Moving out, in and on

This time of the year traditionally sees much of the student body descend back upon Southampton for a few days in order to bid (hopefully!) fond farewells to their residences and move their bases of operations elsewhere, with cardboard boxes, cleaning products and removal vans commonplace among other things!

It’s fairly startling to think that it was just a year ago that I was making the move from the relative safety and comfort of halls of residence into my second year student house, given the sheer quantity of events and changes that have occurred since, and yet the time seems to have gone by in a flash. It’s been an incredible twelve months, incorporating a truly rich academic year on many levels, and I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more homely area, or indeed better housemates (I hope they’re not reading this!), with which to see it through.

So although there’ll be the usual excitement which accompanies moving into a new home, this one significantly closer to the library (with one eye on our third year dissertations!), it’ll be slightly tinged with sadness amongst us all as we depart a house which has served us well over our time there.

As is the case with most properties, it’s not been without its faults: there have been broken toilet seats (or indeed no toilet seats at all!), occasional water temperature changes giving whoever’s in the shower a shock, and a garden now strongly resembling a rainforest to name but a few! But these nuances contributed largely to the whole experience of living in the place, and I’ll remember them just as fondly. Having said that, I wish the house’s future tenants the very best of luck with the shower lottery – don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to it!

I’ll miss living on the top floor of my second year house, if only for the great vistas!

Of course, when moving home, even if it’s just into halls, there tends to be quite a lot to sort out, requiring you to be organised and, with boxes and furniture to lug aplenty, have some brawn to boot! There are numerous checklists online which I found last year were worth a glance to make sure everything was covered, but at a bare minimum, I think it’s important to take your time with the process and remember to manage your finances, including facilitating rent payments both to the old and new property, be sure to take readings and inform the appropriate service providers and, crucially, look over and verify that all contractual obligations and demands, particularly those affecting deposits, are upheld.

This usually necessitates a long day (or two, depending on the state of the house!) of solidly cleaning bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and any other communal areas to try and leave the property as you initially found it, but it can be critical when it comes to reclaiming as large an amount of any deposit paid as possible. So although I’m less than excited about the prospect of tackling the upstairs bathroom in particular this week, unfortunately it’s just got to be done!

And once your old home is newly vacated, it’s time to get set up again in the new property, with necessary steps including organising payment of rent and bills (and agreeing on this methodology with your housemates), taking an inventory (possibly with photographs) of the new house, and re-establishing business with service and utility providers, amongst others.

It’s then up to you to make the place feel like it’s a home, a task which I’ve always tackled by blu-tacking up copious posters around my room (be sure to check out the brilliant on-campus sales at the start of the year which offer a great variety of pictures at bargain prices!), photographs and other personal memorabilia. I also, from time to time, add homeliness by leaving a couple of dirty dishes on the kitchen side – or at least that’s the excuse a few of us use to procrastinate washing up!

I always feel that, with the home moving process complete, an old chapter closes and a fresh one opens. Personally, although most people tend to return to their homes for the summer, I’ll be sticking around Southampton for a while yet, as rehearsals for the Theatre Group production being taken up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August, Hanging Bruce-Howard, kick off again at the beginning of the month. This should, in theory, give me a chance to start work on preliminary research of my dissertation field, before the rehearsals culminate in on-campus preview showings at the end of the month. With the show now featuring in the official event programme, the reality that we’ll soon be part of the largest international performance festival in the world is beginning to set in!

Fingers crossed our entry might attract a few wandering audience members 

whilst we’re up there! (Credit: Jed Marshall)

Looks like, in July, I’ll be moving out, in, and on!

Robin

A week at work…

I have been in Amsterdam for over a month now – which is crazy because the time has just flown – but nonetheless, I thought I’d offer a slight insight and share two excerpts of what I got up to last week at work.

Now I arrived at my internship with no preconceptions over what I’d be doing, which with hindsight might seem a little foolish, but I just had no time to really pay it much attention.

Work has, however, been awesome!

