Stuff and things.

I've been feeling totally lousy for near on a month now, catching one infection after another since having my tooth removed, and being totally run down - hence the blogio silence. All the spare energy I've been able to muster has gone on the children, work and university work; James and I have been passing these illnesses back and forth so we're just trying to prop eachother up enough to carry on, picking up eachothers slack when it's needed.

The super annoying thing is that I've been desperate to get out and get some pretty outfit pics taken, I've got a bunch of ideas for the blog and I haven't had the energy to do anything about it. I have the odd day of feeling good. I've been trying to go to uni as much as physically possible (four hours of travel time a day is literally painful when you feel like this, so some days I have put my health over my studies I must admit) and in one brief illness interlude I was even able to meet up with Daisy, Tanya, Sharon and Kerry for a pancake breakfast of a Sunday morning. I was too ill to play with Mikey in his first experience of snow, and it looks set to snow again this weekend when I am yet again too poorly to run around and play in it. But hey, I'm alive!

I've got a handful of assignments coming up and its been SO hard to focus on any reading when your head is throbbing and there's a toddler whining in your ear. The work/life balance is so hard when you're a student with children, especially as I am doing a placement, working from home and also taking part in the URB@N project this year, and its only going to get harder. I've been trying to say 'yes' to the kids more, instead of blowing them off because I've got much more boring things to concentrate on. Just this afternoon Michael asked me if we could do some yoga together, so I decided to just go for it and actually it was quite fun (and I was impressed with his skillz!). My chest didn't thank me, but Michael did. I need to keep reminding myself that that's what matters.

Navigating University With A Mental Illness.

I have often felt overwhelmed and just quit situations when they got too difficult in the interest of self-preservation, and part of me honestly figured that University would be the same. But I've worked really hard and I've changed a few things in order to make sure that I stay on top of everything and I keep my head and my heart in my studies. Here are some things you can do to make life in University easier when you have a mental illness.

1. Keep an open dialogue with your doctor and/or counsellor. He or she will be able to adjust medication accordingly, identify the things that make you struggle and recognise the difference between ordinary 'not coping' and 'not coping' because of your mental illness.

2. Work two weeks ahead. You don't necessarily have to do this, and actually I've had three assignments in quick succession this month so haven't been able to keep up to date with this, but I've found reading without a time pressure meant I was able to take a breath, read it slowly and even re-read it if I found something I was struggling with.

3. Maintain your system of organisation. In first year, my system was one notebook, rip the pages out and file them in the relevant folders once a week. Did I do that? Well, I still have most of my notes from the second half of the year laying around the house. This year I have one book per module and my weekly reading notes go in the back half of the book. That way, I only need to remember one item per module and everything is on hand.

4. Read fiction, too. Or other kinds of factual books, if that's your thing. Heck, even blogs! Things were not clicking last year and I was having a huge crisis of confidence, until I started reading some really easy-going fiction and I realised I was just overloading myself and my brain needed a break. 

5. Let your personal tutor know what is going on. I haven't gone into ins and outs with mine, but he knows I am on medication, he knows I signed up to University counselling (I didn't actually use it, only because local counselling became available) and he knows I stressed myself out so much that I ended up in A&E last December. Your personal tutor's job is to guide you through your studies, making sure you achieve the best grades that you can, so of course he or she is going to offer you tips for organising your time and lightening your own load. They are there to help, not to judge.

6. Utilise the resources your University has available for you. If your University offers mental health support, it'd be a shame not to take it. If you are struggling and need an extension on an assignment, don't put it off - things are easier if you speak up sooner rather than later. Join societies and study groups if you feel like you work better in a group, use the silent study areas if you want to work on your own. 

7. Lean on your friends and family. I have ranted away to family and friends at times, and I have been distracted at other times and it has just made approaching my work seem all the easier. If they understand your mental state, they will want to help you.

8. Pat yourself on the back for every achievement. Did you hand in an assignment that you found difficult? AWESOME! Did you achieve a 'pass' grade? Even better! At the start of first year it was the end of the world if I got a B, and now I just feel amazing when I hand something in or even speak up in a seminar. It's about singling out achievements and celebrating them instead of seeing them in the bigger picture and devaluing them.

Five things you need to know before you start University.

Hey, Class of 2018! You're off to University in less than a month and you feel so scared, so excited, and so oblivious to what's ahead of you. That's exactly how I felt this time last year. So here are five things I didn't know last year that would have eased my anxiety and let me know what to expect as I embarked upon my degree. Happy Studenting!

1. University is not a party. Before I went to University it seemed like it was nothing more than a three-year piss-up, and I was pretty nervous that it just wasn't for me. But, in my experience, the people who waste their University years being drunk and stupid are actually judged by their peers in a sea of eye-rolls and lectured by their, well, lecturers, for shooting themselves in the foot. If you want to know 'where it's at' when you're at University, get down to the library. Screw the nightclub, you're about to learn the value of a silent room and endless shelves of reading material.

