That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
My STYCs.
Whatever anyone says I still maintain I had a couple of really good STYCs. Okay, so maybe they weren't the best at being responsible second and third year contacts, but they did something more important: they showed me that second years, on the whole, were not that scary. In those first few days I started to realise that I wasn't all that different from all the other thousand people at this University. Other people might seem more confident, mainly because they knew where they were going and I kept getting lost, but they were secretly just as insecure and messed up as any fresher.
I learnt this in my first term when my supposedly confident and omniscient second-year friend asked me for advice on whether to ask a girl out. I was astonished. Weren't these guys meant to know everything? Texting a new friend to ask whether he should ask out her friend is something people did in high school, right? It reassured me. Second year's are humans too, I decided.
From then on, my first term didn't seem so scary. I went to houseparties, got drunk (something I hadn't dared to do in my first week) and generally got round to the important business of trying to get the most out of my University career.
And it is important to start early. I hate to say it, but it is undeniably true: after your first year, things change irrevocably. Living on campus is amazing - make the most of it. Unless you manage by some miricle to get back onto campus at any point, never again will you be living right in the hub of University life. Strolling around campus in the wee small hours can lose it's appeal when you have to walk the dark streets of York to get there. Besides, when you have no one to call on at 4am it kind of loses its point. Hide and seek in the Quiet Place, late-night toasties in JCRs, staying in campus bars as late as you can, whatever the weather: these are things more likely to be enjoyed when you live no more than five minutes away from anywhere on campus.
However much you say you're going to keep going to those after meeting socials, when the nights are dark and cold and you have a 9.15 the next day, it is all too tempting to make your excuses, head home, and sit on the sofa with your housemates and a hot chocolate. I'm pretty sure, of all the people I count as friends and acquiantances here at York, about 80% of those I met in my first year - maybe 50% in my first term.
So take every chance you get to put yourself out there.
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