Monday 18 July 2011

LONG ASS UPDATE

Soooooooo I haven't done this in a while and I'm a little bored so I thought I'd check in! A couple of things have changed since my last post- the most significant change being that EXAMS ARE OVER SO I DON'T FEEL LIKE KILLING MYSELF ANYMORE!
My first year as an Economics student really has flown by... to be honest I don't remember much of it. On the academic side, I feel like I've definitely surpassed any expectations I had in October of last year. When I failed my first ever class test I actually thought my life was over. All the time and effort spent getting good A Level results had gone to waste (my A Level trauma is a whole new blog post, let's not go there) because I never thought I'd be able to pick it all back up. When the next term started in January although I was doing MUCH MUCH MUCH better, my average mark for the coursework grade was below 50% because of the previous bad marks. To say that I felt like a failure was a f?!@*&g understatement. I was convinced that I would fail my final exams and end up resitting in August just to fail again, then I would eventually quit uni and get a job at Aldi (£7+ an hour ain't too shabby, guys). During the Easter holidays I reached a point where there were only two options- either stay completely depressed, hating life and being withdrawn from everyone because I was going to fail so I wouldn't see them next year ANYWAY, or get my bum into gear and do some work. So I decided to give the latter a shot. I thought that this way, even if I didn't pass at least I would be able to argue that I put a (questionable) level of effort in. Pretty much every day was spent deriving the ISLM schedule in my head, or trying to figure out T-distributions or watching Casados con Hijos to help with my Spanish.*

*sidenote- that is a pathetic excuse. I just love Luisana Lopilato.

By the time exams came around I felt totally unprepared even though I'd never worked harder in my life. The idea of failure has always been really scary to me (one of the never ending perks of having Nigerian parents) so I wasn't looking forward to having to break the bad news to the 'rents when results day came. I had to stay at home for a while after exams because the tenancy for our house didn't begin till July 1st, and every day my dad would ask me when my results were coming and I'd just ignore the question HA!

Fast forward- and the day finally came. I wasn't expecting them till the evening so when I logged on to Facebook around midday to see a plethora of status updates about exam results..... well..... this says it all really:


I swear I nearly started crying before I'd even got on to the Student Data System- I saw myself becoming one of those failure hobos that chill around Salford Precinct with all the crackheads... sniffing glue and eating dog shit, just wondering where my life had gone. So you really can imagine my surprise when I was greeted by THIS:


DISTI-WHAAAAAAAAAAT?!


So all the overdosing on Pro Plus, total eradication of my social life and tears were actually worth it. I said I would be happy with a 2:2 based on my work since September. A 2:1 seemed completely unobtainable. But a FIRST?! If you'd told Lamide circa April 2011 that she'd be getting a 1:1 she would have probably slapped you silly. This was better than the time my high school Maths teacher told me to my face I would never get above a B** (AND CONSEQUENTLY RUINED MY CHANCES OF GETTING INTO ONE OF THE BEST SIXTH FORMS IN MANCHESTER but again, that's another story) and I ended up with an A.

** sidenote- at the time I considered a B in Maths to be just as bad as a U.

This really does still feel like a dream! I know that second year is going to be INSANE with regards to my workload *insert sad face here*, but I'm happy that I can go straight into it knowing nothing is impossible *insert happy face here*.
My fun plans for summer have kinda faded away.... I'm back in Canterbury working close to full time, and living ALONE in a 4 bedroom house till the others arrive. Completely bored out of my brain, so you non-existent readers can definitely expect more of my unnecessary rambling on here. 
CIAO FOR NOW, LOVERS!