I began last week by spending time in The Hague; attending a Parliamentary Seminar my employer had organised to discuss the situation in East Congo. This was great for me because I got to go inside the Parliament, I got to listen to passionate debates and then interview the speakers. 

This was a pretty intense day – it seems that public transport hates me regardless of the country – I missed the train with my colleagues and so I had to go it alone. This meant I arrived in The Hague with no clue how to find the Parliament – thankfully, my epic sense for democracy led me in the right direction! 

I felt so lucky to be trusted so readily in my position to attend such events and have so many new experiences. On the train back I even saw genuine windmills in the countryside!

Something which was really exciting at work, and had been talked about since I arrived was the outing – it was an office trip that no one knew anything about.  As a newbie to the family I approached the outing with a mixture of excitement and utter dread.

And as the most inflexible person alive (probably) my fears were realised when we turned up outside a yoga hall. Instantly a ripple of dissent went through the crowds, there were grumbles about bad backs and stiff limbs. But the more mature to the outings were not so easily fooled – me, who believed that when everyone said the weather would be 35 degrees, that it would be 35 degrees – well I was gearing up and channelling my inner zen. 

Speaking of Dutch weather – I am slowly learning how it operates: it is unpredictable and generally annoying. So it makes sense that after a week of sunshine that on the day of the outing it is torrential. Typical. 
But no, instead of yoga we were all boarding a boat and leaving Amsterdam.
  

So finally, after much suspicion and wild guesswork the wait was over – we were told where we were going – Pampus! Pampus is an island fort that was once part of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, a system designed to defend the city by means of flooding. Pampus, an island the size of a football pitch – but also a UNESCO World Heritage site – was interesting…

A hidden island off Amsterdam that I would never have otherwise seen.

(The weather lies in this photo – there was definite rain!)

After lunch and a tour of the island we hopped back onto the boat, sadly the wind and the rain had picked up in true Dutch style and even the most noble of us who tried to withstand the bad weather were forced to retreat inside. The original afternoon activity of rounders on the beach was abandoned due to the poor weather and thus a contingency plan of finding the nearest bar was put into action. Let me just say it was a long, but good day – I definitely got to know my colleagues better!

My weeks at work seem to always be full of surprises; I am tested, I learn and I have fun. I think these next 5 months are going to be very enjoyable.  

Florence

WSA – Showcasing the University’s creative souls

As thousands of final year students handed in essays and finished exams over on the University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus, final year Arts students were working hard to complete their final projects at Winchester School of Art (WSA), ready for their Degree Show –  three years of work culminating in one final exhibition, celebrating their achievements at WSA.

As one of the university’s satellite campuses, WSA is sometimes, unfortunately, overlooked by many students at Southampton. The Winchester campus is where all the Arts students of the University of Southampton can be found – with courses such as Graphic Design, Fine Art, Fashion Marketing and Illustration available, amongst many more. The University of Southampton has so much more to offer than the courses found on Highfield or Avenue campus.

WSA is an utterly inspiring place to be when the exhibitions are on!

I have posted previously about my trips to Winchester; at only a 7 minute train ride away, I’m simply moments away from a change of scenery and a few hours in a very beautiful city. WSA is somewhere that all Southampton students should become familiar with, and with future sabbaticals at SUSU hoping to forge an even closer relationship with the campus in the next year or so, the connection between Highfield and Winchester should become closer than ever. Excellent news for any future students reading this!

Winchester School of Art campus is picturesque and peaceful!

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to support some of my graduating friends at last year’s WSA Degree show as I was finishing my undergraduate degree, but this year I was free and went along to have a look! I was able to meet my friend and ex-Wessex Scene Editorial Team member Bronwen Rees, whose work was exhibited, for a bit of guidance and a chat before I made my way around the exhibition.

The exhibition was spread across the entire campus, which really emphasised the idea of it being an event for the whole University, combining all areas of art which might otherwise stay separate. I could really see that a huge amount of work had been put into each project that meant that each one was highly individual and reflected the artist’s or designer’s personalities wonderfully. There was far too much to really go into detail about on this blog but I took photos of a few personal favourites.

