Amelia Talks: friendships

Hello and welcome back to my blog, I am so happy to be writing this blog post, mainly because I feel like I need to just need to get this off my chest, I even filmed a video on it. This is something I actually think that most girls, or most people should actually spend more time focusing on it.

This is about why I am choosing myself over others now, and what I am doing to really be happy by myself.

As Carrie Bradshaw once said, "I am just going to be myself. Single and Fabulous!" Which is the exact thing I am going to be.

In the words of Ru Paul, "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love someone else."

It takes a lot to say NO I am going to just focus on myself now and no one else and trust me I for one definitely get it, I have always been a person who puts other peoples feelings before mine! But sometimes you have to realise if you don't focus on yourself, you are not going to be happy!

Being free and just the chance to be yourself and feel like you are going to love yourself and give yourself self care and make sure you are the happiest you can be on your own.

I have a few reasons why I am choosing myself, first of all is HAPPINESS! This is because you can't and shouldn't rely on others to make you happy, yes you can be happy in the company of others but that doesn't mean you can't be happy with your own company and it should be you making yourself happy which is something I have had to learn over the past two years of university.

Another thing is I am starting to realise I don't NEED others to make me happy, I just need myself, I need to focus on me and making myself happy! Which if you give yourself a healthy mindset you can be happy.

This point leads on, the lss you need others the more INDEPENDANT you will become, becuase you won't be relying on anyone else but yourself to be happy which means you can realy focus on yourself. Because the more you rely on others to make you happy, means you'll do anything to make them happy even if you're not happy. So once you start focusing on yourself you become more independant.

Another thing is and this goes back to making others happy, STOP doing things you don't want to do for others just because it'll make them happy.

Another thing is and this is what I did all the time, I let people walk all over me and say things and would just be like im so sorry and whatever even if I wasn't in the wrong STICK UP FOR YOURSELF, even though it is hard to do so and trust I get it, sticking up for yourself is the most important thing and if you lose friends because of it then really they aren't a true friend.

Another reason I am chosing me over anything is to stop OVERTHINKING, it is something I always struggle with, I will overthink any little thing I can and honestly it actually sucks because it makes me not want to do anything and I just sit there and be miserable and scared and down for the whole day.

I hope you enjoy my blog because I am very excited to be blogging for everyone! if you do, i would love if you followed my socials which can be found below.

Instagram: @_ameliajl
Twitter: @ameliajfilms
YouTube: amelialaingfilms

Well welcome back to my blog, it's been a while hasn't it? so since my last post, what has happened? Well lets see, it has to be the fact that university became too much that to focus on my youtube and my blog as well as uni work was not something I could do. But now I have finished university for the second year, which means I have some time off, which means I can focus on my youtube and my blog.

So now that I am writing this blog post, of course I ahve finished second year and like last year I am going to summarise this year for me in a blog post. I am going to be talking about different things though to last year, because genuinely that was first year and there was a lot of adjustments compared to this year when I am used to being away from home. Be prepared this could be quite long so grab yourself a drink or a snack or both and get too reading.

This year has been a weird one and a test on myself if I am honest, I have had too many break downs this year and my mental health has been a bit up and down this whole year.

As I was saying earlier, second year really played a part of a hard year, I will be honest, social aspects and money stress didn't help, but second year really wasn't as much of a walk in the park as first year was and you really shouldn't expect it too. I will try and split it into topics like I did the last one but I honestly might struggle to do so.

(University of Portsmouth, Union Awards - Show Choir Performance)

1. The Course

I guess this is the most important thing for uni, because you're going to university to get a degree in the course, so I should probably explain that part first. This was what caused a lot of my problems this year, when they said second year is like 10 times harder then first year, they aren't joking and it is important to be prepared for it. When September came I was very excited to start second year, felt like it was going to be a change but a good change, felt more confident and eager to learn. The year started and already by the first day I was piled with a lot of work to do, including seminar prep. Every unit said that we should dedicate 5 hours outside of uni hours for each unit which meant for me, considering we had 6 units to complete within the year, ,so that meant 30 extra hours a week to focus on the units and then more hours when coursework came in. It became all too much and made this year very stressful.

I can't exactly pin point the reason why this year was such a hard year, but there was just so much to take in. Don't get me wrong what I learnt, most of the units were helpful to my future and what I would like to know in the future apart from one unit, that in my mind can go to hell, and I hope I never get to see anything to do with accounting again. Although I know that my course is really going to help me when I actually get that degree next year, some of the things I learnt this year really was not useful or helpful.

