoted to fasting, abstinence, and penitence.” It is traditional in this time that you give something up for the period from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, even if you’re not religious.

The vast majority of people will give up something they like in order to be healthier with bread, smoking, alcohol, chocolate and crisps being some of the most common. Others chose things to try and make them better people and give up swearing or teasing their siblings.

The first lent I remember is one where, aged 7, I gave up tomato ketchup; strange, I know, but I was a little bit addicted. It didn’t work very well because I just substituted it with other sauces instead. The same sort of thing happened when I gave up bread both last year and the year before and crisps and chocolate on other occasions.

This year, instead of going for the hat-trick of bread I had been planning since last year, I thought I might do something different…

Remember a few months back I challenged myself to write a blog a day? Well, I did. Anyway, following on from the (sort of) success of that, my promise for Lent this year is not to give something up but to repeat this. No, it’s not cheating because, if you think about it, I’m giving up being lazy and procrastinating (see, clever, no?)

Besides, it’s better than most of today’s lent promises on 3 points

1)      It’s possible – so unlike most, I won’t give up after about 4 days

2)      It’s not selfish – which I suppose is debatable, but if you think about it, promising to be nice is something you should do anyway and giving up crisps or whatever is usually to aid your own diet and isn’t helping anyone or making the world better which, if you think about it, is kind of the point of all this.

3)      It’s positive – because I could have done something similar to what I do for my New Year’s resolution and give up giving up things, which is both pathetic and unfulfilling, plus, it’ll be helping with my degree, which can only be a good thing

I realise they’re fairly weak points, but you can’t deny there’s something behind my bizarre process of thought.

Also, for those of you who will remind me I gave up after about a week and a half of the whole a-blog-a-day she-bang, Lent is only Monday through Saturday, so I can get Sunday off to recover so, who knows, maybe I might even stick at it for longer than the 40 days.

I doubt it though.

(Also, I’m totally counting this as Wednesday’s blog post, even if I did finish writing it at half eleven on the Tuesday)

Top Tips for a Tip-top Valentine's Day (AKA I forgot [again] - Help!)

If you have arrived here from google, you’ve forgotten today is Valentine’s Day. Congratulations. Though I’m sure you’re not the only one.

Here’s  five quick, last minute, relatively cheap ideas to surprise your other half with (and if, like me, you don’t have an ‘other half’, don’t worry, there’s some pointers on having a great singleton’s Valentine’s Day further down, plus you get to know this bit for later):

1)      Picnic it – Assuming it doesn’t snow yet again this month, a nice picnic somewhere scenic is both romantic and cheap. Just make a few sandwiches, grab a bottle of wine, a blanket to sit on and a candle if you think you’ll be allowed and whisk your beloved down to the park or countryside or area of beauty and if it’s cold, great; what better excuse is there to snuggle up?

2)      Film fun – No! Not in a kinky way! Gosh, what is wrong with you... my parents read this! Anyway, take them to see a film either at the cinema or curled up on the sofa at home with a few snacks, like a nice box of chocs or popcorn or whatever. And it doesn’t have to be a rom-com. Choose something you both like. Personally, I’d like to watch a Die Hard marathon with some ice cream. And definitely do that cheesy yawn-cuddle thing guys, clichés exist for a reason (same applies to gifts: flowers + chocolates = win)

3)      Dinner date – dinner out is ALWAYS an option. Always. It’s not very cheap, but it’s a good last resort, so long as you don’t make it look like you’ve only just come up with the idea.

4)      Theme Park – I know it’s not cheap, but it’s fun (if you like that kind of thing, of course) and if you get scared or cold whilst queuing or whatever, more excuses for snuggling!

5)      Pamper day – this only works if you’re buying for a girl (or a very effeminate guy): quickly run to somewhere like Lush or The Body Shop, buy up some body butter, face masks and other bits and bobs and tell your girl to treat herself to a selfish day then take her out for dinner or order in later. Maybe get her some pretty clothes/lingerie too (but be careful to get her sizing right or you’re doomed) I suppose, alternatively, if you’re shopping for a guy, get him sports things or something? I don’t know…

And there you go! I hope that helps at least a little.

Feeling lonely this Valentine’s Day? Don’t fret! Here are some ideas to make you feel glad you are… not lonely necessarily, but single… you know what I mean. Anyway, here they are:

1)      Girls’/Guys’ night out – who needs a man/woman when you’ve got your friends, some booze, music and the whole night ahead of you?

2)      Girls’/Guys’ night in – great to bitch about the opposite sex whilst you eat sugary things, watch films, sing along to random songs and just generally have a bit of a laugh (this is my plan this year, it’s going to be immense)

3)      Pamper day – spend the whole day making yourself look and feel amazing, either by yourself or with some friends. Works really well with a girls’ night in. Or, if you’re not into that kind of thing spend the day watching films you love or shopping or something

4)      Get ahead – catch up on all your work or get ahead of where you should be; it might not be fun but it means you’ll be able to relax another day!

5)      Sleep – because sometimes it’s good to be well rested/lazy

So, there you have it. Have fun today people!

Top Ten Tips for Christmas Shopping

There are just over 45 days left until CHRISTMAS!

I’m not over excited at all… what are you talking about?

If gender stereotypes are to be taken as accurate portrayals of reality then most of us women have already done some of our present-shopping, or at least written a list of what we’re going to buy for who, whilst the men are too preoccupied with sport/cars/half naked photos of women to have even realised that Christmas is next month. If you’re one of those people who has yet to give Christmas a thought (male or otherwise), here are my tips for how to successfully pretend you spent a lot of time, effort and money when buying your gifts. Enjoy!

