New Year, New Feelings

Today has been weird for me. It's the day before my second term of university and the day that I've moved back into halls, ready and eager to get some work done and learn some things. Uni!

Unfortunately, even though I can see rationally past all of this, my brain isn't as eager. For the first time in quite a while, I managed to get quite upset at the prospect of being away from home. Which is weird. I'm normally quite good at it. Residential trips in the past haven't ever been an issue and, hell, even starting my first term wasn't all too much of an issue. But this time, I don't know exactly what it is that's managed to get into me.

I'm rather aware that that I'm feeling is a combination of several factors. The first of which is that going into the new term also means walking head-first into a fortnight of exams. Once again, this shouldn't be a problem. I've been revising, I didn't miss a lecture last term and I know the content fairly well. I've given myself a pretty good shot at the modules by virtue of doing all the coursework to the best of my ability, which should have given me at least a little bit of a safety net (in one module, even, I've already passed. Woo!). And in the end, the course is laid out in such a manner that you need to pass the first year, and then all grades from it are not included in the final grade. So I should be fine.

I guess I'm just super nervous? It's understandable, I hope. I'm in a (still kind of) new place taking a subject I love at a higher level than I've ever done before, and I've not had a chance yet to see how the exams are handled. I'm nervous about what to do when I'm in the exam room, about what to do before it, about how to get there (all but one exam is located off my campus. Not so woo.).

Another factor, I think, is my animals at home. For the unaware, I've got a dog and two cats, all of which I absolutely adore - even if they do open my bedroom door all the time. Perhaps as a result of them constantly wandering into my room I've just grown to love them even more than I did before September, which I can probably also attribute to not having been able to see them much over the course of those months (either that, or it's a sort of reverse Stockholm Syndrome? I don't know where that idea was meant to go...). My dog is also wonderful and floofy and cuddleable.

As I was about to leave the house today, I had a walk around to find all of the animals and cuddle them, and I found myself just welling up with tears. I don't know why (I didn't tear up doing the same in September), but for some reason it hit me really hard today. And I know it's not unreasonable to miss pets like this, but generally people are able to hold it together for a bit longer, or at least until they've made it into a car or something.

I tend to do this every once in a while: I'll write a post without having a particularly clear idea of what point I want to make, and then 6 or 7 paragraphs later I realise that it's too late to start over and that I'm just going to have to do with what I've written. Either way, I'm looking forward to things after the next two weeks. I'll be able to play games without as much stress knowing that exams are coming up, and there are a few interesting things coming up in the community I'm a part of. Also I'm going to Insomnia 62 in two months. So that should be fun too.

Anyway, if you've read this far, then you are awesome. Thank you. And until next time,
o/