One piece of advice I will definitely be able to give you for second year is don't think you will be done with things from first year, you might actually repeat it again in a different scenario.

2. Friendships and Relationships

Something that did change a lot this year was my friendships and it was a shame because some of the friends that I kind of don't talk to anymore were some people I was really close with last year. But things do change especially in second year from first year, because for example I was close with my flatmates last year alongside their girlfriends and now we barely speak, and actually I only still occaisionally speak to their girlfriends on social media but that's all the contact I have with them now because we just grew apart because we're not living together anymore.

Not everything stays the same from First Year, you make so so many friends in first year because of the living situation and how new everything is, that you meet people and they instantly become friends to the point when you move to second years some of those friends you used to hang out with.

One thing I had was my best friend went to France for the year to study there, which meant she wasn't here for the whole year which made it a little harder this year because she was the one person I would run too when ever things felt to much or I was miserable etc.

3. Stress

So in this year I can hands down say that it was the most stressful year yet and I am aware my final year is going to stress me out, but so far this year was very stressful. This went from the Uni work, to managing my social life and then budgeting my money, none of that worked for me this year and it led to me stressing out a lot of the time, I always found a way to be stressed and if I was honest I never expected to be having it easy as so many people said second year was stressful but unfortunately this year was more stressful then I thought.

4. Society

As I have spoken about several times and especially in my last blog post, I am part of the Show Choir Society and this year it has been the best part of my year. I really grew this year thanks to this group of people, from gaining the confidence to audition for a solo song in the christmas showcase that I actually got and had to sing infront of people which a year ago I would have ran away from. Then I also auditioned to be part of the competition squad which originally I didn't get into and then someone dropped out and I was asked to be a part of it. It has been such a good year and helped me gain confidence in myself, to the point that I actually signed up to be part of the committee in the next year and got the role of secutary.

So that is the end of my post about my second year experience and that is the end of second year! Although this year has been a hard year I don't regret any of it.

I hope you enjoy my blog because I am very excited to be blogging for everyone! if you do, i would love if you followed my socials which can be found below.

Instagram: @_ameliajl
Twitter: @ameliajfilms
YouTube: amelialaingfilms

Hello and welcome back to my blog, how's everyone doing? It's been a while since I last posted a post but now all exams are over and first year is done! How exciting! So now here we are with another post and it's one long over due after filming a video about it, but it is my first year university experience. Back in October I gave you my freshers experience but now I have been at the university for a year now, I think it's about time I talk about the experience I have had and hope that maybe this will help others who are either going to University in September or are thinking of going in the future.

When I chose to go off to university I didn't think I was going to last even a year but things definitely changed once i got there. I am going to break this post down in different sections. In each section I will give my experience within it as well as advice for people who need the advice.

But first off you can find my YouTube video of this down below.

Section 1 - Living in Halls

When I first started university, I was definitely worried about living in halls, would I get along with my flat mates, would I be able to hang out with my flat mates, what if they hate me. It's a big change to go from living at home with your parents to then just jump up and leave and live in halls on your own with just a group of people who also have done the same thing. That's when you realise you're no longer at school, clique's don't exist, you can be yourself and most people don't care. I was very lucky that my flat mates made living away from home very easy, we bonded very quickly and although we had one flat mate that never really joined us, we did get on very well with him as well. I was the only girl in my flat but honestly, I didn't mind it, we all got on, we all spoke about a lot of things and we used to always hang out and do things as a flat.

As time moved a head, things with my flat started to not be the same, partly because when they got in relationships things just drifted but it wasn't that we didn't get on, we actually still got on really well but we didn't do things together as much any more. Now although that really did suck because it made me feel really lonely and that was when I started to feel slightly depressed but luckily there were people to pick me up and that definitely got better because i found people in the halls that I could go to.

Another thing about halls, is that it really made me feel so much more independent then if I had decided to stay at home and commute but also makes me more proud and happy to have come to university. I have learnt how to deal with problems on my own, what it's like to survive on my own and what I have to do. I have learnt how to slightly cook for myself although not even going to lie, I am more excited about going home and not having to cook for myself and enjoy my dads cooking again.

Section 2 - Friendships at University

When you are at university, it's easy to believe you won't make friends like I mentioned above that I didn't think I would make friends with the people I lived with. I also didn't think I would make friends with others as well. It's surprising how quickly you make friends at uni, and how many friends you make. Now of course some of these will just be friends you see occasionally in class and you might bump into on a night out. But others will be friends you'll

meet up with outside of the class and hang out with them, talk, go shopping, explore the place you're now living and just having fun and making memories.

