Those winter nights ...

I live in the most amazing city and the most amazing part of it too! I absolutely love it! 

When I began looking for Unis in year 13 I had absolutely no clue where to start. Location, at this point had nothing to do with it. I was living in Dubai and I knew that my family wouldn't be coming back to the UK with me. So I could have gone anywhere with a 7 hour flight or a 3,000 mile distance. It seemed that the University I went to wasn't important either. 

I reckon I'm more of a creative person rather than an academic one. I can get by in exams and coursework but it always seems that no matter how much I do, I never quite make it. I had never been so stressed in my LIFE when I took my A-levels and I still didn't manage to get the grades I thought I was working towards. In a way, working like that, constantly, put me off academic learning for the rest of my life. I wanted to know new things but studying for fun with a £9,000 investment each year didn't seem value for money. 

Still, I poured through a whole manner of degrees from international development (something I would actually have really liked to do) to creative writing - a subject that would have made my dream degree. 

But it's virtually unheard of to do something 'fun' at a Russell Group University. Don't get me wrong; I absolutely love studying English and Spanish and the intellectual factor makes me feel a less than a little girl and more like an adult. But conjugating verbs and writing dissertations that have an indoctrinated style is a far cry from the freelance capacity of a creative writing student. 

When I finally found a degree and selected some unis, one of which - Southampton - was somewhere I'd often visited, I began to half-resent the idea of going back to the UK. 

I enjoyed the sun, but from an English-born-and-bred point of view, it's hard to imagine how frustrating the constant sun can become. There is little respite or inspiration for change. But the more I thought about Southampton, the more I fell in love. The campus was so green and breezing around the lanes just seemed so homely. Something really had clicked. 

I absolutely love the scenery and those gorgeous winter nights. 

And the multi-coloured rhinos :D