When working hard goes too far.

Firstly, just a quick apology for disappearing – I was at work all weekend thanks to The Princess and the Frog and then went home to a house with no internet until today.

Trying to please.
The above image may be a bit hard to place unless you’ve watched it recently, but it’s Anne Hathaway as Andrea Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada. A quick refresher on the plot – Andy is the frumpy wanna-be journalist who takes a job at High Fashion magazine Runway (e.g. Vogue) as one of the assistants to the editor, Miranda Priestly (read as Anna Wintour), played by Meryl Streep. Andy quickly discovers that being an assistant is no easy feat and that the fashion world isn’t all about which belt goes best with which dress. Now the image above becomes clear – Andy is swamped with work as she tries to meet Miranda’s every whim, while keeping the job she desperately needs to further her career. One of the main situations in the film is based on this – Andy is working too hard to please Miranda and quickly begins to neglect her own life and relationships. This brings me to want to talk about today – when working hard for that degree or promotion goes a bit too far.

Beep beep beep.
It’s only natural to want to do the best you can in work or school or university to ensure than you get the best results as possible. It also rings true to want to do everything you can to please those around you and make their lives easier as well. People pleasing can become a problem though – as we saw in The Devil Wears Prada, Andy started to reject her own life. When your home life starts to suffer because of your job or school work then it’s time to take a step back and do some re-evaluation.

You’re not their third arm.
It is unlikely that you’re extremely high up in the office hierarchy at this stage of your life, but this doesn’t mean that you are simply just the tea boy or filing girl – you’re a valued member of the staff and should be treated as such. If you start to agree to do menial tasks which are not part of your job description (like picking up your bosses dry cleaning), then it would appear that you are being taken advantage of. It’s ok to refuse to do something – it might not seem like the best idea, but it shows that you are strong, assertive and most of all aware that they’re asking too much. That’s not to say that if your boss asks for a genuine favour that you should turn them down – quite the contrary. It’s when it becomes a regular occurrence that you need to put your foot down.

Textbooks aren’t the only books.
Sure, a good grade means a lot. But then so do social skills, life skills and good memories. If you start to turn down plans with your friends to go drastically above and beyond your required reading and work, then you have a little bit of a problem. It’s all about balance – agree to go out to every second invitation, or if your friends just want to spend some time together why not set up a study day with lots of healthy snacks and drinks; if you’re doing the same course you could bounce ideas off each other and maybe pick up a thing or two that you’ve  missed out on or had trouble with. Your teens and early twenties are the times for you to learn about academia and yourself – there might not be an exam for the latter, but it’s still important.

Work is only a part of your life.
And to sum it up: be strong, be balanced and you’ll get where you want to be.

PS: You can buy The Devil Wears Pradafor only £2.98 at Amazon right now!

5 Tips for Better Revision.

See the full sized image by Noora Suliman at Flickr here. 

I know for a majority of people exams are now over for the time being and the next set won’t be hitting you until nearer the summer. I still have one exam to re-sit in just under two weeks and I’m still a little worried. However, I think I can now safely say I know a thing or two about revision techniques and because of this, I want to pass on what I’ve discovered to you guys!

Everyone is different.
This is the key to revision – you are not your friends or course mates. You are you! Being you means that certain techniques are going to work for you and others aren’t. If you’re a visual arty person then it might  be easier for you to see things as pictures rather than written text; musical types might enjoy making up a little song filled with facts and figures to recall their knowledge; factual types might find it easier to just write and rewrite their key information until it’s totally sunk in. My point is, you need to do whatever works best for you. Not to say you shouldn’t try something if you don’t think it’s going to work – you never know, it might be just the thing missing from your revision technique.

Yet another list.
So here are some of my tips and ideas for you to try out to see which works for you! (I have to add that some of these may have been stolen from willing friends as well!)