Bronwen’s piece discussed the effect of Twitter on language and spoken and written word.  She had created a Twitter page, @LossOfLanguage,  to discuss the effect Twitter has had on communication and speech, and had altered a selection of books to ‘spoil’ them for readers, emphasising the effect it has on literature too.

Bronwen’s piece, which she said: ‘Is about how we use twitter and how 

it is impacting our ability to write and form sentences, as well as how it impacts literature’

As a fan of Twitter and social networking myself, I loved her project. The small details of her work, which was not only incredibly interesting but very easy on the eye, really stood out and demonstrated how many different methods of graphic design there are. I feel very honoured to have such a talented friend, and it was so great to finally see what she had been working on!

I also chatted to two Fashion Marketing students who were kind enough to talk me through their work and explained what drew them to studying the subject.

Fashion Marketing student Julia Camwell with her project ‘Move to your Own Rhythm’

Julia Camwell’s exhibit demonstrated her work on the famous fashion brand French Connection, which focused on transforming ‘the tired French Connection brand into a compelling, premium, contemporary. edgy and innovative fashion brand’ (quoted from the magazine produced for the exhibition). She explained how she didn’t even know that this course existed until she visited another university to study fine art, where she stumbled across a talk for this subject. She found that WSA was the best place in the country to study Fashion Marketing, and has never looked back!

Aphrodite Koupepidou, who also studied Fashion Marketing, with her project ‘The Urban Artist’

I was also able to talk to Aphrodite Koupepidou about her work; she had taken the popular fashion company Urban Outfitters, and experimented with the store layout, enabling the customers to produce photographs, graphic designs and paintings to be displayed alongside products, forming a strong relationship with the company’s target market. I thought her display was incredibly attractive and professional.

As a student who has spent her university life with her head buried in books, it was inspiring and refreshing for me to see what else is possible with a university education – it’s not all about essays and reading lists. These people are incredibly motivated and passionate, and this is even more obvious when you see all their work together in an exhibition like this one.

Fashion design examples on display, with catwalk videos and portfolios out for visitors.

I enjoyed seeing the huge range of work on show; from chunky unique knitwear and modern menswear, to mesmerising installations; from film and paintings, to innovative marketing ideas and skilled fine art work. I was able to spend two hours walking around with something new around each corner. For me, I was definitely looking at the work of future successful designers and artists. And as someone who studied fine art at A Level, and Textiles at GCSE, it brought back memories and made me wish I could experiment with art once more.

Graphic Arts student Jacob Coy’s exhibit was stunning… 

and smelt delicious thanks to the coffee beans!

I previously visited the John Hansard Gallery on Highfield Campus. What with that, and the WSA campus, there is so much local art and design available for everyone to see and experience.

More design examples which really caught my eye!

Some installation art on show

I felt that the event could have been better advertised across the University – I only knew about it thanks to having a number of friends at WSA. I’ve had some amazing times at the Winchester campus and I think, when the new Student’s Union is finished, it will be more inviting for Highfield students to visit – and more WSA students would be invited into Southampton! There is definitely an exciting future to look forward to. WSA is a fantastic place to be on its own, but its connection to our Southampton campuses just makes it that much more special.

The WSA Degree Show is only on until Sunday 23 June, so I recommend if you have a spare hour or so to pop along and take a look while you still can! Entrance is free and it’s open to the public, with some items on sale. There will also be a show in London at the end of July.

I had a fantastic time immersing myself in the world of art and design at WSA and hope that many more of you enjoy it while it’s still on show. Congratulations and good luck to all the students, too!

Joanne

The 24 Hour Show

During my two years at the University of Southampton so far, I’ve found that, from time to time, an experience comes along which is so surreal, so unique and so fun that you’re reminded you’re at University and you just know you’ll carry memories of it forward with you.

A few weeks ago, when I admittedly probably should have been revising, I went along to audition for Showstoppers’ (the musical theatre society) annual 24 Hour Show, a production raising money for charity which is exactly what it sounds like – one famous show, two performances, and only 24 sleepless hours in which to pick up lyrics, lines, dances, characterisation, blocking and using the set. Given how I often struggle to learn musical numbers in 2 or 3 months of rehearsals, this seemed like a natural progression!

