Uni tips I learned the hard way

Hello to all my readers!

I can now say I am a first year university student! A new chapter in life begins and with it comes so many new people, opportunities and experiences. I'll continue to bring you along as best I can as I see where life takes me in the next couple of years. But for now, I'll share some uni tips that I had to learn the hard way in my first few weeks. 

• Always try and find your classes at least a few hours before. Do not be running around with twenty minutes to go and not even realising if you're on the right side of campus! And if you're someone who's chosen back to back classes, make sure you know the distance between them. A map is a great starting point but you won't truly know how far away a class is unless you walk it yourself.

• Write your lecture notes before your lecture if they give you early access. Although writing your lecture notes during class keeps you awake and focused, I find its really hard to keep track of what the lecturer is saying especially if the slides don't really reiterate what they are trying to teach. At times, I just stopped writing the slides and listened but that forces me to go back over them at a later time and creates extra work. Take a few hours in your day before to write notes so then you can add important things the lecturer says during your lecture!

• Look up where the bathrooms are. Although they're everywhere, they can be hard to find and I nearly got lost trying to find one in a building that I had never been in.

• Don't immediately assume that you and university will fit together like two puzzle pieces. This will mean that you'll stop asking questions and assume you know everything. When you struggle, you're more likely to consider the entire picture and gain a better uni experience! Just take it one day at a time and sooner or later, this experience will be a distant memory. Make the most of it while you can. 

Follow along to hear more about my university journey :)

Does time heal all wounds?

It was fall. The leaves had fallen and left traces of their old forgotten roots in the mailboxes. The sticky taste of summer had begun to wane and the smell of freedom seemed long lost. It was the season of upheaval, of constant and great change. Death held its presence. And it never seemed more present than now.

Does time heal all wounds? The young boy strived to ask the long paintings in every hallway. He dried his tear stained eyes with closed fists and a stern jaw but his hands could not help but tremble as they shook his visitors. They came sparsely, armed with stories of past and awkward pity. They seemed to stare at him more intensely, searching for pain and sadness. Grief was swirling within, shaping his every movement. It had not yet risen so far to the surface but he looked for ghosts at every corner. When death showed its face, you were either in pain or in denial at its consequences. No one would ever argue neither. He tried to hide, but how could he be so rude to those that merely offer their kindness? No matter that they reminded him of his losses. 

Does time heal all wounds? He forgot to ask that at the grave when he visited. The boy was now shaping into a man that was stern, not gentle, ambitious, yet lacked progression. He seemed to reflect his childhood, or lack thereof. Hollow on the inside but possessed all the qualities of resilience that came easy to those that were young. His anger at the world did not grow dimmer with the passing of years and only enlarged tenfold at birthdays, anniversaries and graduation. So warped it had become that he had long forgotten the source. It had narrowed so far that he only knew his fingers, his name, his age and his anger. Its power stemmed to his head as his tempting fantasies had no dictator, no tormentor to sneer at, free to take root and grow. The passing of years had not healed his wounds.

Does time heal all wounds, he asked again as monotony had set in. He grew more frustrated at the world, at new contraptions and destruction of records. The man seemed to chase ghosts in the grocery line, haunted at every turn by families and children. His evenings consisted of meals for one and a tantalizing conversation with the television. Relationships were a forbidden disease that he must stay away from, so plagued by death that it still loomed over his every move. He had forgotten his anger altogether but it still lingered in his choices. It seemed to always will. 

Does time heal all wounds? His children now asked. They read the same books as those past, he saw the same creases in their eyes. They laughed the same but it didn't hurt at all. It was more a twinge, gnawing away at him but never enough to complicate. His younger years seemed like a lifetime ago, that sad picture of a boy entrapped by mourners at every turn and willed the world to quiet. His grief would always be there, it would never truly go away. So at last, he felt at peace enough to have an answer.

Not completely. But just enough.