Packing for university on the morning of departure may not have been the best tactic to guarantee a stress-free Mum. Once I had overcome the stubborn holdall zips and the wardrobe dilemmas, triumphantly I waddled downstairs with bulging bags and a beaded brow. Just as I was thinking ‘I hope everyone else takes this much stuff’, I entered the kitchen and found my mother cornered by a sea of packets of pulses and tins. She was forcefully cramming a bag of oats into a space half its size. ‘Eva!’ she exclaimed in fury with an underlying tone of concern, ‘Have you packed yet?’. ‘Yeah, but I think I might have to unpack a bit if I’m going to take all of this’ I replied, looking dismally down to the floor, that was now no longer visible because of all the packets of food.
A couple of hours and arguments later, I found myself in our small car, crammed against the window , cradling a tupperware box of cold leek soup and worrying about whether or not I had packed enough underwear. As we drove through the drizzle, my parents went ominously calm and I felt the ‘OMG, Eva is actually going to university’ in the air surrounding them. After unpacking and closing the bedroom door behind my anxious parents for the last time, I looked at my room with excitement and wondered how I would be feeling when I closed this door for the last time in just under a year’s time.
In between socialising and making friends at an unnatural rate, I decided to go to one of the academic activities on the fresher’s timetable, the tour around the library. Stepping into the library, I heard brains thinking, books teaching and laptops clicking; I had stepped into a quiet bubble which was lined with the books of experts, filling students with new knowledge and ideas. Keen to be shown around, I found a guide who took me, along with five others, around the bookshelves, up staircases and past the many students looking studious. As someone who finds the incentive to study difficult to instil in myself, I realised that I had potentially just found my inspiration. As well as there being numerous seating options available, there were also different areas for different noise levels. Now all I lacked was a cure for my indecisiveness.
During the first week I also had a few lectures and seminars for my chosen degree course, International Relations. I came out of the first lecture buzzing, feeling like I had learned everything I needed to know from an omniscient lecturer, sitting in a class of like-minded students equally engaged in all he had to say. We then had an International Relations social gathering, involving free bubbly and mixed nuts and mixing with bubbly nuts people, a few of whom I quickly befriended.
After a week of induction, the expectations of university I had prior to arrival had been pushed out the way by imposing and impressive new ones.