So I was extremely happy when, by some stroke of fortune, I later received an email telling me to be ready for 4pm on Saturday 8 June, when I’d be told the name of a show, and that I should be prepared to learn it!

With the name of the show a close-guarded secret amongst the inner Showstopper circles, rumours were rife in conversations, with great titles such as Oliver, The Wizard of Oz, The Lion King and many more bandied about. But, thanks to a quite brilliant set of false trails laid by the crafty production team (each of whom armed themselves with a different name to “leak”!), nobody was entirely sure leading up to the day, and the suspenseful anticipation leading up to the day was palpable.

And so on Saturday 8 June, armed to the teeth with sandwiches, pasta, salads, water bottles, crisps, sugar-filled boosts of various descriptions, Haribo, drinks and much, much more – not to mention a change of clothes and a toothbrush (we’d been warned to prepare in case we couldn’t make it home!) – the thirty or so cast members descended on the Annex Theatre and waited in nervous whispers for the news.

Slowly but surely, the clock ticked by until it reached 4pm... and the 24 Hour Show 2013 was revealed! And so onwards we went, with rehearsals starting at 5pm on the 8th and the show itself 5pm on the 9th, all in the name of charity.

After a quick talk about the format of the 24 hours, and a couple of ground rules (use breaks for learning not sleeping, and no caffeine on the premises to avoid sugar crashes – a challenge for the nocturnal Computer Scientist within me!) it was time to get cracking: we were given our show clothing, an hour-by-hour schedule of the next day (and night!) and packed on our way with score and scene excerpts to be learned and memorised.

And so began the most intense, and yet probably the most fun, rehearsal period of my life, as thirty of us struggled to learn melodies, rhythms and, most impossibly of all, lyrics, within a 24-hour period! After only five hours, approaching ten o’clock, many of us felt completely exhausted – at three o’clock we were heading towards positively delusional!

The state of the green room fourteen hours in – 

clearly sustenance was high on the agenda for members of the cast!

We were split into groups depending on our parts, with myself a member of the Ensemble, and taught songs in short spurts of note-teaching before blocking the movement to these songs which, in some cases, included my dramatic arch nemesis: dancing! Ahhh!

But the joy of the 24 was in the spirit of just trying to do your best. No audience really goes into a 24 Show expecting a polished end product, and the knowledge that we would be performing almost entirely devoid of pressure at all, with the crowd on our side willing us on, made the process incredibly fun and surprisingly stress-free.

By the time we were allowed to head home at four in the morning, all relevant melodies encountered (if words not learned at all!), many a surreal moment had been and gone – groups randomly bursting into the Monkees’ I’m a Believer in music building corridors, pretending to be a member of the mafia, attempting to learn the most intricate lyrics I’ve ever encountered, and learning how to salsa dance in a particularly risqué manner at two or three in the morning (this was as hilarious as it sounds, though we definitely got into it more as tiredness set in!) – it was a night to remember!

Two hours’ sleep and a couple of school costumes pieced together later, we reconvened at eight to learn the final scene. We then just about had time for a quick run of the entire show, and were unbelievably surprised by the incredible standard of the show after only seventeen or so hours’ rehearsal – it made us wonder why we struggle with six-week rehearsal periods!

But we weren’t the only ones working throughout the night. The magnificent staging and technical society, StageSoc, were also in on the act, with their own 24 hour target of rigging lights, setting up soundboards, aligning projectors and constructing one of the best sets I’ve ever seen in a student show. Working non-stop throughout the night, they painted an individual “block” for every letter in the alphabet (with some reinforced ones comically combining to represent “S O F A” or “B E D” or “T V” as part of the set), a process which took many hours but looked brilliant – I can’t sing their praises enough!

24 hours’ worth of solid work produced...

... a set worthy of any West End show!