1. When is your peak time?
   Do you work better in the morning or the afternoon. Maybe you’re a little bit nocturnal and work best at three in the morning when you can have absolute silence. I find I work best in the morning and get up a bit earlier than normal if I have a lot to get through in the day. But for you, it might be different – experiment and see.
2. What is your ideal technique.?
   This relates to the techniques I mentioned above. Find out how you remember things best – whether it’s pictures, words or music. It’s all about trial and error.
3. What is your ideal environment?
   Do you work better in silence or with some music playing in the background? Do you like it to be very warm or a little bit chilly to keep you alert? Find out where you revise best. Maybe it’s in a library or your own room. Once you know, never leave it!
4. What is your fuel?
   And I mean that in the literal sense. Is water your elixir of knowledge, or is a strong cup of coffee going to help you get through the day? Is a nice healthy apple going to keep your smart hat on, or is calorific chocolate going to help you remember that complicated formula?
5. Why do you want to study?
   And the answer isn’t “to pass my exam”. I mean why do you want to pass the exam? Think about it in the short and long term – in the short term it is so you can pass the exam, but in the long term what do you want to achieve with your qualification or diploma? A nice and comfortable life with the people you love? A high powered job? Being able to help people? It’s your goal and you are the only one who is going to make it happen – that should be enough of an incentive to help you revise and to find your ideal revision zone.

Finding out the ideal way to revise for you is crucial to any and all tests and exams. Even if you’re set in your ways, you may find that there is one thing which can take your revision from A- to A+.

What are your best revision tips?

I am a big fat failure.

I had that exam today guys. Remember. Finance? Yeah. It really hasn’t gone very well and I expect to be resitting it in January. Boo. But we’ll see. No proper post today, just stare at the cheese kitty for a while. I’m going to sob in the corner and have a nap before work.

Ultimate Student Want: Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen

I have an exam tomorrow and I’m absolutely panicking about it – I really don’t think I will do well and it’s my own fault. My notes are abysmal, badly organised and I can barely remember the lectures. I was browsing Amazon the other day looking for my new diary for next year and this bad boy popped up: Livescribe 2GB Pulse Smartpen.

Wouldn’t studying and revision be so much easier if you could take notes, record the lecture and have a digital copy of everything you had written? This is exactly what this pen gadget does.

“Capture everything: The Pulse smartpen records audio and links it to what you write. Missed something? Tap on your notes or drawings with the tip of your Pulse smartpen to hear what was said while you were writing. The Pulse smartpen automatically captures everything as you write and draw. Transfer your notes to your computer, organize them, and even search for words within your notes. Find what you want in seconds. Transform your notes and audio into interactive movies and upload your creations online for everyone to see, hear and play. The 1.3 oz. anodized aluminum Pulse smartpen records audio and links it what you write. The 2GB of memory can hold over 100 hours of recording. Actual time may vary. Requires Windows XP with service pack 2 or Windows Vista.”

I’m considering saving up for one of these. At the moment they’re priced at £119.99 – a bit more than you’d pay for a standard pen, obviously, and you have to buy pad refills and ink refills. But I think the positives most definitely outreach the cost. Unless of course anyone would like to buy it for me or send me it to try out?

I can dream, can’t I?

How to manage your time better.

See the original by fullofbliss @ Flickr here.

A million and one things to do.
It’s about a month into the semester at most universities now – maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less for some. It’s at this point that tutors think “hey, let’s start handing out lots of essays!” and of course, they all think it at once. I have lots of university work to do without essays, never mind fitting in my actual work to make pennies and it can all get to me sometimes. I’m sure it can get to everyone. But it doesn’t need to. With a little bit of forward planning (and a bit of patience) you can make this buy time at university much more easy for yourself.

It’s gonna feel a little bit like high school…
Because in a way, you’ll be making a timetable for yourself. One that goes along with your university timetable, work rota and whatever else you have to fit in. Some of you will be able to only have to do this once a semester, or once a month. For people like me who get different shifts at work every week, I need to do this every seven days. So before we start, grab a pen and a piece of paper or open a new word processing document – whatever works best for you!

Back to the old lists.
I know, I know – whenever we do something like this I’m always saying make a list. For whatever time period your working within write down how many hours you’ll be a work (plus actual times), same for university classes and lectures and then all the assignments, essays and reading you’ll be doing. Obviously, with the university work it’s a bit of a guess for how many hours it’s going to take, but hopefully by now you know how long it’ll take you to write a 1500 word essay or read 50 pages of a book. Now make a second list of all the things you like to do and how long you tend to do them for, like reading, blogging, watching TV.

