University: First Impressions

So here I am, Leeds Metropolitan University, all on my own in a big city. It’s pretty overwhelming when you first arrive, and finding your way around the place isn’t that much easier. It still hasn’t really occurred to me that I’m spending the next three years of my life here, and it probably never will until someone literally drills it into my head. It’s a far cry from Burnley, and as much as I might miss home a little I much prefer to be in Leeds.

As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t get into the halls (I’ve since been told it’s awesome) and I had to go in rented accommodation, which didn’t seem like the whole ‘university experience’ to me. I’m sharing with two guys, Ben and Ian, and one girl, Kirsty. For the most part they are pretty cool and I guess I could have ended up with much worse, but I still have a few pet peeves with them. Ben, for example, can be extremely irritating at times, one of those people who, when you sit down to watch a film you haven’t seen but they have, talks all the way through it, saying lines and puns out loud just before the actors on screen actually say it. The jokes are somewhat less funny when some idiot has ruined it by saying it beforehand. I don’t appreciate the comments ‘this bit is awesome’ and ‘funny as’ either. Also, he automatically thinks you’re in a bad mood when you don’t jump around shouting with glee when he asks you a question, and hates it when you prove him wrong (as I’ve found out plenty of times). Finally, but only because I don’t want this to turn out to be a list of ‘things you should hate about Ben’, he really needs to get his ear’s checked because he never hears what you say the first time. Everyone has to repeat something twice, three times, or even four before he can comprehend what you are trying to say.

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Ian’s fine for the most part, he’s funny and laid back, and doesn’t take things to heart like Ben does. We owe him big time for actually getting us out there when we hit the town. Ben’s not the ‘pulling master’ he says he is, and prefers to stand there and stare at girls rather than actually talk to them. As for me I’m not the type of guy to go and chat to a girl on my own, and I can get pretty nervous until I actually get talking to someone. Ian, though, is a different picture, and is full of confidence, which means he quickly makes groups of friends, which Ben and me can talk to and get along with too. I’m not saying that I always need Ian to chat to a girl, we’ve met a few girls on our own without help from Ian, but he does push us in the right direction an awful lot. I wouldn’t have normally been friends with someone like Ian, a rugby player with a lot of massive mates who I wouldn’t go near (because I’m a wimp like that), but he’s not the big-headed ass that most Rugby players tend to be, although I do wonder if he might be a bit ‘two-faced’ sometimes.

Kirsty is a strange one. She’s only been out once in the whole two weeks we’ve been here, and even then she only came out because her mate stayed the night. You would think you’d want to experience the student life when you got to university, something I’ve always been looking forward to, but Kirsty seems to always want to stay holed up in her room. At first she put it down to being ‘homesick’ but recently I just think that she doesn’t like going out all that much. I don’t have a problem with that but she is a little weird in other cases. We all know she wants to fuck Ben, for example, yet took great glee in taking the piss out of him with her mate last Thursday. I know it’s what girls sometimes do, but she hardly talks to him during the day and sends him texts telling him she wants ‘sex so bad’ when she’s not around. It doesn’t help when Ben leads her on, I’ve told him a million times to tell her to back off if you don’t like her, escalating the situation and making her think she has a chance isn’t going to help things one bit. I feel a little bad when Ian and Ben bitch about her behind her back, and I try not to join in. I’m not really keen on her at all, and I can see where the guys are coming from when they mention her ‘strangeness’, but I don’t want the house to split up and force Kirsty out the door because she feels neglected. Yet at the same time I don’t want to fall out with the guys, so I just stay in the middle and take a back seat when they start bitching.

Fresher’s fortnight was amazing. It kicked off with the Freshers ball on the first Monday we were there. The entertainment consisted of Atomic Kitten star Natasha Hamilton and Pop Idol rejects Liberty X, which wasn’t exactly awesome, especially when Liberty X seemed to be stumbling around drunk on the stage. I met so many new people on that night that I can’t even remember half of their names. Amongst them was a girl on my course called Heather, who was pretty damn hot but as usual for me had a boyfriend. I’ve talked to her a number of times when we’ve been in lectures, but she doesn’t turn up to many since she can get away with it because she’s not on the register, and also because she wants to drop the course. I don’t see the point in that, especially when she made that decision a week into the course.

The course is pretty hard work, and the amount of reading you have to do is borderline ridiculous. I’ve spent a lot of money on books already, and there’s plenty more that I have to read. I have no one but myself to blame, I knew this course would be damn hard work but in the end it’s what I want to do to connect it to a career in writing and journalism. I’ll learn to analyse texts, how to form proper conclusions and balanced arguments, much better than I did at A-level. I just feel like I have a tonne of work and my housemates don’t.

I’ve spent too much on going out already, and although I’ve been having a great time I really need to cut down on wasting my money on drink. The first Thursday I had so much to drink that I ended up throwing up in a bucket a number of times, and Ben slept on the floor in my room to make sure I didn’t choke on my sick during the night, which was kind of him I guess (love that sarcasm machine).

Amongst the girls I’ve met is a girl called Beth. I got on with her pretty well at the Kirkstall Brewery Bar party, and everyone thought I really had a chance with her, a chance I probably blew. She kept talking about dumping her boyfriend and I was told that I ‘didn’t take the hint’. She did end up dumping her boyfriend, and when we went to see her at Pizza Hut, where she works, I spotted him working in the kitchen and he just looked like one of those guys who would act like a right big-headed idiot, especially how he was wearing his cap, his whole style just screamed ‘stuck up his own ass’. She’d already told me on many occasions that he was a ‘twat’, yet two days later she was back with him. Did I actually have a chance that I blew within that period? When we went downtown, on the night I got totally wrecked, we met up with her in ‘IF’ bar, but when they went off to dance Ian wanted to go to Halo so we went off. There’s plenty more fish in the sea, but I really liked her, and I’m the time of guy to obsess over one girl for a long time, which I’m trying not to do. I suppose I’m being a typical lad when I think my double bed could be put to more use than usual, but it’s been a damn long time so I’m allowed to think about that.

Kay wise, well, she was literally a mile away from me last week, shopping in Leeds. Me, being the total retard as always, chickened out in going to meet up with her and I really can’t explain it. Maybe it was because I was with Ben and I’d really rather I met up with Kay on my own, especially not with Ben anyway, but I also really regret not seeing her that day. I’ve wanted to meet Kay for an absolute age, if you can count our phone and Internet conversations we’ve had over the years then I think we get on awesomely, and have a tonne of things in common. The thing is I get really stupid when I like a girl, and back off even if I don’t want to. I’m good friends with Kay, and I don’t want that to go away, I’m just scared she’ll hate me if we ever met up.

To be honest, here comes the negative vibes as per usual, University life isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Sure, going out is awesome, but I’m still the loser I always was, I’m still the guy who doesn’t approach people all that often to make friends. Sure, I talk to people on my course, but I don’t have one number off them, not even Heather. My biggest wish is to have more confidence, and I always hoped University would grant that wish, I’m still hoping.


Categories: Leeds, Life, University