And so, the time came round to perform at last. The whole experience was so surreal that in many ways, we all felt quite ready for what was to come – well, except if the audience was expecting us to know the words, that is! The musical featured many a crafty (some might say verbose!) turn of phrase or rhyme throughout its songs, so learning the lyrics was somewhat of a nightmare. Various tactics were adopted – in one song we had to sing, we all added a cheeky glance to our arms into the choreography because one phrase escaped us every time, and several members of the cast managed to smuggle scripts onto stage in the guise of various props (such as notebooks and registers). Alas, my own efforts to learn words didn’t go so well!

Surprisingly, I couldn’t read this on stage! 

(Credit: Amy Fitzgibbon)

So how did the two performances go? Quite wonderfully, they were complete disasters!

Special effects didn’t work, people broke character, props were misplaced or tangled, people fell over, many songs were supported by offstage ensemble members holding scripts, and the vast majority of it seemed to be improvised – particularly lyrically!

And that was the most fun thing about being part of the 24 Hour Show: nobody cared. At the end of the day, just staging the show was achievement enough, and anything on top of that was a bonus. The directors, producers, cast and technicians had gone all out and were now determined to just enjoy themselves, and the audience played off it and seemed to have a great time, on our side the entire way through and always in the knowledge that the show was for fun, not for effect (although hopefully it achieved both), and all in the name of a wonderful charity, the Rhys Daniels Trust.

As I mentioned, the entire experience was so surreal, based on an absolutely mental premise, and yet ended up being the most fun show I’ve ever been a part of. I can honestly say I’ll never forget the mind-warping lyrics, or salsa dancing like a Dad would on stage, or holding one half of a ‘swing’ (a plank of wood!), or trying to remember the words to particularly difficult songs (annoyingly word-perfect the morning after!), or, finally, just bouncing up and down in the finale like a young schoolkid, humming the melody with no idea of a single lyric but embracing the moment.

A particularly troublesome number, where we had to hold up our letter 
at the correct time whilst singing and dancing! Ahhh!

(Credit: Mike Frost)

Learning to salsa was so enjoyable, I’m tempted to carry it on next year! 

(Credit: Mike Frost)

Finishing with a flourish of a finale – happy faces abound! 

(Credit: Mike Frost)

I simply cannot thank everyone involved with the production enough. Times like those of the 24 Hour Show remind me just how fortunate I am to be here, in Southampton, with these people at this time, with amazing chances like this.

Robin

Getting on my bike

They say you can’t claim to have lived in The Netherlands until you’ve used sprinkles as a sandwich filler and, of course, become inseparable from your bike.

Now the sprinkles thing is strange – when I saw my colleagues putting chocolate hundreds and thousands on bread I was a little bemused. Nonetheless trying such a delicacy was not particularly daunting, getting a bike however…

Every day on my way to work I cross the busiest street in Amsterdam and on the way typically bumping into about 5 bikes. And despite this everyone I have met in Amsterdam has told me I must, I simply must, get a bike.

Before I came in Amsterdam the idea of getting a bike was wonderful – it was going to be blue and have daises on it, I was going to have a basket and riding around empty canals, in the sun, would naturally be effortless. Then I arrived. I have never seen cycling like in this city – people ride with suitcases, double basses and about 5 children – suddenly my romantic prospect seemed somewhat impossible.

90% of the city apparently ride a bike. 

So I put off the inevitable and waited 3 weeks to finally purchase a bike. And I did this begrudgingly and only because everyone pestered about how much I needed one. And they were right; I needed a bike because the metros closed early and the city never stops, because I couldn’t live in Amsterdam and not ride a bike and because I think there is nothing healthier than doing the things that scare you. And my gosh did riding a bike scare me.

So maybe it sounds juvenile, but, it should be known that I haven’t cycled for 10 years – ever since the loss of my wonderful red bike I refused to ride another! For some crazy reason I thought the best place to start again was in a city of absolute pros.

As people here happily pay more for their bike locks than their bikes, I gladly paid the 35 euros for a rusty bike with no basket but handle brakes (it’s all about compromise) – it’s not beautiful, but it’s got character. 

My Stallion on Wheels? 

