French Map

This is a map of the world that I have labelled with all the countries names in French. Please use!

I am a Yes Girl

This blog has been a long time coming, but it feels very relevant now...

Back in 2011/2012, I read 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace and it sounds cheesy, but I was really inspired by his message.

Now don't get me wrong, I have no grand ambitions to say yes to every single thing that someone asks me to do. For instance in the book, I found it bizarre, if not verging on irritating when he decided to travel all the way to Amsterdam in search of someone who asked him for his bank details over the internet. Now I'm not so naive as to not realise that the innocent tone in which he wrote that particular passage was intended to heighten his sarcasm and the hilarity of the situation. However, I am assuming that the book is founded mainly in truth, like a memoir, and therefore I cannot believe that someone would do something so stupid just because he decided to say yes to everything/because he thought it would make a good book. He must have wasted a lot of time and energy and if I were him, I would have found it more disheartening than enlightening.

However, the book did cause me to reflect upon how often I say no to things in my own life. This was particularly poignant back in 2011, when I was a stubborn 17 year old starting her A2 year, in a very new relationship. I suppose in a time of so much obligatory change, I wanted to do my best to keep control of my life by sticking to my guns, despite my opinions being questioned by my new boyfriend and by the changes in my life. For example, I believed I wanted to go to Cambridge University, but I never stopped to ask myself why. I just wanted to go because it was I always wanted. However, when I failed to get in and had to make the decision as to whether I wanted to reapply or not, I found I did want to go for reasons other than just because it was what I expected of myself.

As I am now, once again, facing a big change in my life (MOVING TO UNIVERSITY!), I think now is the time to try to undertake the challenge that tempted me two years ago...

I want to become....

a yes girl.

I want to start saying yes to more things. A few weeks ago, I worriedly asked my boyfriend if he thought I could get away without going clubbing when I'm at Uni, because when I've been once before I didn't particularly enjoy it. He basically told me in no uncertain terms that doing so would make me seem like a massive spoil sport and he reminded me that this is a time that I can try new things and really find out what makes Verity tick, because everything is subsidised and the kinds of people I'm going to be mixing with...well there is no specific kind of person! According to everyone I've spoken to who has been to university, it's a time when people are much less judgmental; I suppose because everyone is in the same boat, trying to find out who they are as an independent adult.

With this in mind, I don't want to say yes to everything. That would be incredibly impractical. However, I do want to say yes to more things, in particular things that I am afraid of or things that I think might not interest me. I have already started by deciding to take my bike with me to uni and bike to lectures, despite not having ridden a bike for 2 years. I have also purchased a pair of jogging bottoms and trainers for the first time ever in order to increase the likelihood of my trying sports at uni. And...I bought a new bag that's small enough only for essentials and has a zipped pocket for my ID and money....so that I can go out clubbing. I don't mean to say that I'm going to force myself to do things that I REALLY don't want to do. Nor will I say yes to things that will endanger my education/health (e.g. illegal drugs, too much alcohol, or even poorly timed outings and trips). And I won't be saying yes to prince from Albania who wants to send me £2million. But, I will be saying yes to things that I wouldn't usually say yes to. At university, I want to try lots of new things and discover who I am really am as a person.

And for anyone who actually got to the end of that, I'm sorry for the cheese fest. :-)

Preparing for University

Hi there!

It has been quite a long time since I posted a proper blog on here, so here goes nothing...

In just under 4 weeks time, I will be embarking on the biggest journey in my life to date. I will be moving to the city of Cambridge and I will become a undergraduate student at Girton College, Cambridge University.

And oh boy, am I scared.

Yup. Really scared.

I am currently in a very strange position. Since the beginning of the year, I have known that I had a guaranteed place at the university I have been dreaming about since I was a little girl. I was about 7 or 8 when I first decided I wanted to go to university and when I first decided that that university had to be Cambridge. I wanted so badly to go there, that I took a year out simply to reapply for Cambridge, based on a night of insomnia. For a long time, I felt very excited about leaving for university, because it was so far away that it didn't really feel like it was going to happen.

Well now..now, I know it's really. Because I have to do all the boring, horrible things to prepare for it, which makes me cry in the middle of the night.

Things I've Done to Prepare:

1. Try out so many budget apps you would not believe. My loan does not cover my accommodation and therefore I've had to make decisions about where to get a student account, how to pay my rent, how much money to accept from my parents, how many hours to work a week and how I'm going to keep track of all this. I've been puzzling about this for weeks and tried so many apps that seemed to make the muddle in my brain much more confusing than it had been before I entered the information into the app. Finally today, a friend put me onto an app that I think my tiny brain can deal with. 
2. Teach myself basic Arabic. So, Cambridge put on their AMES a worksheet for you to work through before you arrive. I started working through this by copying out the Arabic alphabet as best I could, before I was fortunate enough to be offered a language swap with a Palestinian. In return for teaching him French, he would help me with my Arabic. When I proudly showed him my work up until that point, he chortled for 5 minutes straight...but despite that, we got on very well for several weeks and now I can introduce myself, write my name and count to 10! 
3. Buy all my course books. I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money on my course books. The Arabic textbook has DVDs that are essential for the course. I was super chuffed when I found a copy for a tenner instead of the usual £30!! However, the thing they failed to tell me was that this copy came without the essential DVDs...I then bought what I thought were the DVDs and was promised I could return them for a full refund if incorrect. They were not what I needed, but yet there is no sign of my refund yet....finally, one of my books for French was so difficult to get hold of, I had to wait until the 2nd years were selling theirs.
4. Spend time with my family. I've dedicated the weekends to seeing my family. My time is divided between seeing my parents, brother and niece (who all live together) and seeing my boyfriend's mum. This weekend however, my sister and her husband came up to wish me luck for Cambridge and we had a lovely weekend relaxing and eating and picking blackberries. 
5. COOKING. Before this year, I had no interest in cooking and very little interest in baking. Now I can't get enough! Because I will be in catered halls for the entirety of my course (what a blessing!), I am frantically squeezing in as much cooking/baking as I can! In the last week alone I have made a huge quantity of yellow plum and vanilla jam, 4 earl grey jellies and jam and cream macarons. I have plans to make scones and a blackberry cake this week, to use up the leftover buttercream icing and jam. 

So all in all, these things aren't making me feel any better about going away. I keep worrying about having to try new things, meet new people and get back into studying. I'm sure I'll get back in the swing of it. However, any tips would be gratefully received ;-)