2. Preparation is key. No you don't have to do that set reading because, lets be honest, you're a grown up and you can make your own choices. But in my experience, if you haven't had time to do the preparatory reading for the lecture/seminar, it's a waste of time even going; the few things you do manage to grasp are so few and far between that instead of learning a whole, rounded fact, you learn 'pub knowledge' and realise down the line that you know a hell of a lot less than you thought you did. Prepare yourself by spreading your workload evenly and make sure you do everything that is required of you to make the most of your Uni years. There's no point even going to University if you're not going to come out of it with some shit-hot grades!

3. University is not secondary school. It's okay to be whoever you want to be at Uni, and you'd be hard-pushed to find somebody who has enough time to mock you for it. What's more, the pretty, ditzy types are side-eyed while the people who can offer decent conversation (and seem like a solid reliable choice for future group projects!) are favoured by their peers. Sure, it's basically snobbery just coming from the new direction, but you have worked so hard to be here and maintain your grades, why shouldn't you take a moment to revel in finally being valued for your mind? Oh, and on the school note, please don't call your lecturers 'sir' or ask them if you can go to the toilet in the middle of a lecture. Awkward.

4. It really sucks, but University has to be number one. And however old you are, there are things you'd much rather be doing. For me personally, I have two children and a husband and sometimes it breaks my heart when I have to lock myself away and ignore them for a couple of days (especially when I'm actively telling them to go away and leave me alone) because I've got a deadline creeping up or just a particularly hefty load of reading to do that week. But what I keep telling them, and more often myself, is that it is only three years out of your entire life. Things are hard now so that they can be easier later.

5. Finally, keep a dialogue going with your personal tutor. At the beginning of the year you will be assigned a lecturer from your department who will be your personal tutor (or a similarly-named point of contact) and he or she will follow your University journey closely to ensure things are going along as they should. It's really important that you talk to your personal tutor about any life changes or reasons for any long-term absences. Your PT will call you in for a meeting if there are any issues (such as poor grades or low attendance) so the best thing you can do is keep them in the loop on everything. They're not there to be scary, they're not school headmasters, their job is to get you through University with First Class Honours.

Just life and stuff

My first exam, which was for American history, actually went really well yesterday. We had to choose two essay questions and I ended up going for one about cultural conflict in the 1920s and one about political paranoia in the Cold War. I was able to write and write on both subjects, there were no points that I had to stop and think "oh God, what do I write now?!" so all in all I'm confident that I've passed and am now up to 40 credits towards my degree! (The first 20 credits being from a module that has no exam, though I'm yet to actually receive my average grade). I got home and we celebrated by having our friend Kathy come over - our Thursday night get-togethers have become somewhat of a tradition! - eating KFC, doing the Time Warp and booking tickets to see Rocky Horror Picture Show in Birmingham next January, as a bit of an impulse buy. I'm really looking forward to it, though Lord knows what we're going to do about childcare.

Today it's just more revision, really. I have a Women's History exam on Tuesday which I'm really looking forward to, and then Blood and Iron (origins of the first world war, essentially) which I'm not so much so need to really brush up. I've been watching Crash Course videos every day so I at least feel like I've got SOMETHING to say, and holla! I feel like I can finally explain the July Crisis.

On Saturday the 16th I'm having a tooth extracted by conscious sedation as it has crumbled away at the teeth on either side have already began to migrate together, making it a bit tricky to come out. And then my final two exams, Holocaust and then Kings and Confessions (all about early modern Europe) are the 18th and 19th. I'm a little worried about the little time available from the 16th to the 19th and how much pain I'll be in/how much I'll feel like studying so I really need to knuckle down and feel confident by Friday the 15th I think.

And then I'll be finished! 120 credits down, 240 to go! I'm not sure when we get our exam results, I'm really hoping not to have to do any re-sits - aside from the obvious, the re-sits are a couple of weeks before the wedding and it's the last thing I need to be worrying about while trying to plan our big day. Three months today, somehow. WHAT? 

This has been a ramble but I've got back in to reading blogs recently and it's been so nice to actually read proper lifestyle, not staged posts to see who can get the most hits and be the best 'brand'. So I thought I'd just throw in a bit of a ramble. I know I'll look back on exam madness and laugh. Or look back in 3rd year and cry into my dissertation, wishing for exams...

On Adding Slashes To Your Name

It might have been Beyonce I saw in the early noughties (it also might not have been), who I saw on a budget documentary, making her way into another facet of her career, talking excitedly about how she was now able to add 'slashes' to her name. She wasn't just a singer, she was singer SLASH actress SLASH producer. I might not be Beyonce (I actually don't get the love. Sorry blogosphere, I just don't) but I do have slashes to my name.

I am Fee. Mother slash student slash fiancée slash local editor.

It's fucking hard.