(Please note, whilst a lot of this may well be quite practical and/or logical, this is really meant to be more of a bit of fun than a way to live your life – I am in no way responsible for any negative effects of following my ‘advice’… though I am credible for all positive out-comes… true fact… as far as I'm concerned anyway...)

1.       Start your prep work early – because thinking about who to buy for and what to buy for them takes time, as does buying the gifts, getting nice wrapping paper, find nice cards that aren’t too mushy-sounding and actually doing the wrapping.

2.       Make a list of who to buy for – even if you don’t write down what you’re going to buy them, make sure you have a list of everyone you need to buy a gift for and cross off people once you’ve bought their gift. There’s nothing worse than having all your nearest and dearest in one room, sitting round the fire as you pull out gifts from the big sack of presents you’ve bought, handing them out one at a time and realising the bag is empty without you having given your dearest mother/partner/10-year-old sibling their present.

3.       There’s no harm in asking – as long as there’s still more than 3 weeks before Christmas. If you ask someone what they want for Christmas much after this time, and they’ll either lecture you on why you should do your shopping earlier or get offended that you’ve only just bothered to ask and that “you should just know anyway; don’t you listen to anything I say? Don’t you know anything about me?”

4.       Pay attention! – It’s fairly easy to work out a great idea for a gift for someone even if they don’t tell you what they want (“Oh, you don’t need to get me anything, silly!” isn’t very helpful, I know). Either buy something they’ve been talking about  -  if they’ve been talking about a pair of shoes, a coat, a mug or something they like a lot then that’s normally a good hint that you should buy it for them – or something that has meaning; romantic, comic or otherwise. For example, getting a nice photo of you and your partner made into a print or canvas, or even just printed off and put in a nice frame, is always a good plan or, alternatively, if your friend spent a day talking about jams and pickles, a little hamper of mini jars of them would make a funny yet thoughtful gift. Failing that, women like chocolate and/or teddy bears and men like sport and/or technology – take it and run…

5.       The internet is your friend – despite what’s suggested in the Avenue Q song, the internet is not just for porn. Hopefully you should realise this, seeing as you’re reading my blog about Christmas shopping right now… It’s great for finding presents cheaply; sites such as “Amazon” and “The Hut” have loads of different items that could make great presents often for a much lower price than on the high street. Not always, but sometimes. Plus, there are sites like “I Want One Of Those” which have a large variety of unusual and quirky gift ideas, in case you’re still stuck.

6.       Think outside the box, then put it in one! – Buying something interesting and unusual is always a positive, as long as you’re sure the recipient will like it; there’s no point buying a mini hadron collider just to be unusual if your friend/relative/partner hates physics… unless they like smashing science-related things, particularly anything to do with particle physics… Anyway, if it’s an unusual shape, don’t worry about the awkward wrapping, but it inside a box! If you can’t afford or find a gift box, an appropriately sized cereal or tea box will work just as well, and if you don’t turn it inside out, you get the added bonus of seeing their face unwrap a box of Frosties*unexpectedly.
* Other brands of sugar coated flakes of corn are available, lol

7.       It’s all in the presentation – using nice wrapping paper, cellophane, gift bags, bows, bits of stringy-paper-shredded-fluff and the like not only makes it look more posh but also suggests you’ve taken greater thought when wrapping. Even just using a nice wrapping paper and putting a little ribbon and/or a nice tag on a gift instantly makes it look nicer and more cared for. Definitely don’t scrunch loads of newspaper round it and then wind it up in sticky tape; not even Ryan Reynolds would be forgiven for that.

8.       Take a break and a friend – if you intend on physically going shopping to get your gifts, you’re going to want to make several trips and bring someone along with you. For a start, you don’t want to feel pressured as you shop and knowing you have a friend there to help and the ability to continue shopping another day will certainly ease this and make it feel more like a social outing than a military exercise. Plus, it’s always handy having another set of hands if you’ve got a lot of people to buy for.

9.       Don’t leave it to the last minute – seriously. Just don’t. You’ll never get away with it.

And, finally:

10.   If you DO leave it to the last minute – there are better places than a petrol station to get presents! Forecourt flowers and a pine air freshener is not the only option available to you. Most supermarkets and even a lot of shopping centres will still be open on Christmas Eve. Some of them might even be open until late, you never know. Even if they’re not, take a drive down a motorway and stop at a Service station – at least they have proper shops with CDs, DVDs and books most of the time. And, if push comes to shove, you can always pretend you bought something online and “it hasn’t arrived yet; damn those postmen!” and try to make it up by offering your beloved some lovely cake you baked at half midnight by way of an apology.

Alternatively, you can ignore my advice and do what Joey and Chandler did on Friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Mi0EnuF4B0

Either way, until next time – Merry 45-days-until-Christmas!

***Bonus News Stuff***

Asteroid Yu55 didn’t crash into Earth (as you may have noticed). I have yet to find out what scientists have found out about the asteroid, however I do know that they were looking for signs of water as well as trying to work out the chemical composition of the material that it’s made from, though it is believed to be a common carbon-rich asteroid. Experts have run models to predict the asteroids path over the next 100 years and do not see it as being a threat to Earth within that time span (or after this time, despite not having run it through any models.)

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1109/Asteroid-2005-YU55-looks-like-a-giant-rock-floating-through-space-reports-astronomer