This past week I had my last ever freshers week at QUB, and whilst I had to pinch myself so many times that 2 years have flown in the blink of an eye, in some ways it also feels like yesterday since I myself was starting the wonderful adventure of uni life.
Leading up to the big move in day I was a bundle of excited nerves as I endlessly day dreamed about my “new adventure” and everything that my Instagram worthy Uni experience was going to be! I had made it, four years of working towards leaving school, achieving the dream of getting into Uni and moving away from home had arrived. I felt as though I was on the cusp of a year of greatness.
Of course, countless people told me “It’s going to take time to settle”, but my ignorance was bliss. I wasn’t going to let anyone destroy the perfect image I had, of me floating around campus in the autumn breeze, kicking leaves, caramel latte in hand, with my new group of friends, taking candid’s and having the time of our lives. As I am sure you can all imagine, this was not what my fresher’s week was like. For starters, it rained the whole week and I spent the majority of time debating how I would look good, yet dress practically enough, to ensure I didn’t arrive at every social event with new people looking like a drowned rat.
Alas, the latter was inevitable and I would hate to see how those candids would have looked had they actually been taken! But beyond that, my initial week – actually let’s make that month – of Uni was one of confusion, moments of extreme happiness, times of loneliness, lots of awkward small talk and the beginning of financial worries beyond what I had anticipated. It’s for all of these reasons that I decided to compose a list of things I wish I could have told that ‘Fresher’ version of me.
You WILL make friends, and no everyone doesn’t think your weird.
This was definitely something which I struggled with a lot. Just like any normal eighteen-year-old I had insecurities and meeting what felt like a thousand new strangers every single day of fresher’s week only shone a spotlight on these. In an attempt not to let it defeat me, I would throw myself into social situations trying to diffuse the awkwardness with some forced banter, or one of my usual stupid stories. To bluff through it with fake confidence would seem like a good idea at the time, until I would lie in bed at night and re play those interactions in my head, wishing I had kept quiet or not been the weird loud one of the group. This was something which I felt alone in for months, until I eventually discovered that this never-ending pendulum of being insecure and lonely, acting with confidence to fight it and then retreating into myself again was a cycle which not only I was stuck on.
Ultimately, we all do it to some degree as we try to make friends and then question our likeability in that attempt. But I wish I could have told myself to go for it, to try the awkward banter and tell those stories, because that’s who you are. I wish I could have told myself to switch my brain off at the end of the day and not worry about it, because I am weird and loud… but by the end of the year I had friends who made me see the beauty in that. I wish I could have told myself that I eventually wouldn’t regret those awkward moments, because they would become the punchline of many personal jokes for months to come. Above all, I wish I had let the truth that God created me as I was sink deep enough to crush all of these lies the enemy had spoken over me.
Just because it’s not on snapchat doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Of course, it’s important to note at this point that I did not just wallow in self-pity and hate EVERY moment of this time at the start of university. I Did have moments, even hours, in every day when I was happy, I felt like I connected with people and felt like I caught a glimpse of my purpose in being where I was.
Still, I was on such an emotional rollercoaster that I could go from crying on my own in my room one minute, thinking “this wasn’t how it was meant to be and no one gets me here”, to laughing over a board game with those very people the next, thinking “wow life is really great and these people are hilarious”.
However, something which added a dimension of hardship to this confusion was the impact that I let social media have in my life. I would wake up every morning and watch all my school friends’ snapchats, videos of them having amazing nights out with all their new best friends. I didn’t even have to hear from people for weeks at a time and would know exactly how many coffee dates they’d had, or what their roommate’s sisters dog was called.
Everyone’s life was just there, on display for me to marvel at, and yet again feel insecure about my own failed social media presence in comparison. This was something I didn’t switch off until I LITERALLY switched it all off during Lent. And for that reason, I wish I could go back and tell myself to forget it, to set the phone down and stop staring into someone else’s life, while I sat back and missed my own.
