As a soon to be "former" transition mentor - How to be happy in new surroundings, and generally

I have worked twice as a transition mentor, which is a role I undertook for the sheer enjoyment of it. While it was a paid role, the actual remuneration was minimal - paying less than my bread-money job in a coffee shop. I consider myself to be richer in other ways - experience and enjoyment count for a lot!

I thought I would share some of the welfare wisdom I have learned in this role with you  - it applies to life, as well as to freshers.

1. Plan everything early to save time later.
Essays, shopping - everything can be made more efficient by a small amount of prior thought. You'll save money and stress later.

2. Socialise.
Your friends and family are the most important tools you have to get through anything in life.

3. A small apology goes a long way - even when the mistake is big.

4. When the apology is not forthcoming - take the moral high ground and move on.
After all, you get the best view from which to launch your projectile. (I'm just kidding!)

5. Press this button, and regularly.

6. Be kind to yourself.
Eat that cake, you deserve it dammit.

7. (For languages students). SIT DOWN AND LEARN YOUR VOCABULARY.

8. Surround yourself with people who make you laugh, but who know when to stop and listen to what you've got to say.

9. Avoid those who will deliberately seek to cut you down at every opportunity.
You are worth more than that. While we all disagree on things from time to time, when someone continually refuses to see your point of view, who is deliberately pedantic to the point where you can spend no more than an hour with them without conjuring up ways in your head to mute them permanently, it's time to have a break.

10. Listen to your favourite music. Daily.

11. Embrace others' cultures and lifestyle choices. You might learn something.
(I should really do better at this).

12. Some things are not a lifestyle choice. Again, you may learn something.

13. Superstition does not work when it comes to exams. Lucky socks will not get you that First.

Which is why I am deliberately leaving this on number #13.

Let the carnage begin.

A moment of self indulgence and introduction

I run the risk of this being the continuing theme with all of these blogs, but nevertheless we continue.

For those of you new to my work, you may wish to check out my previous blog, the rather embarrassingly titled "Frussian Lit", which I wrote during my year abroad, and despite such a heinous title, won an international award as the Top Travel Blog of 2013. I say international as people around the world voted for it. I don't know what else to call that. 

I'll introduce myself properly. 

My name is Felicity. I am a final year undergraduate of French and Russian at University College London. People ask me all the time if I am fluent in both of those languages, which is a very difficult question to answer in relation to French. (Russian is a definite "no"). By most people's standards, the answer is probably yes - I survived my time out there with few linguistic hitches. If you were to ask any of my professors, they'd probably answer politely but vaguely. I make silly mistakes, and lots of them - but I am working on it. 

That is the thing with languages at University level - there is always more work you can do. Essays excluded (and even then, not entirely), it is difficult to recall the last piece of work I finished satisfactorily. That is not to say I leave my work unfinished, far from it. The fact is that, as pretentious as this will sound, languages are nothing more than a means to an end. They are works of art that can be interpreted and delivered in a number of ways. This is especially the case with translation work. As such, one develops many ways of thinking laterally, as well as developing a close attention to detail. Theoretically.

I do feel like I have developed more faith in my convictions and the ability to think things through since starting university. This is both good and bad. I used to be afraid to say boo to a goose and tried to find a way to agree with and get on with everyone. I still do this, but it has become more apparent to me now that I can actively say that I disagree with someone - and think more clearly as to why. Perhaps this comes with age, but certainly university has taught me more about myself and about how things work than I ever could have imagined, which makes my degree take on an additional dimension of value. (As if learning to speak two foreign languages at the 4th best university in the world - apparently - wasn't enough). 

This piece is self indulgent for reasons that are probably now apparent. I'll add to it now by saying that I have never been a particularly confident person. It's funny how self doubt plagues us. It is self doubt that stops the top footballer from scoring that goal, because self-rejection is easier to handle than the rejection by another. Self doubt is what stops the teenage girl from applying for law at Oxford and leads her to choose a less competitive degree path.

We feel sometimes as though there is someone out there whose sole purpose in life is to list all of our faults and misgivings, and who will take pleasure in seizing the opportune moment to read them out when we are at our height, causing us to crash and burn. Or worse, they will read them out to everyone when we are already lying defeated on the floor, kicking us while we are down. The fact is, the person who has that list, is ourself. Only you will know about that time you poured milk all over Sophie when you were six years old, and only you will lie awake at night having had a bad day at work at twenty-five and tell yourself that "you were always destined to be a failure, you made her cry and spoilt the fun for everyone when you were six for goodness sake, no wonder you forgot to send that email"... or something along those lines. 

As such, you are the owner of this list. You are also at liberty to burn this list and, more importantly, at liberty to forgive yourself. You can accept your own apology. You can move forward and replace this list of misgivings with all the positive things that coexist with the negatives (which probably aren't that bad in the first place).

As it is, here is my list, and here is me forgiving myself.

1. I say the wrong thing far too often and give precisely the opposite impression to that which I want to give. Academically, I will give a garbled list of nouns and adjectives which my seminar tutor and peers will have to untangle and rephrase.

Personally, people sometimes don't realise I am joking, even when to me it is obvious. 

"Oh you're going to Spain on holiday? How traumatic for you"

"Actually my mother is Spanish"

"Oh but..."

and so on. 

2. Following the preamble to the list - I am far too focused on errors I have made through both action and inaction. 

"Sophie" is fictional, but the point still stands. I can't think of any particular errors that cause me to cringe terribly at this moment in time. Maybe you should instead ask me at about 1.35 tomorrow morning. 

3. Despite being in my final year and having successfully mentored two year groups through their first years at the same university, I still feel as though my university made a mistake in admitting me to their degree programme. This is irrespective of the fact I have achieved first class marks (in some modules), as well as other things. So it goes. I believe popular psychology calls it "impostor syndrome".

4. I am terrified of failing my degree. As in knee-bucklingly, sleep deprivingly petrified.

5. I am still about seventeen in my head. On the plus side, I am over fourteen, but still - a notable step back from my actual age... The thought of acting like a proper grown up terrifies me, despite the fact that many of my peers graduated this summer and are doing precisely that. University is my favourite place in the universe and it will cut me up to have to leave it, but not in the "up til 4am and stumble in still drunk to my lecture and the professor didn't even care" way that some students may have. Instead, I shall miss the liberty to find the nearest coffee shop and sit in it for hours doing my homework. I will miss the atmosphere of learning and progress that seeps from the walls. I will miss the ceaseless optimism for the future that exists on the other side of the walls. I will  miss the constant desire for improvement and enlightenment. I think this means I have to do a Masters....

As it is, my dear readers, you probably share these fears yourself. We are all, after all, human beings. Have I just described elements of that recurring ontological problem of the human condition? Highly likely. As per my previous post, we are not as unique as we think we are - which is both a comfort and a disappointment at the same time. 

I'll make a further confession: I have not stopped listening to Miley Cyrus' new album. It has to be one of the best produced records I have heard in a very long time. See point five of my list of failings, it is arguably related.