Put it all together.
We’re going to get a little picture happy here, but bare with me. Now’s the time for you to open up your spreadsheet programme or get out the ruler and felt tip pens. Create a grid with all seven days of the week along the top and then the hours you would realistically be able to give towards work, university and studying. For me that’s between 9am and 8pm before I finally lose focus. Then pop in all your solid commitments from the first list we made, the serious list – e.g. class times and when you will be at your work. It should look a little bit like this:

I’ve coloured mine to make it a bit easier to understand, but you don’t have to do this. So from this, we can see that the theoretical me has Monday afternoon and evenings free, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings free, Thursday mornings free, most of the morning and afternoon free on Friday and all day Sunday free. That’s a lot of time to fill.

Let’s say for my weekly tutorials I’ve been set

• a small 1000 word essay to complete for the Monday morning
• ten questions for the Wednesday afternoon
• two sides of notes to be shared with the class on a Friday morning.

From the serious list, I have my guesstimates of

• three hours for the essay writing (plus one hour in the library finding relevant books and journals)
• an hour for the questions
• two hours for the notes.
• I will also need to do a combined total of five hours reading for all of my classes.

Let’s put all of these in what I think would be the best place for me:

Lots of new purple squares added there.You may have noticed that for the three separate assignments two of them are pencilled in for quite early in the morning. This is because that once you’re awake and had your breakfast and a nice cleansing shower you’ll do your best work. I don’t really know why it is, but I know I do better on my DS Brain Training earlier in the morning than later in the afternoon. Another point to note is that the essay has been split up. This is allow you to have another look at it after a break with a new perspective. You might find things to change when you’re finishing it up in that final hour – I know I do. Finally, I’ve spaced all the reading out because it’s easier to absorb when it’s in smaller chunks!

Remember that not so serious list of stuff we made? And see all those white spots up there? That’s where everything on the list goes. You don’t have to slot it in, I just brought it up to remind you that university isn’t all study, study, study – you have to do fun things too!

But how does this help me?!
Well ideally, once the hour is up, you stop reading, writing or whatever else you are doing. This only really works if you have your guesses right in the first place. But by setting yourself a realistic time limit, and working within them, you’ll be working yourself to your full potential and also more efficiently. Plus all the big white gaps can act as a good reminder that you have plenty of left over time in case you do need to give something that extra hour or two.

Hopefully this will help someone a little bit with the massive workload they feel they have, or maybe even help one of you work to your full potential. Please let me know how you all get on with this!

I will be back.

Very soon! I promise. I have a few posts almost done and now that I’m all settled back in, things can become more regular now.

I’m back at uni, for those of you who have forgotten. I also managed to get my job back in the cinema, and I start on Fridayish. While I’m only at uni six hours a week and my contract is 8 hours a week, that does not mean I have a lot of free time – my 6 hour uni work load is added onto from studying (which I need to do a lot of for one subject in particular! Something ridiculous like 8 hours a week!) and the 8 hour contracted hours at work will probably be at least 12 hours a week. So I have some free time, but not much.

This will alllll lead to a post about time management soon, I’m sure. Expect a short post tomorrow on Benefit’s BADgal mascara (again! I know, but it’s good!) and then a post on Monday, probably a Save, Spend, Splurge!

I hope everyone’s well and settled into university well!

Things I bought today!

I did a quick back to uni shop today, just for a few bits and pieces, mostly something to wear on a night out. I’ve not really had much luck and even now I’m not really pleased with what I even bought – it’s quite rubbish in the shops at the moment.

River Island Shimmer Vest Dress £14.99

I don’t have my own pictures at the moment since I’m just in, but this looks a lot better in real life, I think so at least. It obviously follows the shapes of your body and doesn’t curve back into your lack of bottom legs. It’s also a lot more shimmery and sparkly in real life – though maybe a bit see through. I plan on wearing it with some black leggings or tights and maybe a pop of colour through my shoes.

New Look Boyfriend Cardigan - £20

Oh look, an identical long cardigan to the black one I bought last week. I really liked the fit and length and had to get another, though the colour of mine is certainly not as rich as this picture shows.

New Look Padded Pump - £14

The ones I got were actually a cream colour, but I couldn’t find them on the website, so the black ones will do! I just wanted a nice little casual pair of shoes in a non-black colour just for quick trips about the town. My mother does say that they’re old lady shoes!

New Look Twist Lock Bag - £22

I think this is the bag I got, I don’t really remember, but it looks so much better in person. I got this just because I like it. It’s nice a big though.

The reason I got sooo much New Look today was because I had a 20% off voucher, so that made the dent on my overdraft much more bearable. Though I still need leggings and some basic vests.

What has everyone else been buying for back to uni?

