I wrote my last journal entry on September 9th. I'm terrible at this whole keeping up with things.
Hello. My name is Lisa, in case anyone forgot, or if there are any new people floating around out there. I am nineteen years old as my birthday is December 19th, which is (obviously) today. I currently study English with Creative Writing at Queen's University in Belfast, and I live in university accommodation which is known as the Elms Village and all the buildings are named after types of trees. For example, I live in Holly Grove and my friend lives in Beech Grove. Queen's think they're clever.
I'm going to go through the dates in between the two in the title and try and remember what happened tell you what has been happening during that time.
September:
Not an awful lot happened in the month of September if I'm being honest. Everyone was either starting university or getting ready to start university so we never really found enough time to do anything together. September was basically rest month after the summer. We went out one night for a sort of leaving party for those who were going overseas for university, but that was about it. I moved into my halls on 21 September, but didn't actually officially move in until the 27 September since my course didn't actually start until then. There are twelve people on my floor, six guys and six girls, but only six live down my side of the floor. Our rooms are locked by key cards like you would get in hotels but they only work on your bedroom door, the door to your corridor and the front door of the building so you can't get in to anyone else's rooms. I live in room 210, with my best friend from school Niamh living in the room across from me completely by fluke. We weren't allowed to request anyone to live with us in our building but we somehow managed to get the rooms across from each other. Primary school, secondary school, and now university. I've been best friends with her for fifteen years now, and I'm so glad we're together.
Induction week followed, which wasn't the most interesting part of the course, but it allowed me to meet my tutorial group, all of whom were very lovely and friendly which was very reassuring. Mostly we took part in Freshers/Freshman events which basically involved going out and getting drunk every night of the week. I hadn't drank that much until I came to university, so I was quite a weak drinker at first and on the third night I did end up throwing up into my own sink, but I have hardened since then and have built up and immunity... and not drank a full bottle of apple vodka in one night. *shudders*
Our friend group established itself quite early on which was actually really great and I've found that all of them are actually amazing fun and great friends. Our floor calls itself the "Holly Grove Four Family" (we live in apartment four), but we have people from outside of that who are friends with people in the building included in the family. I'll be using names from now on, so here is the entire family list: me, Niamh, Ryan, Maegen, Aaron, Daniel, Leona and James. Members who come and go are Claire Rose, Gavin, Eva, Catherine and Alice. We generally spend most of our time together despite nearly all doing different courses so we've bonded pretty well. Most of the end of September is a bit of a blur of parties and inductions.
October:
Freshers continued into the first week of October, but the downfall was that classes had properly started by then. My timetable was pretty sweet for this semester though: two one hour lectures on Monday; a one hour tutorial and two hour seminar on Tuesday; one hour tutorial and one hour workshop with my Peer Mentors on Thursday (Peer Mentors are second and third year students who are currently studying your course basically look out for us and help us with the course). I completely my noticeboard in October, appropriately named "The Dashboard 1.0" (I am from Tumblr after all), which you can see a very large image of here:
There have been a few additions since I took this photo but it's mostly the same as it was when it was "completed".
Another highlight was Halloween when we went to the Halloween Ball in Mandela Hall. I went as a zombie child with Niamh and Alice. Alice did our make-up for it and it was absolutely amazing, I'll post some photos up later. The best costume of the night had to go to Aaron though, who went out as Slenderman, dressed in a full white bodysuit and a tux, and basically braved the heat in Mandela Hall to steal the show.
The only downfall to October was the night Niamh was spiked by someone we sort knew but weren't particularly friendly with, but Niamh got left with him by herself and came back unable to stand up. She kept throwing up and passed out in the taxi home, which never ever happens to her. I won't give more details but it was one of the scariest nights of my life, especially since I wasn't exactly sober. Please protect your drinks guys and stick with your friends.
November:
November was a bit more eventful. I played a concert with the Queen's University Symphony Orchestra (hereby known as QUSO). One of the guys from CBYO is actually the conductor of it and quite a few of the members who left CBYO are in QUSO so it was nice to see some familiar faces. It's also good that Aaron plays flute so I had someone to walk in with on my first day. Not that I'm an awkward person, but it eased the tension a little.
A lot of Kings was played during November, with everyone getting rather drunk and loving life. On November 20th we saw the midnight showing of Catching Fire and it was the greatest thing we could ever have done because we went for drinks before it as well, took part in a pub music quiz and then headed to the cinema. The movie was unbelievably amazing too, which was a bonus.
There was one bad moment in November which was when two guys from the bottom floor of our building came up to our kitchen in the middle of the night, piss drunk, and trashed the place. There are still oil and washing-up liquid stains on our roof to this day. We reported it, so as not to lose our deposit when they had to repaint the place at the end of the year and the two guys were caught eventually, apparently turning themselves in, but I'm not sure if they did it by choice. Not that I care, I just didn't want to lose my money.
December:
December got off to a bad start with me having to make a Facebook apology to James since he beat me 5-0 in FIFA. This actually happened in November, but Facebook was a bit of a twat and didn't upload my intial apology (which was absolutely brilliant) so my second attempt was a lot less interesting.
We went on a pub crawl for Maegen's birthday and for Christmas on December 7th, and I got absolutely steaming and tripped outside the gates of Queen's and apparently curled up on the ground like an amardillo. The path was cobbled and I was in heels, ok? Leave me alone.
I got a few assignment results back, which I'm pretty happy with but my language assignment could have went down better. I also managed to upload one of my assignments 48 seconds before the deadline, otherwise it would've been late. #impressive
And finally to today, December 19th, my birthday. I am now officially nineteen. Which is kind of scary cause it means I'm almost out of my teenage years and will be officially recognised as an adult. Then again, twenteen has a pretty nice ring to it.
And that's pretty much it, you're all up to date. I wish I had more of a reason for not being online and posting but sometimes you need to get away from it all. And Tumblr may have been dwindling away my online hours.
I'm going to try and get back into doing some work on here, but I don't know how consistent I can be. Exams and assignments are pretty stressful. I'm sure you all understand.
Love you all, and I look forward to speaking to you all soon.
PS Keep an eye out for photos.