this week i went to see benedict cumberbatch as hamlet and it was brilliant!!! it’s the second play i’ve ever seen live (second only to a showing of the BFG i was treated to age 7), and holy moly was it a cracker of a performance. i went with one of my best friend’s from university, ned, and although neither of us understood every single word said, it was nice to experience something we wouldn’t usually think much of. we ate tacos and quesadillas in camden and then proceeded to get ready for a night out at a club called roxy with ned’s childhood friend ciar, where we spent an hour and a half drinking as much long island ice tea as our stomachs could handle and dancing to jamie t and the libertines. stumbling back to ciar’s flat at 4am we were given all the leftover pastries and bread by the nice man running the corner shop, much to three students’ drunken delight. the next two days involved sleeping in, eating said pastries and pizza, telling each other awful ghost stories, forcing ned to watch national treasure, walking around london giving bad renditions of songs from les mis and one direction’s back catalogue, and baking a terrible victoria sponge cake.
my other best friend, charlotte, moved to spain this morning for her year abroad and it still hasn’t sunk in that i won’t have the ann perkins to my leslie knope living five feet away for the next twelve months. but i’m trying to think positively about this change!! as much as tv shows like to tell us, best friends won’t always live next door to one another and i’m hoping that this separation will (warning: cliche approaching) bring us closer together. and if nothing else, i might get a free holiday out of it.
i registered for university again so i’m finally going into the second year of my degree! i’m taking modules in african-american culture and history, the rise and fall of the soviet union, mandarin - amongst others - and i’m part-terrified, part-ecstatic. i’m hoping to mentor a few first years and tell them all about the mental health services available at nottingham (many of which i didn’t realise existed until i had become too overwhelmed by my anxiety). it’s astounding how many people suffer from some sort of mental health problem - not just at university - and how easy it is to pretend it simply doesn’t exist. the latter is something i am going to try and work on this year: being honest with myself. it’s a work-in-progress and i know that it’ll be hard, but i have to realise when i am struggling and ask for help, rather than believing it will all be ok if i wish it so.
just remember, nothing is as ever as bad as you overthink it to be.