I wish I could tell myself to stop counting other people’s blessings or looking for the most insta worthy of my own, but rather to appreciate the blessings from God of the small moments in the everyday, where this new place was becoming home, and these new friends were becoming family, without having to document or prove it by posting it with a filter.
Yes, you are going to be in debt. No, you do not need that top from the Asos student sale.
Money was something that definitely didn’t worry me initially. I have a part time job, and even a nice wee buffer left after my accommodation came out of my loan, so what would I have to worry about? Well only my own lack of self-control and abundance of self-loathing.
I very quickly got caught up in wanting to maintain the student lifestyle, spending all of my disposable income on having new clothes and going for brunch on too many weekdays. Of course, now I don’t regret partaking in any of these things but I went through a period where I let it rack me with guilt. I would consistently look at my empty purse at the end of the month and wonder how I had let myself waste so much money on luxuries when now I couldn’t afford a sausage roll on my lunch break.
Ultimately, yes, I have learnt from this that I could pull back on the spending. There have also been many amazing places available for me to turn if managing money ever did become too much – such as CAP and if you find yourself ever in too deep, I definitely recommend using them.
However, more importantly I’ve learnt not to let this define me or weigh me down. I wish I could have told myself a year ago to not let it affect me emotionally. To take the pressure off myself and remember that I am only eighteen, and so it’s ok if I have to live pay check to pay check in this crazy in-between stage of life.
Above this I also can’t testify enough to the power of tithing. I have watched God bless me multiple times when I have decided to step out in faith and give, even when it felt there was no room to give it. He is always faithful to provide (Matthew 6:26). So put the kingdom first and remember our treasures are in heaven, and when we give - however little we can - that means so much more than any material worth could.
Your routine, friends and even your home might have changed... but God hasn’t.
I was – and am - extremely blessed to be living in a Christian community as part of my university experience and that definitely made life a little easier. However, this posed its own challenges too.
I of course walked into my first semester with the standard saying of “Don’t worry God has a plan” ringing in my ears and am not denying or trying to downplay the significance of that truth… but it didn’t always help in the moments of feeling lost. With the beauty of hindsight, I can see now exactly what God’s plan was in most of this year and I can also truly see it fulfilled that God gives you the people you need rather than the people you want, no matter how hard that is to swallow at first.
Yet, the biggest lesson has undoubtedly been learning to be still. I spent the first few months wrestling with God. Pacing back and forth, seeking a new church, seeking answers to why I hadn’t found a new church, seeking my new place to serve, seeking opportunities to speak about my faith and then seeking forgiveness when I let these pass me by out of fear.
These came and went and came and went until I felt like my relationship with God was one of frenzy, I was too busy making earthly plans with earthly timescales, that were crying out for a heavenly purpose. I had become a Martha in a period of my life when I undoubtedly needed to be Mary (Luke 10:38-42). For me that’s the bottom line, and the two words I would utter to myself if I could, ‘Be still’.
All God ever wants from his children is for them to come to his feet and to dwell in his rich presence. He wants us to come and bring the crazy, to come and bring our broken heart, to come and bring our tiredness, to come and bring our loneliness and to come and bring our own plans that are broken and messy and confused, because we tried to control too much of it on our own. One word of love from our powerful Father and all of those things become transformed, we begin to look for the blessings, we begin to know the reassurance in God’s plans because we know Him ourselves.
No relief compares to that that we can feel when we lay everything down at the foot of the cross, and no joy is equal to that which comes when we spend time in prayer with our own loving Father, getting to know Him and being reminded of the truth that our identity is in Him.
Above all folks I was ultimately right, my university experience wasn’t necessarily the Tumblr dream that I had imagined, but it was so, so much more, and I was on the cusp of a year of greatness. I did find my people, many candid’s were taken, and many, many funny stories were told. But ultimately this wasn’t what made my year, it was the fact that this massive change in life became the new normal and the new familiar, and that I journeyed it with God every step of the way.
And so, I can say the same for you, maybe your freshers week is going perfectly, or maybe you’re like me, and you don’t even know how you feel right now - either way I hope that you can learn from my mistakes and find the still amongst this first year crazy.
BY: Kate Peden
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