It is immensely liberating but synonymously depressing as I realise that I will no
longer have an educational structure to my life! I am always at the verge of
tears when I think back to the young and mild times of first year. It was
so lonely, so incredibly lonely.
Advice to those planning to start Arts
degrees, plan to be ALONE for 80% of the time, and plan to do some seriously
awkward, desperate and excessive socialising, because that’s the only method of
erasing loneliness!
Although from my three years of experience, loneliness is a
loyal and calming companion. Loneliness straddled me through my tough times and
necessary moments of self-reflection. I remember crying once or twice in the
hollowing space of the Quadrangle. Excruciating amounts of nostalgia arise as I
write this for I am no longer a part of a microcosm so tight, so free, and so
expectant. That liberating sigh as you strut through the perfect mixture of
historical sites and postmodern glass, knowing that there are still millions
and millions of bridges to climb through before you reach where I am.
I have
battled all the assessments, I have eaten the butterflies of (a few, since I
have about one per semester) examinations, and I have produced my equal share
of verbal-worthless-meaningless-verbose crap in presentations and speeches. I
have made countless acquaintances, familiarised myself with the faces of
non-acquaintances, know the best ways to avoid lecturers, and have cheerily
chatted to those who made my morning coffee. Coffee runs through my veins and without it, the zombie Sophia attacks.
In these three years I have come to
know and love some amazing brothers and sisters in Christ, shared our lives
together, and did a million silly things. I have matured with my little blonde
birdy, stepped into a few mud-puddles of heartbreaks, and healed it all with
the company of tears. I have snapped in and out of phases of feminism,
postfeminism, and post-post-feminism (and also now acutely aware that gender
studies is a waste of time, maybe). In accordance with traditional femininity, I now
have an English-Greek man pervading my daily life with his presence,
slowly engulfing all that I shouldn’t be. I have tripped, fallen, and grazed my
knees many times, and I have taken him with me.
It’s ok because he has a nice
watch.
I have achieved and unachieved many things in these three years but what
is most important above all else is that I have trusted my God and Saviour
through everything.
To all the expectant undergrads of 2012, do
this: lose yourself, find yourself, and lose it again at university, but never
lose the Creator.
But because of his great love for us, God,
who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved. Ephesians 2: 4-5
Sophia.
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