Consolidation: The University Post

See the full sized image by Beamer 26@Flickr here. 

I’ve only six weeks left to go before I head back to uni, so everything’s starting to move along. I don’t feel rushed or worried though because I’ve got all these great posts to look over and remember that I know what I’m doing!

1. The first things you should do!
2. The way to pack for uni!
3. What to buy for the bedroom!
4. What to buy for the kitchen!
5. The first budget you should make!

So don’t panic. Have a read, make a list and get going!

Buying for university on a budget – the kitchen.

 See the full sized imagine by cottonblue@Flickr here.

It’s not easy.
With getting things for your kitchen, it can be very difficult to know what to buy and how much to spend on them. There’s one simple rule for this, and it’s becoming something of a mantra now – buy cheap, it’ll probably break or be stolen. It’s sad, but it’s true. Your flatmates will also use your stuff (without asking 80% of the time) and then not wash it (80% of the time), so it’s safer not to spend a lot of money.

Back to the lists.
If you can, find out what your kitchen will already have when you arrive. The standard is normally cookers/ovens, a fridge, maybe a freezer and maybe a microwave. My halls didn’t have a freezer or a microwave, but we picked a simple one up from Tesco for £30, which is only a few pounds each when split. For this post, I’m going to assume that your kitchen will have the four things I’ve listed above. This means that you’re without a kettle (which my uni provided, though we would have rather had the microwave), toaster, pots, plates, cutlery… everything!

Where to get everything?
This question has a pretty simple answer – supermarkets. You must all think that I don’t go anywhere else to buy things; you’d be half right. I’ve scoured the ASDA and Tesco websites, but that don’t have any of the items that you can get in store.

• I bought a kettle, toaster and toasty makers and didn’t spend more than £6 or so on any of them – this was from ASDA.
• Plates and bowls, I got from inStore for about £2 a piece – you’re gonna need at least two sets. I took three dinner plates, three side plates and three bowls. While my plates are mostly intact except for a chip or two, I only came home with one bowl in May. I’m not sure how that happened.
• Glasses and cups. I don’t drink tea or coffee, but still took four mugs, which I got in a pack from ASDA for about £3. I came home with two, and we all must have raided our parents cupboards. We seemed to have a new set of mugs every week from the frequency they were broken. Glasses, I got in a box of 18 from ASDA Smartprice for about £5. I’ve came home with more glasses than I went with though…
• Cutlery and utensils. You need everything, or at least everything you plan on using. There’s nothing worse than needing to flip a burger and finding you have no fish slice or tongs. Or you can home that someone else will have what you need. I took four sets of cutlery (forks, knives, dessert spoons and tea spoons), a wooden spoon or two, a serving spoon, a whisk, sharp knives and a grater.
• Pots and pans were bought from ASDA for a couple of pounds each. I threw them all out. While I was perfecting my cooking skills and other people were using my pans they became burnt and unusable. For first year (or if you’re a bad cook) cheap pans are all you need. This year I’ll be buying better pans, knowing that I won’t burn things to the same frequency as last year. I took a large pan, a small pan and a frying pan. Try and avoid pans with metal handles – they burn you.
• Baking tray. You’ll need one, but they can quickly become burned and ruined. I had a silver one which was not silver by the end of the year and just threw it out at the end of the year.

If possible, I would advise taking plastic items over china and glass, but I don’t want you too feel like you’re on a picnic all year. A few other useful little things to take would be a couple of plastic containers of various sizes, scissors, cling film and tin foil. I’ve probably missed things out, and it’s likely that you will too – but don’t panic! There’s a high chance someone else will have what you need and will be kind enough to let you borrow it.

You can buy everything above cheaply in ASDA, Tesco, IKEA and various other shops. But remember the mantra – buy cheap because you’re probably not going to have it in a year!

You can find the bedroom part of this post here.

Buying for university on a budget – the bedroom.

My actual room last year.

It will break.
When you move away from home for the first time, it will surprise you how much actual stuff you need to take with you. Everything that you take for granted at home; pots, spoons, mugs, etc.; will add up when you need to buy them to take with you, and since there’s a high chance that they’ll be stolen, broken or simply become unusable, you don’t want to spend extortionate amounts of money on them. This is where supermarkets come in – I managed to get almost everything I needed in a big Asda last year; kettle, cutlery, tea towels – the lot! In this two part post, bedroom and kitchen items will be covered.