Another way of making friends in your course is group work. Majority of uni's do

this, especially first years but probably second years too, they put you in groups as in the real world you usually have to end up working as a team for a career. When working in groups, you have to spend a lot of time with the people who are in your group, which also leads to getting to know them. I made three of my closest friends from my marketing group, and we ended up spending a lot of time at the group meetings chatting instead of doing work. One of my best friends Simran also came from being part of a group and without her I probably wouldn't have the friends I do now and I am very grateful for.

My advice for people nervous about making friends at university is just be yourself, and don't think about past experiences at school with making friends, because I garentee you, it's not like school when you have to fit in and be part of a "clique", people will just easily talk to you and just be approachable and you will make friends, quicker then you think you will.

Section 3 - Friendships at Home

This is something I definitely wished more people spoke about before I left for uni, because my closest friends who go to uni both commute so I still got the chance to see them when i was back home last year before coming to university. Friendships at home are something you want to make sure you can keep them going so when you go home you can go to them, you can spend time with them and catch up. Now luckily for me most of my friendships at home stayed the same, mainly because we were used to not seeing each other that often and when we did it obviously meant a lot. But uni did strain one of my friendships at home and as much as I want to say I think we'll still be friends in the future, things have been complicated, with some friends thinking I have changed since being at uni, well that was inevitable, but in my eyes and majority of my friends I have changed for the better but in one of my friends eyes I changed for the worse and wasn't making time for my "real friends" But I was for my uni friends. Going with this at uni you're going to spend time with people at the uni otherwise you'll be lonely but that doesn't change how i feel about my friends at home. With this, my closest friends at uni are my real friends alongside my friends from home and I shouldn't have to seperate them because I have met them at uni, because when you're around people every day at uni, you get closer to them quicker then you think.

Although it can strain friendships like it has with one of my friends, it does make you value your friendships at home more because it gives you something to look forward too when you have to go home. When you have attached yourself to a group of friends at uni and then you have to go and not see them for a certain amount of time, it's nice to know that when you go home you can catch up with your friends from home and have a lot to talk about and catch up on.

Section 4 - Stress

As you are aware when you grow up, you will get more stress but something they don't tell you yet you kind of expect with university is Stress! I have definitely encountered a lot of stress over the time of being at uni and it hasn't exactly been fun dealing with this stress but it has definitely been something to learn from and I have definitely learned from this. One of the big stresses is Money! As a student you are given a maintenance loan with your student finance and this is great and you see a large sum of money in your account but the problem with that is for me anyway is that I just wanted to spend it on anything and before I knew it I was slowly running out of money. It became stressful because I had to turn down some amazing things but the stress it left me with was more will I have enough money for whilst I am at home in holidays and using an overdraft is a big stress because you don't want to use it all up.

Another thing that I ended up stressing about was finding someone to live with next year and having a place to live. It's not easy finding people to live with and it's also not easy finding a house and it led to a stress. Luckily this stress only lasted a few days for me because when I started stressing over it, I then met someone who needed one more person to live with next year to make a group of four of us and luckily for me, I love making new friends so it wasn't that hard for me to say yes.

Something everyone expects to stress about is Deadlines, the Dreaded Deadlines that approach very quickly even when you don't expect them too. It's easy for you to get caught up in exciting things before you then realise you have like a week to get this essay written. I mean I got stressed about them more because I didn't understand some of my coursework that led to me having four days to write an essay that I didn't really understand but luckily I got it done, didn't get the best grade for that one but either way it was definitely a stressful time.

Section 5 - Societies

The final section is all about Societies, so this is something I advise as many of you who are going to university to join. Societies are there for a reason, they are there for you to do something you enjoy that's not your course and a place where you can make new friends and friends who all enjoy what you enjoy which makes it more fun and something to make you bond. I joined Show Choir and when I first joined I was so quiet and honestly didn't think I would enjoy it. As time went by I grew out of my shell and started talking to everyone and then became very good friends with everyone in show choir. I was also very lucky to win an award at the end of year meal for Miss Congeniality because I always had a smile on my face, I made friends with everyone and apparently put a smile on everyone's faces.

That is the end of my First Year University Experience, so I know it's a lot of writing and not many pictures but there was a lot to say. Hope you do enjoy the pictures that are there though.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog post.

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