Freshers Week

I think tonight finally calls for a long-awaited introspective post about a certain gargantuan change that has occurred in my life. The move to university has been a curious one that has marked a few interesting things about myself to myself -- some typical and some atypical.

Firstly I'll begin with the move and freshers week. Freshers week happens twice as fast as any other week in your life -- but not "fast" in so typical a sense: it intensifies time; it feels as though 7 days were actually filled with 70 days worth of experience. It's excruciating and embarrassing to say, but I fell in love in those 7 days, with a girl who goes by the name of Annie. She deserves a post in her own right, so I shan't insult her with a few non-committal lines here. Just know that I feel intrinsically attached to her -- had you let us meet in any possible world or at any possible time, were I the same person and she the same person, I'd have felt this same attachment. It's ludicrous, but it happened, and now I'm dealing with the complexities that follow.

Apart from that, Freshers week has been interesting. One doesn't consider the growing opportunities that university will provide during freshers week in the same way as they almost certainly will have been doing beforehand. That all fades away. You're forced to find your sea legs, and demanded to strengthen and grow. I say this in particular reference to social nervousness or anxiety, which I feel is the flaw I most need to remove. Freshers week helped immensely with that, and now I feel I've improved in speaking I don't know so well. 

But I feel I must return to attempting to actively be a better person. Recently I've been feeling rather lost in a kind of egotism, a narcissism, a desire to be liked. The desire to be liked is important, one's social image is vital, but I can't regress into shyness; I must remember the best social form to take is honest and kind (or beguiling/charming, if you wish). I need to remember not to forget to "speak the truth even if my voice shakes". I must participate. The forced participation of freshers week is what causes you to grow in such a quick time, but once that disappears you can quickly fall back into old habits and routines. I won't. We are social creatures, and to perfect oneself one must become a good social character.

This also means organisation, however. My organisation has failed me in this first week of university, but it's not too late to bounce back. I have been unfortunate in that my personal tutor has been incommunicado and so I have received a few clashes from an unwary secretary who printed my timetable without looking too closely. We share the blame, though, because I should have looked more closely sooner.

I need to read more frequently again. I need to write again. I wouldn't change a thing, but I've been putting far too much energy into Annie and getting her to like me. I must simply re-arrange how I do this.

This post hasn't been nearly as good as I hoped it to be, but it's 1 am and I really should be going to sleep. I need to be up in time to shower and head over to Annie's for 12. I'm spending an hour and a half there, and then heading back to university for 2, so I can have my first Italian tutorial.

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