So, you're thoroughly sick of waking up with Alcohol Amnesia and wanting to vommit the entire day. You're also about to regret how much lovely parent-bought Waitrose food you ate when you were hungover as you will need tolive on supermarket own label basic everything from now on. You may have ambitions of this not happening, in fact, you may actively vow to never ever stoop that low but you will when you realise you've spent Brazil's yearly budget during Freshers. Savage. Don't worry, Sainsbury's offer a decent basics range although I'd avoid any frozen ready meal from them (cue horse meat jokes). Most else they offer is extremely good value for money.
Now you feel likea proper student (constantly queezy and tired), it's time to go to your introductory lectures. Just a warning, you'll hate everyone giving the lectures because they're so fresh-faced and seem not to rate a hangover as a serious medical condition nor acknowledge that going out is more important than learning to First Years. Conversely, you are sitting there having had 3 hours sleep for the last 4 nights and have to not only listen to the fairly important information the lecturers are giving you but have to participate in the mad scramble for friends to sit with for the duration of the year. All looking like a painted turd wearing all the new 'uni clothes' your parents bought you and smelling like a tramp. Glorious. These are the kind of problems you will face now, not 'I wonder what I want to eat out of this over-stocked fridge' or 'No,Mum, I want the crusts cut off'. However, it is likely that 90% of the people in that brightly-lit lecture theatre is feeling just as bad as you are and looking nearly as bad (because nobody can feel as bad as you can or understand the pain you're going through).
Introductory lectures over, the next week brings excitement (for the coolest people among us) as you can use all the fresh, new notepads, pens, highlighters that comes with a new year of education. Obviously, this time you don't openly compare pencil cases with the person next to you as that would be immature but you clock them as a potential buddy or deem them unsuitable on ground of stationery clashes. You will soon lose interest in taking neat lecture notes when you realise your lecturers actually don't care whether you understand or not. You pay them your £9,000 for them to sweep your questions aside for third years and give you less attention than a mother ignoring the incessant cries of 'Mum,Mum, are we there yet?'. This will allow you to complain all the time and if it isn't a hobby of yours already, take it up and quick because you're soon to bea proper student. You'll also need to consider Twitter (if you don't already tweet every detail of your day) and Instagram (so you can upload photos of your amazing home-cooked spaghetti bolognese and pretend you're Nigella/Jamie). And if you've Instagrammed your bedroom but still need a few more useless pieces ofpaper then it's off to Freshers' Fair we go...
Freshers' Fair is one of the weirdest events of the year. Unless you knew people before going to uni, you end up going with flatmates or people you've only just met which means you have to censor what you join to fit in or escape endless questions about aweird hobby or interest. For example, if you join Pole Dancing Society,you are automatically judged to be a slut and if you join a sport, everyone assumes you've represented at least your county or school's 1st team at it. Also, there are more stalls than there are rainy days in England all trying to get your attention using bright colours, music, videos, posters, free gifts butmost of all, food. You'll come back with more sweets than a fat child trick-or-treating and you'll throw most of them away. You'll also throw away 80% of the stuff you get there and wonder why you joined the Trainspotting society (after finding out it's not about the film). It is fun though and was one of the last times I remember actually being motivated this year by so many enthusiastic 70%+ 2nd and 3rd year students (that's a very good percentage now by the way). If you are losing out in the battle for a close group of friends then a society or sport is a greatway to meet people. I joined Hockey and enjoyed the first 'Come and Play day' where we drank on the astro, (how wild, yah?) and played games. Joining a sport also fills up your first year because actual university work will fill up very little. Be prepared to stoop down to Jeremy Kyle audience level, every single day as you'll have nothing better to do. Also, if you actually do join societies and sports, which cost you yet more money, you will feel much more fulfilled and less full of regret at the end of your first year. First year is all about enjoying yourself as you have no responsibility (most firstyear work doesn't count towards your final degree classification and only haveto get 40% to get into the next year).
Congratulations,you've done Freshers week(s), Freshers Fair and some lectures. You are a fully-fledged university student. Go and have some experiences you can't tell your parents about (if you're that way inclined).
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