I knew going into exchange that it would be hard. It’s everything I hate. Change. Being away from the people I love with absolutely no support around me. Unpredictable conversations with no set script. Self-reliance in every aspect.
I am proud of myself for a lot this week. I’ve sat in the uncomfortable and have overcome mental blocks. I’ve forced myself to meet new people in so many new situations. I’ve started conversations and carried them when whoever I’m meeting is somehow worse at talking than I am (which I wasn’t sure was possible). I’ve had to navigate every single minute of my life without any guidance whatsoever (although I still don’t know how the bin system works in the flat). And yet, I feel still so far behind everyone else here. I have pushed my comfort zone, stretching every single strand of my being to make sure I am not alone.
To very quickly recap the events of the last week:
On Saturday I moved in. Took a train down from Glasgow and arrived into the station at which I decided I would sacrifice the extra £2 to get an Uber instead of figuring out the bus system whilst simultaneously dragging upwards of 30kg with me. Once arrived I (stupidly) walked straight past the massive map that would’ve told me where the Fallowfield reception was, and instead tried pushing three locked doors. The silence made me even more anxious. After ringing ResLife (the RAs) and a grumpy response of “we’re not on duty”, he came down to point out the stupidly large sign on the reception block visible from where I had been. Keys collected, I found my flat (again, in the deathly silent move in day, what is with that ???).
I made myself leave the flat (eventually) to buy a duvet and pillows at the nearest store (45 mins away) after I realised there was absolutely no-one else there. I still desperately need a mattress protector, I’m currently sleeping on a rock. I met two other exchanges for dinner, one from UPenn (Yoojin) and another from UVM (Mary). We realised the severe lack of dinner places in our area and so I experienced Americans trying British Maccas for the first time (“they have SALAD????”). We met a few other exchanges at the Wetherspoons (Sophia (Tennessee), Erin (Melbourne), Georgia (Sydney), Amy (Sydney), Julie (Lyon, France), Rachel (Ottawa)).
On Sunday, I locked myself away in my room (what a surprise !) and allowed myself out when it hit 7pm to go to dinner at a pizza place around the corner (Haus) with the exchanges I’d met the night before. It turned into a surprise comedy show including two incredibly unfunny men trying crowd work, and then a lovely woman came on with a brilliantly funny planned set to save the night. They then had the audacity to ask for a £3 donation after I sat through two hours of uncomfortably homophobic jokes (not made any better by his attempt at demonstrating scissoring to a straight girl) (??) and whose best part of his set was a poem written by someone else in the audience about their Fresher year.
Monday, I had a single lecture at 10am, grabbed a coffee with Yoojin and did some admin (by admin I mean in reality I was planning future hypothetical weekend trips). I suggested the weekly pub quiz at the student union to a group of 15 girls, which was brilliant until another 40 exchanges turned up after the quiz finished and I got overwhelmed. We made it into a new bar, where 5 of us listed our Rose (good thing), Bud (something to look forward to) and a Thorn (a not so good thing) of our day. Owen (sorry for the random names, you’ll just have to go with it) then explained the order I should watch the Drag Races in, of which I cannot remember anything order other than starting with Season 5?? I came home and forced myself to finally meet my flatmates (3 of 9 of them at least), Nilly, Jack and Eric.
Tuesday was another day of classes, including sociology (why did I do that to myself). I had coffee with Nilly and Jack after walking through the underwhelming (yet somehow overwhelming) Refreshers Club Fair. I then forced myself to go completely alone to the neuroscience society’s pub crawl and almost did not go. One of the hardest things I’ve done all week, but I figured I’d have to meet some proper Brits at some point. All of them were very nice, and after a few drinks I wondered why I even have anxiety in the first place. Walked home from the local club (256) in the rain and ‘feels-like’ -8 degree weather in a shirt, carrying my cheese chips & gravy.
Wednesday, I had another class and then I avoided going to buy my pots and pans that I needed to cook my own dinners. I then sat in a Starbucks for 5 hours attempting to plan Dublin for St Paddy’s Day (which was never going to work, even before 22 people turned up to the planning meeting). A London weekend was planned instead for Valentine’s Day weekend. I then had a crash out when five of what will probably become my closest friends here booked Dublin flights for this weekend and then gave me two hours to decide whether I was coming or not (the answer was eventually no). It was probably the first moment I processed my burning fear of not being included and anxiety to try and do everything with everyone and make proper close friendships.
