Fresh meat

It's Freshers Week this week. All these little people have arrived who will have been born in ooh about 1993...yes folks you read that right, 1993. What were you doing in 1993? Me, I was about to head to art college to do my BTEC in Media Studies. Rock N roll :O) 

As is always the case it's been a classic week for bad fashion. And bad hair. Anyone remember the year of the mullet? I think that has to to be my fave. All these awful dodgy mullets that were captured for posterity on a uni card for 3 whole years, HA HA HA nice haircut mate! But I have to say it's made me all nostalgic, remembering my own first few days and so I thought I'd do a bit of sharing, for a wordy post rather than a piccie one. 

So it was 1995. My dad had packed up my whole life in the Renault 18 diesel, and off to London town we set. Arrival to this weird and wonderful place was definitely accompanied by total excitement and total fear. Would it all be ok? Would anyone talk to me? What if I hated it and wanted to come home? Safe to say that yes of course it was ok. And yes people talked to me. And I absolutely LOVED it and didn't really want to come home at all and it took me 9 weeks into the 12 week term before I decided that I could leave my new fabulous life for 2 days and grant my parents with an honorary visit. The first person I met has ended up being a friend for life (hopefully!) I was chief bridesmaid at her wedding and even though she still lives in London town and I live here and contact is erratic due to busy lives and children's bedtimes, I firmly believe we will be friends 4EVA or it will be a very tragic waste and something will be seriously up. 

I can't really remember the order that I met everyone in and I'm pretty sure that most of the first few folks I spoke to were the ones I spent the rest of the year avoiding. I truly had the bestest of times and met some of my bestest buddies and had the most amazing times first of all in student halls then in various houses and flats and people along the way. London was an amazing place to be a student (though extremely expensive - next blog post will say more about this). The pubs, the clubs, you can see any band, any film, any thing/animal/person, just you know, everything! And when you can get in with student discount and you don't really think about how much money you're spending it's truly fabby!

The other night we watched a new comedy show called "Fresh Meat" hence the blog post title about 6 students moving into a house and starting university and it was so funny and so cringeworthy all at the same time...we totally loved it! I think anyone who has been through that experience, or even worked at a university will be able to see familiar stories threaded throughout it all. 

Take today for example. One colleague had a fresher come up to her this morning and say, I feel really really really sick and I don't want to go to the town hall with everyone this morning what should I do...cue tumbleweed from my colleague! I reckon I would have told him to go home and sleep it off, then have a cuppa and then a bit of a calm. My boss told me that she saw a young guy sitting on a wall looking all forlorn and lost and she said she wanted to go over and give him a big hug...she didn't obviously but ah bless. And I had skateboard girl. Hugging her skateboard like some sort of comfy blankie she comes over to ask me a "technical question" - which notebook should I buy the blue one or the green one? Me: erm... Next question: have you seen The Matrix? Me: yep. Her: you know Neo? Me: erm... Her: well that's my tutor right but with longer hair...what's he called? Me: *considering how best to answer* erm...Sheesh! I think it's fab that they feel they can come and ask us such questions but I reckon they must think we know everything!! Don't get me wrong, we're pretty blimmin' brilliant, but wowsers! 

Bless the fresh meat. They do keep us amused...and in a job...