Get a list.
That is, an inventory list, of what is already in the bedroom you’ll be moving into. Every university is different with what they will and will not provide, so it’s vitally important that you get a list. If you’re not sent one in any of the various welcome packs you get, then shoot off a quick email to the head of residential services for your uni.
My uni provided a desk, chair, bed, bedding, lamp, bookcase/shelving, wardrobe, mirror and sink in my room. I’ll be basing this post on that, but if you have any questions on where to get things on the cheap which I haven’t covered, please ask!

Make a list!
You must think this is all I do – and it is. Lists are useful and easy. A list of needs for the inventory list above for me was bedding (I prefer a double duvet), bed linen and hangers. This is obviously just a basic list, I expanded on it with laptop, speakers, printer, television and decorations, but everything on this second list is personal choice and discretion.

Where to get what?
As I already mentioned, you nearest supermarket/hypermarket probably has it all!

• Duvet – I have no problems admitting I got my duvet in ASDA. I made sure to get a thick one, as I get cold at night and as I found out, my room was extremely cold in winter. There’s also no point spending a lot on your duvet as there’s a high chance you’re going to spill something on it at some point. As the review in the link points out, that duvet really isn’t anything nice to look at, but who cares – you’ll be covering it in…
• Bed linen – This is another thing which I bought cheap, and I’m glad I did. I have two sets (though I will be getting a third for this year) and both have either had something spilt on them, drawn on them and so on and so forth. A fitted sheet is this best thing you can buy, and again, have two or three. A duvet set doesn’t have to cost the earth if you’re not all that fusses about what it looks like, I actually have this one in pink and it’s nice and simple, saying that though you can get something a little nicer cheap as well – look in your local inStore. I got an adorable pink tartan set for less than £10!
• Hangers – While I can’t find any on the website, you can get packs of 20 clothes hangers for only a few pounds in Tesco.

And the second list? Well decorations are your own personal taste and could be anything! I had a little row of rubber ducks my boyfriend buys me up on a shelf, pictures on the walls and posters – it’s likely there will be a poster fair during fresher’s week as well, so don’t fret.

See the post for kitchen things here.

A beginner’s budget.

 
See the full sized image by cleebster@flickr here.

Are you sure there’s no way you can extend my overdraft?
Leaving home and going to university for the first time creates a lot of problems, mostly with money and it’s management. While some people would run to their parents every time they ran out of money, I didn’t – if I was supposed to be an adult then I would have to handle all problems like I was an adult – on my own. Money management is an essential skill and is better known as budgeting. While I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, I hope to try and do my best to create a basic grounding of how to survive on a student budget.

The key to having enough for a pint.
The best thing you can do for yourself really is make a budget, whether it be scribbled on a piece of paper, made up in a spreadsheet or just a solid idea in your head. I usually sat down a quickly scribbled out my numbers and then remembered the outcome, doing so every month as I received my student loan and my pay from work within about a week of each other.

Write the essentials.
The first step is to write down all the “solid” figures – things you know definitely will be coming in and out of your account. This includes loans, money from parents, wage from work and rent. As long as the figures are fairly constant (my work pay wasn’t the same every month, but I could guesstimate how much I would receive usually) they can be written down confidently.

The not-so-sure essentials.
The next step in your simple budget is to figure out your grocery cost. The grocery cost does not include any alcohol and really means what you buy at Tesco/Asda/supermarket of choice for your meals and snacks. After three or four weeks it’s quite east to figure out how much you spend on average each week, so you quickly come to a figure for the four weeks of the month and add on a little bit extra for the extra days.
The next cost to budget for is going out. Clubs, pubs, whatever. Give yourself a limit – a realistic one – for each week and then obviously times it by four. Once you know how much an average night costs (drinks before going out + travel to club + entry fee + drinks in club + travel home) you can usually make a fairly realistic guess at the cost. Plus, anything you don’t spend one week can be carried forward to the next!
General travel costs can also be guesstimated in this part of your budget; you might have a bus/train pass or you know exactly how much it costs to get you the places you need to be.

The everything else's.
This is the section of your budget that really can be the most uncertain and messy. Everything else can be a large majority of things – savings, magazines, clothes, DVDs, trips to the cinema. You decide. This all has to be paid for somehow. The money left over after you have paid for the essentials is money you can “play” with, so to speak, but as long as you know how much of that there actually is, you shouldn’t go over the amount there. Of course, it’s always a good idea to take savings out of any money you have left over for the future or for “just in case” situations, but to each their own.