Any one of these things is inherently difficult, but the more you team them together the more you have to sacrifice bits of each. I have had to create a little hierarchy of roles in my head. Some of the placements are time dependent and might change because of deadlines, but that doesn't stop the guilt. I mean, how do I justify moving 'mother' down a peg because I've got something to sort out at work? Or some reading to do for University? And in all honesty, I have to move that role down a couple of times a day. Here, kids. Take these crayons. Let me go through my work emails.

The toughest combination is that of mother and student. Other students can finish class at 2pm, get home and crack the books open. I have to leave university, I have just over an hour journey home, pick up at least one child, do the dishes from breakfast time, put a load of washing on, play with at least one child (depending on who has control of Netflix at the time), make dinner, eat dinner, bath at least one child, do homework with one, read stories to the other, get one off to bed, clean the kitchen, make tomorrow's breakfast and lunch, do the third set of dishes, put away the dry clothes from the last lot of washing, hang up the new lot, get the other child off to bed, tidy away the toys from the day, tell big child it's time to turn her tab off, get bag ready for the next day - and that makes it 9pm. I leave at 6am 3 days a week so I try to be in bed as close to 9 as possible to avoid getting ill. Very often I find myself sacrificing personal hygiene in order to actually get my required reading done, let alone anything extra. Other students also have weekends: at the moment we take one day each (Jay is a first year student too) to lock ourselves in the bedroom and have the other watch the kids, unless there's an assignment coming up. Of course, being a student means the 'fiancée' slash suffers greatly too. Oh and add 'home-maker'(if that's still a thing) in there because what do I sacrifice to make time to clean the bathroom, change the cat litter, change the bedding, polish the shelving, etc etc etc? 

A massive problem of mine has been guilt. I felt guilty when I snapped at my children because I was trying to power through my work and they were getting too excitable with eachother. I felt guilty when I realised every grade so far has been a B: all this sacrifice and I'm not *quite* good enough for an A each time. I felt guilty when I looked at the spreadsheet at work and saw that 90% of people had finished something before me. I felt guilty when I looked back over the previous week and didn't remember any moments of quality time with my fiancé. But having slashes (not peeing) means learning to accept guilt and appreciate transience. These opportunities won't be there forever, and you have to think about which moments you'll be saddest to have missed. 

Okay, so I didn't get an A. I took my kids to the park instead. 

So the dishes wait until the morning. I'm going to have a cup of tea and a chat with my fiancé instead. 

Do you have slashes in your name? How do you cope?!

University.

Now that I'm happily back into my routine following Christmas, I thought I'd do a little post about my life at University. I've said I'm a student a handful of times, but haven't tended to talk much about what I'm actually studying.

I'm in the first year of a three year course, studying BA History. Within this course I take six modules. It's a lot more reading than many other courses, it sounds very factual and dry and while some of it is, there is actually a lot of room for light-hearted history! Many students take history as a joint-honours course, along with psychology or politics (or teaching, of course) and you can absolutely see why. Social history in particular is a great one for teaming up with psychology: how did people live? Why did that happen to that class, or sex, of person? I study everything from European conflicts and 18th century political groups, through to the definition and history of gender, witchcraft, and the psychology of ordinary Germans (or, more interestingly, Nazis) in Nazi Germany. All of this within the space of my first year.

This is a bit 'different' for the blogosphere, I get that. I get that most people will skip past this post because, hello, who is interested in simply hearing what somebody is studying at University? But I just thought I'd put it out there for anybody who is curious and, more importantly, anybody who is stuck thinking about what they want to do when they finish school.

In terms of job opportunities, they are endless with a history degree. It's one of those brilliant degrees that can get you jobs within many fields because of the basic skills you need to actually obtain a history degree. As for myself, I don't know what I want to do when I leave. Maybe something in an office. Maybe I'll work from home. Maybe head back into journalism. For now, I'm loving learning, loving the structure and believe it or not, even loving the 2000 word assignments that keep cropping up!

What are you studying, or what do you want to study? Did you use your degree? Let me know in the comments!

I open at the close

See that title? That was going to be a really cool and significant title about closing one chapter of my life and opening another. I was going to leave work on my last day, get home and BAM! Out comes that first blog post on this brand new and incredibly shiny blog!

So I left work at the end of September and here I am only posting now, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the layout is not finished. My lovely boyfriend Jay is working on a design for me but he's as snowed under with uni work as I am (probably more if I'm having time to write this) and to be honest doesn't need me nagging at him. So I'm charging on without him. Feet, don't fail me now.

Secondly, uh hello, I started University. And I'm still working from home. And I'm a mother for goodness sake! Points two, three and four there can be summed up in one single sentence: I have not had the time. But here I am, taking my camera everywhere with me, writing lists of content ideas and just desperate to get going. So go I shall.

This space is just somewhere to chill out, put on some make-up, have a laugh at my own expense and look at pretty clothes and pictures and stuff. Please do the same while you're here! Hope you enjoy!