You know that famous saying – you never forget how to ride a bike – yeah, well it’s a lie.

Luckily I have a wonderful friend who has many talents – she’s my chef, manicurist, hairdresser, Spanish and Italian teacher and most importantly, my bike tutor. So when it got dark (to hide my cycling shame), we went out. Luckily I live in a student campus; in the middle of the complex is a big courtyard with few cars, perfect for practising, apparently. Suddenly I felt like I’d regressed; I had someone holding onto the back of my bike supporting me and promising me that they wouldn’t let go despite us both knowing that they invariably would – except I wasn’t 10 again and I had forgotten how to cycle… I was forced to go around and around the complex for hours but it was slowly getting easier.

The following day I was forced to cycle ON THE ROAD to go get ice cream with some friends – this was a surprised outing and I was not prepared, but I have to concede that it was actually okay – maybe even enjoyable…

Whilst in Amsterdam I am aware that I am constantly learning, but riding the bike has been a big change for me. It’s made me feel, paradoxically, more secure in the city because despite being a wobbly mess when I ride it does feel like I am making a commitment to my life in Amsterdam. I have no doubt this silly bike riding journey is going to be a long one, but, I am also certain that there is no way I can avoid it in a city like this.

Florence

Friendships: the great divide

It’s that time of the university year – students are packing up to move out of halls, leaving home to start university or leaving university after their degree has finished. Summer is a time for change, and with change comes leaving things behind. Friendships forged at home or at university can unfortunately often be left behind by these changes.

Upon leaving my school friends after my A-Levels, I was concerned that my well-formed friendships that I had slowly but surely developed over my school years would come to an abrupt end. And the same can be said for those leaving university – suddenly, your friends are scattered across the country, from Dorset to Birmingham, from Kent to Bristol, and getting together regularly becomes a daunting thought. How on earth are you going to stay in touch with all of these people?

Of course, there’s the internet. Our generation has the fantastic advantage of social media. We can keep track of what our friends are up to with regular status updates and photo uploads on Facebook, snippets of their day on Twitter, and even new job announcements on LinkedIn. We can know everything about everyone we’ve ever met.

You can’t just rely on Facebook though. There’s an element of impersonality to it, I feel. It’s not the same as finding out that your friend has a new job or is moving to another country in person. No status update can compare to an excited phone call, or even a leisurely Skype session with a cup of tea to discuss life. Keeping in touch does take effort – if you rely on the internet, or the odd text or Snapchat, you won’t feel quite as close to that person anymore and, eventually, they risk becoming just another acquaintance.

If you’re leaving university for good this summer in a bid to enter the big wide world, or you’re embarking on higher education in September – or even if you’re worried about keeping in touch with people over summer between academic terms – I would urge you to make sure you meet up with these people as much as possible, or dedicate time to a proper chat.

Myself and my friends Lou and Rob at Grad Ball in June 2012, 

both of whom I stay in contact with – Rob regularly visits Southampton 

and we always make a point of meeting

This means finding time to visit them, arranging a half-way point to have dinner and have a catch up. Or putting a date in the diary for a lengthy phone call. This doesn’t have to be regular – if they're friends from home, you could meet up at least once every holiday. I’ve managed to keep in touch with some of my friends from home over the last four years with regular trips to the pub for a cider and a chat or a cheeky Chinese takeaway. It works. If you put the effort in to see or talk to your friends, they’ll put the effort in to see and talk to you.

This year, most of my university friends moved back home or away to start work or further education elsewhere – I was launched into a different experience here at Southampton, needing to forge new friendships which, thankfully, went well! However, I haven’t had much trouble keeping in touch with graduate friends; I have been able to chat to my old Southampton friends regularly thanks to the wonders of Skype and Facebook. But, most importantly, I have managed to meet up with some of them; those who live locally, or who still come back to visit their old university haunts from time to time. I haven’t been able to see as many of my friends as I would like, but I don’t feel like I’ve lost any friendships. It’s been a joy to catch up with people to find out how they’ve been doing!

