From the archives
My first day at university took a long time to happen, relatively. I'd been living in Penryn, Cornwall for a month before my course in Film began. I'd wanted to get out of my Mother's house as fast as possible, and had spent the empty month not really doing much of anything apart from sitting on uncomfortable chairs and watching films on a stolen projector.
I'd chosen Falmouth University because I was in a pinch - I'd spent much of the previous year in a state of mania, ignoring important things like my future. A few days before we had to choose where we were headed I hastily borrowed all my friend's prospectuses, and got to work. I ended up going with the exact same course as Becci Walker, a girl I [redacted].
That first night of Fresher's Week she texted me to tell me she'd moved in and was at a meet 'n' greet in the student union bar, five seconds from her Halls. I got dressed in my best 'student' clothes(ironic t-shirt, jeans, blazer with fake paint stains) and marched on down. I lived in private accommodation and in my empty month hadn't even thought to try and find the campus I would be going to for the next forever. It took me an hour and a half to get there, and along the way I nearly stumbled into a Jehovah's Witnesses meeting. But that's neither here nor there.
I remember staring at the student bar, not knowing what to do. I was half-hidden behind a tree, scared out of my wits by the loud music emanating from the building. I've never been a fan off places where people go to get off their face - a lingering side-effect of my father's pub-crawls which invariably involved me sat next to him in a pram whilst he drank himself silly. We don't talk.
Not only was I scared of the building, and what happened inside it, but the people terrified me as well. They all looked like students, and I could swear I still appeared to be the tiny Sixth Former who got carried around in a suitcase one day for a dare. I hadn't finished growing yet, and was nowhere near my current(and still below-male-average) height. I felt like if I walked into that Bar, I'd get laughed at. Back then, I didn't feel like one of the big boys. With hindsight, it’s easy to see why I was so uncomfortable in my own skin.
I pretended that I would at least give it a go, even went in and hung around for half an hour. But I soon found myself walking home to my flatmate, who greeted me with a smile, and knew I hadn't been brave to try very hard but said nothing of it.
My first day really set the tone for that entire academic year, as I found myself leaving the course three weeks later. Still, that was just a practice run - things are going much better second time around. I think.