Example.
In this spreadsheet example I’m about to show you, I’ve tried to keep the numbers close to actual spending from when I was at uni the past year. Green figures are income (the darker shades being the constants and the lighter being uncertain), the orange figures are essential spending (with the darker shades being constants, as before) and the red figures are unessential spending (with the same shade system as before).

As you can see, it’s very basic, but is also fairly concise, and best of all? After I knew my figures it only took a few minutes to put together. It’s a simple skill – but useful!

Things you should do before going to uni.

See the full sized image by *ian*@flickr here. 

Three months.
While it may feel like going to university, or returning, is still quite a long time away the truth is it’s not. Two and a half months can drag or it can fly by – two and a half months is all the time left before university terms start again and there’s a lot to do. I thought of this at a small get together the other night, and while discussing with friends who were returning to university and friends who were going for the first time, I realised that there was real confusion with what had to be done before time ran out.

First time.
If you’re going to university for the first time, you’re probably going to be nervous. Leaving home will do that to anyone, even if you are quite independent. When I left home last year and met my flatmates I quickly realised that most of them had never really been on their own for more than a weekend and that everyone was a little but uncertain with how to look after themselves – one boy even asked me if you could put colours and whites into the same tumble dryer. While a bit of dependency is a good thing, it’s important that you learn how to look after yourself. This is the first thing you should probably do before you leave home. But what else?:

• Learn to look after yourself. This means ask your parents how to cook, how to wash clothes, how to clean things if you don’t know. Take over the house hold chores for the week, including meals, so you have a firmer grasp on everything.
• Get a student account and take the overdraft and the credit card you will no doubt be offered – but be sensible with them. The overdraft is ideal to have for “just in case situations” where you may hit the end of the month before loan/payday and need an extra tenner. It’s better to have the tenner waiting in your already approved interest free overdraft that go into a unapproved overdraft and get charged an extra £35. The credit card is not for anything but buying your weekly shopping – it’s an ideal way to build your credit up. You buy your shopping and pay it off and help yourself in the future through it.
• If you haven’t done so already, apply to your local loan authority now as it’s likely that the date where you’re ensured your first payment on time has already passed. The sooner you apply, the more likely you are to get the money on time, though don’t panic if the cut off date has already passed for your authority – you can still apply. I know for SAAS in Scotland that you can still apply up until something silly like March or April and still get the full years loan.
• Sort out your accommodation for the year if you haven’t already whether you’re going private (which I would advise against for first time university-goers!) or through the university’s housing scheme.
• Start buying and packing now. This means your bedding, your towels, kitchen appliances. Buy what you can now and then it won’t be such a big dent in the bank balance later.
• If you need to pre-register for modules or anything, do it as soon as possible – that way you can get into the modules you want.

While the list I have there is certainly not definitive, it’s a good base model and one or two of them are things which I wish I had done last year.

Returning to.
While some people may have not returned home for the summer, there will be some who have. This is aimed mostly at them since this is the situation I am in.

• Reapply for your loan. Now. My friend genuinely didn’t realise that you had to reapply to get money again after first year and is now panicking. I’m not sure how it’ll work in each authority, but in Scotland you need to remember your log in details and you should have a reference number, but I think it’s saved on the system.
• Sort out accommodation/sign leases/make sure you have somewhere to live. Ideally this should be done by now. Also, from this you can start to create a monthly budget based on your rent prices – add an extra £30 or £40 on for bills (depending where you live) and that’ll be a good rough figure to work with.
• Start repacking everything you can – my linen is already packed in the bags I brought it home in. It was washed, dried, ironed and folded then put out of sight. It speeds up the process later.
• Clean out your stuff – I did this already and it’s helped me massively get an idea of what I’ll be repacking in the few months that come. I also have a rough idea of what I won’t need after learning my lesson from first year.
• Register for any modules you need to take, if you can, and see if there’s a reading list up yet – you can get a head start on buying the books through scouring out the best copies on Amazon Marketplace before the hoards descend.
• Make a budget. I mentioned this already, but only briefly and I will be doing a future post on how I budget. With a budget already in place before you arrive back at university you can have a rough idea of how much money you need to make to meet ends meet.