On Thursday I had classes until 6, and so effectively crashed when I got back to the flat and didn’t move until 2pm the next afternoon to go to my Friday classes.
Throughout Friday I was trying to avoid thinking about the Dublin trip I was missing, and after buying alcohol for the first time in a grocery store (weird experience but cheap Fireball and wine, so) I joined the neuroscience group again for a pres before going clubbing for the first time. Thank you to the £3 bottle of Sainsbury’s wine I bought, you were horrible but you did the job. I looked like a drenched rat throughout, and I really hope it stops raining here soon (it won’t). I will need to buy a good going out coat. Burger Box was also a truly life-changing post-club meal.
Saturday was surprisingly only half made up of sleeping off the hangover, and I met five other girls out for Pho in the city and thrift shopping. It was here that one of the girls said there were already established friendships, so no one needed to worry about people not including you in anything.
Hence my generational crash out today and feeling like an incredible failure of exchange. Because while I have been friendly with people, I feel as if I have prioritised trying to meet everyone over meeting a few and making strong friendships with those few. The other Erin told me I was doing the best out of everyone she’s met, but have I really? I’m not so sure. I don’t have a strong connection with anyone. I don’t make friends that easily.
Regardless, it took me until 3pm to submit to walking to Sainsbury’s yet again to buy a sandwich for dinner. Tomorrow I really need to buy my pots and pans. And maybe some posters for my room.
On Tuesday night, someone asked me what my goals were for exchange. I hadn’t given any thought to goals until that moment, so my answers of ‘be able to pick which part of the UK people come from by their accent’, ‘travel’ and ‘make friends before my birthday’ were wildly unprepared. When I thought about it more by myself afterwards I came up with my non-exhaustive list of goals.
- Convince myself that I can say no and mean it.
- Say yes to more opportunities.
- Sit on every public bench in the city at least once.
- Stop caring about my weight because no one actually gives a fuck.
- Visit Iceland to see the northern lights.
- Visit Morocco because I need balance after Iceland.
- Make at least one friendship I feel comfortable to not mask in.
- Pass my classes and actually understand what I was meant to be studying.
- Finally buy my pots and pans and become an almost functioning adult so I can stop eating sandwiches for dinner.
- Decorate my room so it feels less like a prison cell.
- Compliment more people without overthinking it.
- Write prose/poetry/essays more consistently.
- Learn to sit with discomfort instead of running from it.
- Submit assessments on time.
- Collect trinkets and memories and little things.
- Learn to communicate instead of disappearing, and to text first without overthinking it.
- Find a coffee shop with decent enough coffee that my first thought isn’t “I miss Australian coffee”.
- Be dramatic only when it’s artistically justified.
- Cook at least three meals that aren’t pasta or mince.
- Let go of the urge to constantly reinvent myself to be liked.
- Document everything in photos but also videos, because I don’t take nearly enough videos.
- Make at least one impulsive but harmless decision.
- Figure out who I am when no one is watching.
- Kiss a girl (or anyone really).
- Go on solo dates and not feel judged.
- Become the kind of person younger me needed.
- Keep a running list of quotes and ‘only on exchange’ moments.
- Find a good sunset spot.
- Stop Googling health symptoms.
- Romanticise my 30-minute bus ride into uni. Or walk to save money.
- Find the best post-night out food and stop being so afraid of kebab shop chicken.
- On a similar note, eat something off of a street pop-up shop purely because it looks sketchy (may as well get rid of my emetophobia while I’m overseas too).
- Start finding clothes I’m comfortable in.
- Take Facebook mum photos for shits n gigs.
- Stop being terrified to walk into my own flat’s kitchen.
My goal for next week in particular is to stop putting so much pressure on myself to make those strong connections quickly, because lets be honest, even my closest friends had to yap at me for at least a month before I even considered them close to me. Oh, and to buy those fucking pots and pans.
But, overall, this week has not been a complete failure. I didn’t hole up every single night, I don’t feel unsafe, and I don’t feel wildly homesick (yet). So. There’s hope.
And with that, I’ll see you next week x
Song of the week:
Erin on Exchange 