Uni summer break

I just handed in my last essay of this first year at Uni. I have to say I was a little disappointed that there were no cannons of glitter as I walked up to the box! Trust me, I deserved it, every student does! Maybe we should suggest it at the next student/faculty meeting.


I was up all night re-writing this essay as I felt it just wasn't going in a direction I was happy with. I came into Uni to print it off, decided to edit a couple of areas and then saved in cyberspace. I have no idea where it went. All that extra editing and I had to leave for work. You can imagine my relief when I remembered that I had printed off a copy! 15 minutes later to add in the edits again, discovering a few more things to edit along the way, a printed copy and as saved copy I can find. Uploaded on Learn and handed into to the ever efficient and unflappable Lucy!


My treat to myself for all this-in bed by 8pm!! Ha the life of a working student is soo exciting!

3 essays to go and I can read all I want. And I cannot wait!

Wow! I'm a Uni student!

So, I have one seminar left and 3 essays to submit, and that is the end of my first year at Loughborough University.
Here I am at nearly 39 years old and I'm a uni student! It still freaks me out (wow, really not good English for an English student!).
Walking through campus today in the rain, reminded me of the Open Day I attended last June. Back then I was only dreaming of being a student, but that day I was so inspired, I knew I wanted it to be a reality. Today, I called my mum and neither of us could believe it had been 11 months already. Time flies when you are too busy to clock watch.
I still get a thrill walking through the library looking for books, just like I did that day 11 months ago. I love sitting in lectures learning something new and discussing books with other book lovers.
I have read so many amazing new books, and a few really dull ones.
The staff have been both incredibly supportive and great at encouraging you to be the best you can be. And I have met 18 year old students that have amazed me with their maturity and intelligence.
I still have 280 credits to go, which will probably take another 3 1/2 years and my classmates this year will be finished in 2 years but I will have had the time to enjoy my new career and spend time with family and friends.
I say now that I would like to combine my career in supporting adults who have a mental health diagnosis with education but I'm also flexible on seeing where this takes me. My life is my own and I have the freedom to go anywhere. So I'm going to continue to enjoy my life as student and my career each day, for as long as it lasts.
Isn't that all we can do? There is no point in worrying about what might happen, just in case it doesn't. Then you would have wasted all that energy for nothing.
I find it hard to get really, truly excited about my new life, whilst living with the guilt of who I hurt to achieve it though. I can only hope that time really does heal.
I'm still not sure I fully understand what makes a poem a poem. Oh, and there have been so many deathly boring, totally confusing essays on Critical Theory! Thank goodness my last Critical Studies lecture and seminar was today. Though I have discovered a new interest in Psychoanalytic literary criticism, Structuralism is still baffling to me.

I changed my life this time last year. I also changed someone else's; a man I'd loved for 8 years. Some might think I'd taken that decision lightly, those who say you should have worked at marriage harder. They assume people walk away too easily. Do they consider though that working hard at marriage sometimes means sacrificing happiness and contentment? Aren't we all entitled to find happiness in life?

And yet to find my contentment, I sacrificed my husband's happiness. I pulled the rug out from under him. And I think about that every single day. I go to bed and lay there thanking my lucky stars for my amazing life, whilst also thinking about my wonderful husband and our once idyllic life that I shattered.

My friends and family give me support and say 'if I'm happier now, then it was the right choice'. His friends and family probably say 'what a bitch' and 'how could she do that to you?'. They are both right.

When we stick up for our friends and knock the other person's decision because we can only see the hurt one, shouldn't we think first about the reason behind that choice?

Or maybe I am a selfish bitch? When I cry myself sleep at night thinking about the man I left, am I just having a pity party? Or have I right to mourn what we had, even if I was the one who made the choice to leave?