Obviously, all of the above is really only a rough idea and there may be things I have missed out. If you think there is, leave a little comment or tell me how you’ll be getting ready for college and university for the Autumn.

Exams are not for the faint at heart.

The last one.
My last exam of first year is next Tuesday. It’s on my business law module, but it’s open folder so I’m not worried. I’m more worried about finishing my notes on time as I had originally thought it was on Thursday next week.

That’s the reason.
This is why there were no posts yesterday and probably won’t be any until about next Wednesday, maybe Tuesday afternoon.

The teachings.
Thus, the moral of this story is that no matter how much time you have (or think you have) or may have in the future you need to do exams and start preparing for them a bit more than a week in advance. Checking when it is would also be useful I imagine.

Packing, to pack, pack.

See full sized image by flint knits@Flickr here.

End of term.
It’s almost here for me, while for other people I know it’s already done and dusted. One more exam and I’m free for 105 days before having to repack everything and move back. But I’m more concerned with the packing that I’ve got to do… yesterday. I’ve not done it yet. I have another week before I’m taking almost everything home (then one more week being a minimalist) but I want to get everything packed soon so I can see if I need any more boxes (which I think I will). In hindsight, I brought far too many things with me to university, and though I’ve taken a lot of it home, in the past week I’ve managed to fill two holdalls and a large plastic storage box and my room still seems cluttered and full. I’ve definitely learned my lesson but we’ll see if it carries on to next year.

Going…
My real problem is I brought far too much to university with me in the first place – I have things here which I’ve never used or worn. When I tried to think ahead to what I would need I drastically overestimated and thus over packed. I really could’ve been a bit more minimalistic about it all and only brought:

• Clothes I like and wear – not everything that fits you in your wardrobe; if you haven’t worn it for 6 months prior throw it, donate it, leave it, whatever. Really you only need enough clothes to last you between washes – in my case I wash my clothes every week, week and a half so in theory only need 10 days worth of clothes, but a little bit of variety is nice.
• As above, but with shoes.
• Fancy clothes – eg. fancy dress. Bring one proper fancy dress outfit and also school stuff. Why do you need school stuff in university? Because there’s always a school themed night. Also so swimming/beach clothes – always a themed night.
• Accessories – only the ones you use/wear. I brought a load of scarves that I had collected over the past couple of years and I think I wore maybe two of them once each.
• Towels/bedding (if not supplied) – maybe two sets. Definitely not more – you only need a set to use and one for when your other ones are in the wash. And please, please, please, bring something to cover up with after a shower like a bath robe – I’m sick of seeing one of my flatmates half naked all the time, it’s not nice.
• Toiletries that I actually use. I brought all my make up with me, and even though I had a throw out of stuff that’s old or out of date I still have a lot that I don’t use.

I ended up with a lot of stuff sitting gathering dust (literally, this room is helluva dusty all the time) and not getting used, meaning I brought them for nothing. Of course everyone’s different – some people might actually wear everything they take.

Ding, fries are done.
Kitchen items though are something that I didn’t skimp on quantity of, and I’m glad of it now. I brought three plates, bowls, etc. and at least one of each has been broken or chipped badly. I’m glad my parents and I bought cheap in that respect, with each piece only costing £1 or £1.50 as some people look like they have some expensive items which would be a pain to replace if they were broken (which is extremely likely to happen in a student kitchen). I also bought cheap for pots and pans, as I figured that someone else might use them and burn them (which they did) or that they might go missing (which they have). The ones I do have left will just be thrown out at the end of the term and I’ll buy new, better quality, ones to replace them.
Alternatively, a lot of people now log on to social networking sites before they head off to university to see if they can make friends with people on their course before they go. I highly recommend this as I found a girl I would actually be living with during the year this way. If you’re lucky enough to do this, and manage to find a good chunk of the people you’re living with, you could agree before hand which kitchen items people are to bring so that you don’t end up with a million and four kettles and toasty makers.

That’s the home time bell.
I’m leaving university halls in less than two weeks now as I mentioned above. I did a little bit more packing between when I started writing this and today and now have almost everything that I’m taking home this weekend in one of many bags, though I’ll be making a few last minute additions on Friday (such as my own bedding, since it takes up so much space, and I’ll spend the last week using the bedding provided by the university). With my room now semi-empty and bags everywhere, I think I’ve definitely learned my lesson on what I should and shouldn’t take with me next semester. Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to pack my toasty maker.