This be the blog

I've started uni a week or so before most people, it would seem, and this is a post partly aimed at people who have seen a million posts about Freshers and can't wait to start, or are alternatively dreading it, whether they're starting this year or haven't even applied for uni yet. First things first, Freshers isn't just about partying so much you throw up on your shoes/bed/doorstep/friend, can't remember a single thing and think the brightest idea in the world is having a glass of water by your bed constantly. Similarly, Freshers week isn't about staying in and trying to live as close to how you did at home as possible. Freshers week is about what you want it to be about, whether that be meeting new people over quiet BOGOF burgers on a Monday or splits on a club floor or a Wednesday, or trying to decide if you're on the right course and organising a million meetings to make an informed choice, or making new lifestyle choices, or budgeting so you can sa...

I couldn't vote in the general election, I was too young. I held some vague opinions but I never researched things fully. I supported Greens in a sort of passive, do-gooder-y way but I didn't really know that much about politics. I asked a lot of questions but I never really understood what was actually happening or the differences between Labour and Tories. I could just about get my head around some of the technicalities, but, like almost every other seventeen year old, I didn't know enough and was therefore backed into a corner of not caring, as my institutionalised education until then had taught me more about recessive genes than how I had a say in how the country is run. That priority in education is something that needs to change. Upon turning 18 I was thrilled that I could vote in bi-elections etc., but gutted that it'd be almost five years before I could have the say I really wanted to have (shoutout to my parents for putting me into this world a month too late...

T minus fifteen minutes. Plenty of time to get there. We figure out the set of artistically designed bins, dump our pints' plastic glasses and stroll to the venue. T minus nine minutes, we reach the venue and try to figure out the signs. It's not too surprising for the constantly re-marked chalkboards to not show your event, so I wander to the green hut of information to ask where the show is. Turns out my friend's working there so I cover up our confusion with my usual how-typical-I-can't-understand-the-obvious attitude. T minus eight minutes, my friend in the hut gives me a very professional, "no, sorry, you've got the wrong venue". I assume the venue will be nearby, boasting the same name as the one we're stood in, and even his offhand, "it's on the other side of town" doesn't phase me. He's my friend, he's an actor, he's done bigger things to pull my leg. It's only when his friends, who I don't know, earnestl...