Why Pay and Not Go?

To University I mean. We currently pay £3,200 PER YEAR to go to university, and my course in particular has a serious lack of classes. This semester (between now and when we finish for summer which is the week of the 18th of April!) We have a class on Tuesdays, wednesdays and thursdays, totalling 7 hours class time. This compared with other courses is certainly not a lot. On top of this we don't have any exams and if I am honest, only a minor amount of homework and assignments. Granted these assignments drove us insane over Christmas and no doubt will again before deadlines in May. But I personally think we have gotten off lightly to be doing a "real course", despite what some people think, and to have so little class time. So where is the excuse for not turning up?

There are several members of my class that turn up every time, myself being one of them, and then several who rarely turn up, the worst lesson for class attendance is, unsurprisingly, the thursday morning class at 9am. This class, however, is currently the most important because we are set a small assignment every two weeks to be completed and handed in as a group piece. The grades for all of the separate assignments will be added up and then you will be individually be awarded your average grade. In an attempt to make each persons overall grade fair you must be in a different group for every assignment. I don't know personally, is it just me or does this seem flawed? Im not sure what it is but it doesn't seem quite right to me. Even just the fact that some people can't even be bothered to turn up to the lessons suggests to me that these same people are unlikely to equally pull their weight in a group.

So the question comes down to why are these people paying to NOT come to the meagre amount of lessons we have? I guess they are paying £3,200 a year for the "student lifestyle", which is all well and good because I imagine they couldn't get up to half the things they do here if they were living in their parents house, but still. Even renting a flat wouldn't be as expensive as being at uni. I can't help but think of the people who didn't get a place on the courses over the people who are on courses but never go to lessons. Seems awful unfair to me. I am the last person you would see condoning the rise in tuition fees, however it most likely would stop the people who come and don't bother going to lessons and might make people think twice about missing out on lessons to go drinking. But then it probably wont, because the world is just a big mess like that.

The Weekend Starts Over There

Had a class today, words and images, best one of the week. We went to Sheffield train station to take pictures to write Haiku's for homework, which went fine until security guards politely, and then not so politely, moved us along. We did however manage to get some snaps before they so rudely ruined our homework. Just a warning, my Haiku's aren't brilliant.

 

Click on the images to enlarge :) We are meant to do five but so far I have only thought of these three, and this one for fun:

They were meant to have metaphors like my friend has just kindly pointed out, but oh well I've got two weeks to do proper ones. These are just a bit of fun i guess. Wait... what?? Fun with poetry? Me? Something must be wrong with me.

A huge long boring weekend looms ahead, that's the problem with uni, never anything to do. I will most likely spend the whole time in bed. I've been very tired recently but haven't been doing much with my life. There is probably a reason for this, most likely that I don't go to bed until 2am, or something to do with my diet maybe. 

I finished the whole Millennium series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). They were sooooooo good!! I advise anyone and everyone to read them! I'm now onto a set of Roald Dahl books my step mum bought me, almost finished Boy. They all seem very quick reads, a day for each one I would guess :) 

Pretty on the Inside and Out

Yeah right. All I can say to these people is, who are you kidding? Maybe someone can be beautiful on the inside, if who they are trying to please likes that kind of personality, or shares the same interests. But on the whole I would say on the inside we are all abstract and weird, misshapen and frail. This isn't so much a bad thing, I am not trying to say we are all weirdo's and are messed up in some way. I am just trying to say that we are all different and because there is so much less pressure put on our personality than our looks, that is OK.

However when appearance becomes involved it is a whole different story. I, just like everyone else in the world, desperately seek acceptance. Most of us dress up, cake our faces with makeup, hit the gym and diet all just in the hope that one day someone will comment on how nice we look, have we lost weight etc. Those who do none of those things are the people who gave up a long time ago, and those who say they never were like that, you aren't fooling anyone. Every single one of us gets that lovely feeling deep down inside, the warmth that you can physically feel, when someone compliments you. Then you go home and look in the mirror and think, maybe they're right. After that we allow ourselves a tiny moment of self worth. This lasts only until the next time you look at yourself in the mirror. The next time you look you think, I haven't lost weight, what am I wearing? I look awful today. We bombard ourselves with self destructive comments that eat away at our ego. We watch films with beautiful women and think, I could never ever be like that. Every day we wish to be more than we are, but already know that we can never be more than what is right there in front of us. Sure, we can lose a few pounds here and there, spend a fortune on a new dress that only gets worn once or twice, but in the end it comes back down to the same fact. We all want to be told we are beautiful.

I am one of these people. Now when having my weight guessed this weekend by someone close to me, and they suggest 15 stone, I suddenly realised how the world sees me. I wont say how much I do weigh, but I will say it is less than 15 stone, and as any woman, and probably man too, knows that when someone thinks you are heavier than you are, that screams one thing: FAT.

