February 1, 2012, by Kay

Keeping up with Life

Apologies again readers for my late blog post- seriously I won’t be making a habit of this. Let me reassure you that my blog entries are always on Tuesdays! ^_^

Explanation:
Yesterday I got up early to prepare for Refresher’s Fayre for UNICEF Society, but I couldn’t stay for the actual fayre as I already had a full day of other stuff. I had a Political Economy lecture and then I had work until the late afternoon. Then one of my very good friends Alice, came to surprise me.

I met Alice through ‘Asian circles’ in first year of university and we’ve been really good friends since. We spent first semester of this year in Valencia as part of her course and only came back to the UK for literally a few days to prepare for her trip to the Ningbo Campus for second semester so I really didn’t think I would see her at all. This is especially sad because I’m graduating this year whereas Alice is staying on for her fourth year.

Tanya and Alice surprise me with Krispy Kremes

In the final year, it becomes quite pressing that you won’t be in that protective student bubble for very long and what time you get with your friends is precious.

Because of this, I spent the rest of the day with Alice and a group of other friends at TGI Fridays then Gatecrasher for the Chinese New Year party (which was awesome!).

Today was really busy as well, I got in just an hour ago after seeing Alice off at the train station.

In other random ramblings… I wish I had more time to chill between exams and lectures started! and life started again! Exams are kinda like putting your life on hold to go and live in a pressure cooker for a while. I really want to do a good job of leading UNICEF Society as well. I’m really lucky because I got a good committee behind me and some really great members.

After sampling what it was like to be in different societies in my first year, I really wanted to take on more responsibility in my second year. That’s how I got into UNICEF.

In second year I was Social Secretary on the ChinaChina Society, that was really fun because I could get involved in events that suited my interest in China and Chinese studies like Mandarin Corner (a fortnightly language support class that is ran by the committee to help out people learning the language).

ChinaChina Committee 2010-2011

I was also the Treasurer for the UNICEF Society in my second year as well. I’m not going to lie, this was purely because I got an email on some random day and I wanted to go for it to just have something to add to my c.v. But I got really attached to it really quickly and UNICEF gradually meant more and more to me. Cheesy yes, but being a part of it has made me feel like a better person.

Sarah and I at Fresher's Fayre September 2011

At the start of this year when we had our first ever UNICEF Society 2011-2012 meeting, a rather impassioned member had quite heated words with me about how I could ever expect to make a difference. That the work we would do over the year would be minimal… It was very unsettling.

Ever since then it’s stuck in the back of my mind. I’m not taking it personally or anything, I just want us to do well. Hmmm…. perhaps I’m worrying too much. Not out of the pressure cooker yet.

Love,  Kay

Posted in 2011-Kay