October 24, 2012, by Sarah

Pros and Cons

This photo is a fairly apt summary of this week so far.

Plus I’ve been missing my family and friends from home quite a lot. Coming to Uni has shown me I’m a bit of a home bird and speaking to other students in different years makes me realise I’m not alone – everyone has things they miss whilst at Uni. Family, friends, pets, home cooking and washing, at Uni you do have to adjust.

Something funny actually, I know some students who were missing pets from home, so bought cat food and left it outside their Uni house, and promptly gained two cats! CatLad and CatLass were great additions to the student household anyway and were well fed and loved by their student family.  However these students moved house this year and left out cat food again and only attracted slugs (*gagging*) which aren’t such great pets.

However, although I miss lots of things, there are also many things I have gained by coming to Uni and sometimes it’s helpful to focus on those things in stead:

• Brilliant friends
  

  Fridge tetris – the shelf with not much stuff on is our housemate’s shelf who is not back from Uni yet!

• Knowledge of a subject you’re interested in

• Academic skills in analysing, understanding, writing etc.

• A pathway to a job at the end (hopefully)

• Experience of managing life away from home

• Knowledge of another part of the world

• Free pens from Fresher’s Fair – a lot of free pens

• Knowing that Nottingham is in THE MIDLANDS not THE NORTH – people get defensive! I mean hey I’m from Bristol, most stuff is North for me…

• I’ve tried new foods since Uni: Yam, Corned beef, celeriac, salad dressing…and various unidentifiable things from Uni catering*

• A new church family

• Knowing how long you can leave a bin before it REALLY NEEDS taking out

• Fridge and freezer tetris – skills in packing as much food as possible in small spaces

• How weirdly you can stretch your sleeping pattern

*Oh it’s cauliflower!  – I thought you just didn’t clean the dish properly, my mistake…and yes of course I would love chips and rice with my pasta bake, give me some couscous and a jacket potato on top with cheese OR tuna (not both, that combination would be obscene) and I’ll be moved to contact Heston Blumenthal – you have redefined molecular gastronomy.

I should say from the point of balance that a lot of people LOVED halls food, and it has improved a lot apparently since I was a Fresher. I was not such a fan.

In one of my modules we were looking at behaviour change and how whatever you might do you look at the perceived risks and benefits of that action:

This makes me realise that although I miss home, the gains of Uni are greater than the losses. I really want to be a Dietitian, and this is how I get there, with lots of good stuff along the way. We were studying this week about enteral and parenteral nutrition – in English this is being fed straight into the stomach through a pump or straight into the veins. I just thought it was so amazing, how science has enabled people to live “normal” lives, even if they can’t eat orally.

My Grandad used to say “the more you know, the more you know you don’t know.”  Uni has definitely shown me there’s a load of stuff I don’t know –which is a good thing.

Speaking of stuff I don’t know – I have coursework to do…

Also I’m going to Nando’s tonight for a friend’s birthday and have a free half chicken voucher – well excited!

 

Sarah

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