I have never been good at taking my own advice. I was going to use this post to make a comment about real women, and about how beautiful every single one of us is. But I wouldn't take that on board myself. I do however want to start an exercise and I urge anyone who reads this, man or woman, to take part. I want to create a post telling the world how beautiful we are. Post anonymously if you want, that's fine. But tell me, what is the one thing you like best about yourself?

I'll start. I love my eyes and my eyelashes.

And then, just to brighten someone else's life that little bit, send your best friend a compliment, or next time you see someone tell them something you like about what they're wearing, or how they have done their hair.

Some People are so Rude

Today as part of my dad's birthday celebration we went bowling (amazing fun, we both won a game each :) ). However the downfall of the day was the young gentleman at the bit where you exchange your shoes for those amazing bowling shoes that slip too easy on the carpet and feel very unlike real shoes. This young man was the essence of rudeness. He didn't look at us when he spoke to us and he straight out patronised my dad, who I don't think noticed, or if he did he didn't care. But I did. No one talks like that to my dad. It literally made me feel sick. How dare he speak to us like that? We were paying customers and he was plain arrogant. I soon realised, however, it wasn't just rudeness to us. A young lady approached him to ask about how to work the keyboard to type in their names. He was so sarcastic and patronising to her I could have kicked him. People like that don't deserve to be payed. I totally understand Mary Portas plight for better customer service. I should tell her she needs to go to Sheffield Hollywood Bowl and sort that guy out.

On a lighter note we had a wonderful day of Pizza hut and Yorkshire Sculpture Park, even if the wind was crazy, but the windswept look is in, right?

 

Alone

My flatmate moved out this morning. She has quit uni because she wasn't enjoying it and has gone back home to London. She sprung the news on my last night when we got together and ordered pizza. I just think about how I was going to put it off and suggest doing it another night when really it was her last night here and I just didn't know. She used to live in the room next to mine, so when she was moving her stuff out at 8am this morning I was woken up with banging. I wasn't annoyed, I was sad. She was my only flatmate that I really get on with and that I'm not uncomfortable around. Now I'm alone as an outcast in the flat. I know I should extend a hand of friendship to the others but its awkward and I don't know what to say to them. I constantly have this worry that people don't like me and so it makes me feel like they don't want me to talk to them, though it's probably nothing to do with that at all. It's so quiet without my flatmate here, I used to be able to hear her through the walls. I hope she gets to do something she really enjoys now though, and I'm happy that she's doing what she wants. This is the fourth friend I have who has dropped out of uni.

On the plus side I see my dad again on Monday. He came over on Thursday afternoon after I had been on the phone to him the night before, upset and missing him. We went round the two galleries in Sheffield and it was good. I loved seeing him again. I'm not sure yet what we're doing on Monday, but it's his birthday (I wont say how old he is :P ). We might be going to Yorkshire Sculpture Park or the cinema, depends on the weather really.

Overall I'm having a rather dull weekend, there isn't much to do on weekends when you're quite far out from town and you don't get on with your flatmates. I have to do some clothes washing, but the price of £2 per load really puts me off. However I am now pretty much out of clean clothes so I have no choice.

Random Thoughts About Life

This morning I woke up thinking about my dad. Possibly because someone had posted something on Facebook about having the best dad in the world. I know that everyone says that, and the truth is that if a dad has stuck around in your life then that makes them pretty great to start with. I hate it when people who have both their mum and dad in the same house (or even in the same country!) talk about how they hate their dads and that they're so annoying etc etc. How do you think I feel? My dad left when I was about three (i think) and when I was eight he married my step mum. About four years ago, maybe a little less, they moved to France taking my two little sisters with them (obviously as kids that age can't exactly be left behind). I hate it. I hate that they are always so far away. I see my dad every so often when he comes over to England for work, but that's only every couple of months. I see my sisters for about two weeks once a year. It really does kill me but then I think, I have to be grateful that my dad even wanted to keep contact. There are plenty of dads out there that just left their children and disappeared. I sometimes wonder what kind of person I would be if I hadn't have had a father figure in my life. It's impossible to say really, same for if I tried to guess what I would be like if he and my mum had stayed together. But looking at it from my position now, I'm glad that both my parents are married to other people now because if they weren't I wouldn't have my two beautiful little sisters and I wouldn't have either of my step parents. I think for a girl who mostly grew up a single child with one parent around most of the time (I did used to spend every other weekend with my dad but now I wish I had spent longer with him), I didn't turn out too bad. I definitely didn't turn into what the media suggests I should have. So all I wanted to say was that I also think I have pretty amazing parents - my mum for bringing me up and my dad for not deciding to abandon me.