My best friend from University, Lou, who was my flatmate for three years (and who also shares my love for all things chocolate-covered), has been studying for a PGCE in Reading this year. Although Reading is only forty minutes away by train, I haven’t been able to see her as much as I have wanted. But I do not feel like anything has changed – she came to visit for my birthday, and I recently popped up for a day of shopping and catch-ups. Both times we were able to start from where we’d left off. It felt like nothing had changed – and that, to me, is the mark of a strong friendship. It doesn’t matter how much time has passed, how much has changed, as soon as you’re back together you don’t feel like you were ever apart. Lou is just one of many friends I am fortunate enough to have this experience with and I am positive this is not only down to the fact that we are close anyway (having been mistaken for sisters in our first week as Fresher’s!) but we chat regularly, share jokes, and make a point to find out what we’ve both been up to.

Lou and I on the Isle of Wight last year

It’s not always possible to chat to people so often. Sometimes you can go months without hearing from someone. I must add that this is not the end of the world – just always be open to meeting or chatting in the future. The door isn’t closed; it’s just not possible to be in touch with everyone at the same time, all the time!

Someone told me that the friendships you make at university are the ones you keep for life. I can see what they mean – I know I will be close to so many people for the rest of my life. I have an excellent group of uni and home friends, thanks to making sure we don’t let things fade.

My friend Lissie and I in January when she popped by for a quick dinner and catch up

The university experience is mostly down to the friendships you make. I find myself wanting to stay in Southampton for many years – but everything changes when your friends leave. It’ll become a slightly different place –and you’ll begin to miss the people more than anything. Friendships make university what it is. So when you leave university for good, you won’t be leaving that life behind… if you keep those friendships going.

I hope to remain friends with my nearest and dearest for many years to come… as long as they feel the same way!

Joanne

Stepping up

And, with the final of my five exams now finished, that was second year! For the next three months or so, I’m now (relatively) free!

I struggle to even begin to describe how varied, challenging and life-changing the events of the previous nine months have been. You always hear about how University is meant to be an experience which yields the best days of your life, and when you’re constantly presented with fresh reasons to be enjoying yourself, it’s no wonder – halfway through my degree in Southampton, I’m not sure I could ever leave!

Taking on my first ever directing role was one such experience, 

and the joy and experience I’ve gained from it was invaluable!

So as Flo and Jo near the end of their own programmes, it’s a terrifying prospect to think that, a couple of years down the line, it’ll be my turn to depart the student bubble and enter the world of employment, hopefully having picked up enough knowledge along the way to make a mark on it.

For me, at least, I guess it’s one of those things you don’t particularly ever think of happening until realisation dawns that the time is approaching and then reality hits you. Being the youngest in my family, I was used to watching my brothers and sister go through the same hoops, from school to exams to moving away to University, mistakenly smug in thinking that such landmarks were so far away for me, they’d probably never arrive – although it didn’t quite work out that way, of course!

Whether it be going through GCSEs, A-Levels, drafting a UCAS personal statement, attending some University open days (which I’ve written about before and highly recommend!) or actually arriving, there are so many momentous occasions which we all went through and, from my perspective, which led to my arrival here, and although every of them one impressed rigorous demands on us at the time, I can confidently declare the end result has been well worth it.

Except, of course, it’s far from the end result because, with the completion of exams, the time has come to lay the foundations of a third year which promises to be my biggest academic challenge yet.

Once again, a third year project, the equivalent of a dissertation on other degree streams, isn’t a task I ever quite convinced myself I would arrive at, least of all begin working towards. But while having my first meeting with my supervisor, who researches in the Human-Computer Interaction field (which completely captivated me when I was studying it as part of the course), I only found myself getting even more intrigued and curious about the technological potential offered to me by the project, to the point of sheer excitement – excitement about a piece of work!

And as we discussed my supervisor’s research, talk soon turned to applying it to my personal interests which, if you’ve read any of my posts before, you’ll probably recognise as performance styles – an incredibly exciting prospect linking Computer Science to the hobby I love the most!

