Where did Week 5 go?! It feels too strange to be thinking that there’s just over a month until I’ll have finished my first year at uni! I have finished all of my lectures and seminars now, which is just so surreal – I can still remember the feeling of going into my first proper lectures! It’s kind of funny, I continue to find my lectures interesting and I do get excited when we are learning about a topic that I have an interest in, but I definitely feel part of the furniture now. (The one thing I don’t miss about first time lectures is leaving 20 minutes early to find the lecture theatre and realising that it’s only a 5 minute walk!) So from now on it’s just revision, revision, revision! I think I’ll have to find different places across campus to go and revise, so I don’t go stir crazy!

Revision seems to have been put on the back burner this week as I’ve been writing my gobbet…or attempting to write my gobbet. I have been doing source analysis now for nearly 6 years and I am still trying to fathom why I found the exercise so difficult (and it will probably show in my work, unfortunately). I would like to be able to fetch an answer to my own question there, but I am just stumped. Writer’s block just seemed to take hold. However, after speaking to my friends on the course I know I’m not the only one who seemed to be staring at the paper going ‘Oh my God! What is this?! WHAT IS THIS?!’ It’s funny, really, because I really enjoyed learning about all the material in this part of the course. The fact that we could choose which module we wanted to do based on our own interests was something that really excited me, as that is part of the reason why I chose to come here; I just hope that I was able to do some justice to the content of the course in my writing. Thinking about this we could perhaps put this one down to a learning curve. I can only hope that in future this curve will just go upwards so I can get the most out of these exercises.

When I haven’t been working, I’ve had a real laugh in the flat this week – mainly because of the County ducks, but also because of tea towel fights in the kitchen and dance-offs. Our house have decided to take feeding the ducks to the next level, (I’m not too sure why and Sainsbury’s must be making a killing on the amount of oats and frozen peas people are buying) – we have a big bucket of food by our door and the ducks definitely know where to come if they want a snack! However, as the weather’s been getting a little warmer and our door is open the little duck cohorts have been charging for that food like kids to a party buffet table – I have never seen anything quite like it! Actually one of our little friends was a little bit too eager and came right into our kitchen causing a lot of chaos when she was trapped behind the back door resulting in a rather uncomfortable situation for the duck, a lot of mess and screaming!

Even though I have been a little stressed out this week, the famous motto ‘there will always be cake’ (and other yummy food) definitely came in useful once again! On Friday evening when I’d handed in my gobbet *sniff*, my friend, Becky, asked me if I wanted to make brownies and if I fancied pizza for tea! Bex had had a test that day and the best way to reward oneself after a test or handing a piece of coursework in is definitely food. We had Pizza Express pizzas and salad and then made brownies and it was just the best thing. We had a little giggle and ate way too much, but it was just great – I had a really nice evening. She always knows how to make me feel better! It’s things like this that really make me smile: coming to uni isn’t all about the work, making really lovely friends, who will make you laugh, listen when you’re feeling a bit shaky and who will offer to make cakes with you, is something really fundamental to the uni experience too.

We had our last ballet lesson of the term this week, which was lovely but sort of sad too! Quite a few people in the society will be coming to the end of their degree this year and some are jetting off to America for a year abroad, so it means that it’s all change! We had a really cute last session because George, our instructor, brought us in chocolates and taught us some cool new exercises. We even learnt a little sequence that lots of ballet schools teach at auditions, which was pretty fab (although I don’t think I’ll be enrolling at the Royal Ballet any time soon!). I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself on a Monday evening now! The little voice inside my head is going ‘revision, revision’, but I’m going to miss my little ballet de-stressing sessions! Choir finished last week and it is too weird to have an empty schedule in the evenings! We do have an empty bedroom in our house, which we have vowed to use as a yoga room, so maybe I will follow up on that. Yoga should be a good way of relaxing me!

Now that we head into week 6, it’s all about seeing that light at the end of the tunnel – I need to regroup focus and keep my head in the books. Summer will be here soon – it’s all about looking beyond the event! Let’s do this!
Thank you for reading!

I hope you have a lovely week and that you enjoyed your bank holiday weekend too!

History Hugs,

Eleanor :0)