The (Brief) Return To Student Life

Hello, hello.

So, loads of interesting stuff has happened since my last post which is why I momentarily disappeared - every time I would go to sit down and blog something else would crop up. And the most recent addiction to The Walking Dead hasn't helped matters. But now I'm back in Lancaster I'm also back to blogging.

I took a week holiday and finally went back to see all my university people in Aberystwyth. I hadn't been since my birthday in November and it was amazing to finally feel that 'coming home' buzz again. It helps that it's such a beautiful place, and the weather was fantastic while I was there; cold but brilliantly sunny all week and not a single drop of rain. Gave us some phenomenal sunsets. I took this photograph on the first night I was there when I realised it was going to be a beauty; ran out the house and down to the beach in my pyjamas, and think I was a tad too late to get the full effect but it still makes a pretty picture.

Aberystwyth pier at sunset

Totally reverted back to the student way of life while I was down there, though it was a difficult transition. Fair enough, that first KFC meal went down a treat but that was largely because cooking in a messy student kitchen was not my idea of fun for my first night there. The next morning I woke up at the usual time of 8am. I should probably mention at this point that I was in Aberystwyth to stay with my boyfriend Elliot who is in his final year at university. He works in a bar and had finished work at 3am. 5 hours later I'm awake and all excited to embrace the sunny world of Aberystwyth. He, unfsurprisingly, was not quite so enthusiastic. Still, cut to week later and the roles have reversed; I'm the one being grumpily pried out of bed at noon. Ah, the student life.

We went for a mooch around the woods at the top of Penglais Hill on my first full day in Aberystwyth. It was  a beautiful day and there are loads of spots like this that I've still never discovered before.

Elliot, striding ahead through the woods

View from the woods across the valley. 

We also went to see a David Marmot play called 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago' which was about the screwed up sex lives of four people in America in the 1970's. Pretty interesting stuff. And the last day we spent in the woods again this time shooting each other with paintball guns. Wicked fun! Other than that, we had a few nights in and a few nights out having some drinks with various groups of people. The nights Elliot worked I caught up with some other friends. Many people told me about the horrors of writing their dissertation; I am not looking forward to that hell in a year's time. I also signed the contract for my house for next year which is Elliot's current house, and I'll be in his current room! It's typically manly and boring at the moment but I am determined to make it amazing because it has so much potential with a gorgeous big bay window and a marble mantlepiece. I've already sneakily measured it out with a tape measure, deciding how to rearrange everything and make it mine. Made me very excited to go back in September, and much more reluctant to leave on Sunday.

Alas, the real world was calling. Not all that bad as I had this huge box of Celebrations waiting for me than my parents had dropped off and I had yet to open. I only took a photo from the outside because I'm scared you will judge how much chocolate I've eaten in the last few days...

This week has been a pretty good week so far though; apparently the sun followed me back to Lancaster which made collecting some stream samples for my dissertation up at Moor House really quite blissful yesterday. Quite surreal really when the sun is so strong that I was scared of sunburn and yet the river was still frozen over and I was tramping through snow. Today I was looking at CVs of the applicants for my replacement. It definitely drove home the fact that I'm now over half-way through my placement! Though I am strangely curious to meet the applicants at their interviews, in a perversely morbid way.

Before I go I feel the need to share this wonderful song called Let Her Go by Passenger that a friend recomended. Passenger came from very humble busker beginning and, despite his strange helium-like voice, he makes some beautiful noise. Also, quick plug for the musically-inclined friend who introduced me to this music. He goes by the name of Tom Bedlam these days, check out his covers of various songs.