Well I have to go to work in 10mins but I thought I'd start one of these before I go! I'm Emma, I'm 18 and just reaching the end of my gap year. Off to uni in Leicester to study Business on the 23rd Sept. I half wish that I was going to do English Literature but I'm sure I'll enjoy Business. Used to post around these parts all the time and now I'm back I realise I've missed it
Fantastic to see you back. This place has a kind of addictive quality that just ends up drawing you in again. How have you been keeping the last year? Is life treating you well? And how did your A Levels go? Ooh, how's Rich?
When I left college I didn't really have any intention of going to uni at all so I didn't have anything planned other than getting a full time job. At the time I had a part time job making desserts for hotels/wedding receptions/parties etc at a local bakery and they said I could work full-time there until Christmas while I looked for another job. It was a lot of fun there was always something different to do and the people I worked with were all lovely. By October (I started working full time in August) I realised that I missed education and decided that I would apply for uni. For the first time I felt like I was really in control of my future. With all the uni plans and the cake job though I didn't have a whole lot of time to look for a new job for the rest of the year. I left the cake shop in Jan and went to Prague for 9 days with my boyfriend. It's the most beautiful city I have ever been to and the snow made it seem even more magical. The -15 temperature made it a bit too chilly to spend too much time wondering around outside so we visited all the museums and galleries. When I got back to Preston it was about a month and a half until I got a new job and I've never been so bored or lonely in my whole life. 90% of my friend had all gone to uni at least 200miles away and the one close friend I had who didn't relocated permanently to New Zealand. In the end I started working at a petrol station near my house. Not exactly my dream job but I don't have to do a whole lot. Just serve a few customers and read the newspapers. I have another 2 weeks left working there and then I'm off to Beautiful Days where I'll be celebrating my 19th birthday. Then planning on having a few days at a friend’s house in Edinburgh, before I'm off to Italy with the boyfriend for a fortnight. This year has gone so fast! Not really achieved anything or done some big gap year stunt, but it's been good. I feel ready for uni now unlike I did before, like now I've had some downtime I'll really be able to put my all into my studies.
The past year has been really good, it’s had it's ups and downs but I have never before felt so stable in myself. I've had one of those years where everything just seems to fall into place. I guess it’s because I just started to believe in myself and all the things that used to bother me started to seem so trivial. I'm getting better at seeing the positive side of things and I’ve stopped over analyzing everything. With all my close friends going to uni last year I was suddenly given a lot more breathing space than I've had before. I didn't realise before how lucky I was to have them or how much I let their problems drag me down. With my friends a further away I got to know myself a little better and enjoy my own company. I got my A level results on my 18th birthday which was rotten timing. My results were pretty awful, though with my lack of both attendance and effort I couldn't really have asked for any better. It didn't hit me how I'd let everything slip until I opened the envelope and realised I'd got C's. I know C's aren’t the end of the world but if you'd asked me at the end of my GCSE's what grade I was aiming for it would have been a lot higher than that. I felt like I'd failed myself and my teachers. If I felt I had the time I would go back to college now and do my A levels and apply for uni again. My A levels are the closest I've got to regretting something. Still if I get my head down at uni I can still come out with a good degree. Rich is also going to get his head down next year and do a foundation science course so he can go to uni and do dietetics. I suppose a portion of my new found happiness is owed to him. He makes me want to be happy all the time and makes it easier to believe in myself. Everything seems to make a little more sence now he's around.
You mention some regrets, so, if you had a time machine, and you had the chance to change one single thing in your past, what, if anything, would you change? PS. Ignore the fact that if you did have a time machine, changing it would have no effect since that thing would no longer exist and you wouldn't be going back to change it anymore. The mind boggles :&
hey honey, just wondering how come your now doing buisness and not english litrature.. was this because of your grades or just a change in mind? what do you think you will get out of you degree other than the obveous which is.. the degree. where are you hoping to study?
If you could pick one song that has really moved you, stirred you, brought you up and changed your life, what would it be?
I make this thread and then neglect it...shame on me! I don't think that there is one thing in particular that I would want to change if I could. I'd more like to go back and tell myself how many great people I know and how many people care about me. I think that if I had just remembered that when I started college I wouldn't have got myself in such a mess. Although it may sound awful I think I just made friends with all the wrong people. Don't get me wrong they were/are all lovely people just so miserable and pessimistic. Everyone else’s negativity just rubbed off on me I think making me one unhappy little bunny. When you're really unhappy it can be pretty hard to concentrate on anything else thus my college work and my general quality of life suffered. Once I let go of a few people with big influences on my life I cheered up straight away. All that time I thought all the problems I had were with myself, turns out I was just unhappy with the situation I was in. So that’s what I’d change, my attitude. I wish I’d just remembered how much fun I could have.
Dandy! It's good to see your posts around here again To be honest I’m not really sure why I chose Business over Lit when I was filling out my UCAS form. I suppose I thought if I disliked either course then Business would be easier to do and not enjoy. Does that make sense? Also I enjoyed all the topics on my GCSE and A level Business course and only selected parts of my Lit courses. I find it quite hard to read something I don’t want to read. I feel with Business there is enough variation to keep me entertained for another 3 years. There’s normally a nice selection of Maths, spreadsheets and essays. I don’t really feel like I’m going to uni for anything other than a degree. I’m not partially bothered about making the best friends of my life and I think I’m independent enough already so I’m not looking for that. I just want to go and get a good degree. In 3 years time I just want to feel like I’ve really achieved something that I’m proud of. Instead of that normal sinking feeling that I have on results day when I know that I haven’t put any effort in I want to feel like I’ve really achieved. I want to prove to myself that I can do anything that I put my mind to. Having said all that I have no intention of becoming a hermit I want to have some fun at the same time I also want to get around to doing my silver Duke of Edinburgh award. I made some good friends when I did my bronze and it was an all-round great experience. I;' sure there will be other things that take my interest too when I get there. There are so many things I want to see and do during the summers, so I’m probably going to have to have a job at the same time. I have one lined up when I’m back in Preston over Christmas/Easter/Summer. I have my heart set on speanding a summer in Spain doing an intensive Spanish course but everywhere I look it seems so pricey. We'll see. Oh and I’m going to De Montfort in Leicester.
One? That's harsh. I can think of one album of which every song did all of those things. When I was a child whenever we went on long journeys we always used to listen to Paul Simon's 'Graceland'. I remember that me and my little sister used to sit in the back of the car singing our hearts out. If I hear a song for that album I immediately go back to that time and I just can't help but sing along. Any song is guaranteed to put a huge smile on my face instantly! Graceland is one of those timeless albums, it seems so magical to me. It makes me feel so alive and carefree. I would ask you guys all questions now but I need tot go and wash my hair I'm off to Italy tomorrow for 2 weeks, so I guess next time I'll be checking in I'll be living in Leicester! Woo Hoo!