We considered using an “autonomous agent” (something which performs a task without requiring human help) to analyse the interactions between on-stage performers and the audience in some way, for example, and potential applications of this (such as the construction of a robotic performer), and, although I’ve still to narrow my ideas into something more tangible than a concept, I’m raring to get started.

What’s more, on the other side of the extracurricular fence going into third year, this week I’ve run nearly three days’ solid worth of auditions for Theatre Group’s October show Equus as part of its production team, emerging with a group of actors and actresses who promise to be absolutely sensational in a hopefully unmissable show. Some of the talent we saw ranked, in my mind, up there with the professional interpretations of the script I’ve seen, sending my spine tingling on more than one occasion, while simultaneously we saw plenty of new faces to the society who added a great deal to the table. I just wish we could have cast the play several times over!

Taking on such a classic piece of literature in the role of a co-director is yet another mammoth demand which promises to stretch our ability and imagination to the limit. But where else, if not the University of Southampton and its wonderful Students’ Union (SUSU), will I ever be surrounded by such a plethora of brilliant performers, and be under the wing of a system which financially and personally supports innovation and experimentation? Such opportunities rarely come around in people’s lifetimes, so to placate our determination to make the most of it, as a team we’re going to have to step up to the mark and deliver.

After all, come the end of October, and come the end of next year, despite all thoughts to the contrary, the University experience will, all things going well, have placed yet more feathers in my cap.

I wish that the time to leave would never come, but until it does, let’s make the most of it!

Robin

From Amsterdam, with love

This could easily become a pretty big post because I’ve had a pretty big few weeks, but reading that would be tiresome, something no one wants, so instead I’ll try and stay focused. You see less than 2 weeks ago I finished my university course, moved out of my house, moved to Amsterdam and started a new job – see what I mean about BIG.

I have been in Amsterdam for nearly a week and a half now and to be honest I’m surprising myself by how well I am taking to it. For I am a flapper, a famous flapper, who stresses out about the smallest of things so the thought of moving abroad, with so many situations I couldn’t prepare for, was getting me well and truly flapping. It transpires however that the thought of it all was a lot more daunting than actually doing it. So I urge you to not overthink, like I have a tendency to do, for it is simply foolish. 

Now the perfect time to overthink things is on a 12 hour bus journey to Amsterdam - your future home for the next 6 months. I had that classic ‘what am I doing!’ panic where I manically texted friends seeking condolence. Of course I got this by the bucket load and rationality, along with the Harry Potter audiobooks, made me see sense. Because what was I really afraid of? Surely not the city – it’s a beautiful European capital conveniently packed with citizens who speak impeccable English. And surely not the prospect of starting work – I have an internship working for an organisation that facilitates cooperation between European and African parliaments – I was nothing but excited about how much I could learn there! And so the only real thing I was afraid of was leaving the past – whilst the future was inviting in theory, my past was just a comfortable heaven that I knew I’d miss. Living in Amsterdam seemed incompatible with a life in Southampton. 

However leaving wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. My mind decided to be logical for once, and so my leaving signalled an impossibility to go back to third year life. Though many of my housemates hadn’t even finished their exams when I left something inside me shifted – suddenly I understood that it was over and that there was no point missing something which no longer existed. Maybe that sounds tragically depressing. It shouldn’t though, because it truly isn’t the sad scary thing I thought it would be. Starting a new page, a new chapter, in the most exciting section of your life needs to be relished.

This is right next to my apartment – making any attempt at running slightly easier.

Once I’d arrived, once I started to progress in the spirit of spontaneity, I observed how ridiculously lucky I was. The realisation of how happy you actually are leaves little room for fear. So yes these past couple of weeks have been of epic proportion, but really – bar a few hiccups with the tax office – they have been remarkably easy. I feel that great thanks has to be paid to my Erasmus experience for preparing me; my unwavering belief in prevailing positivity would not have existed without a semester of incredible memories in Barcelona. 

I urge everyone who is considering applying to jobs abroad to do so – I promise that it is not as hard or stressful as you might imagine – in fact it’s enjoyable, it’s refreshing, and vitally, it makes you a little bit more capable when it comes to chronic flapping situations.

Florence