Life after Bellerbys College

2010: What a Ride!

A gentle thud woke the others passengers up as I was already at the edge of my seat, waiting to get off the plane. I have probably gone through this experience for a couple of times now, but the hype of seeing my family and friends again always gets to me.

And then there they were. My mum and dad with anxious faces, looking here and there for me. As usual, we hugged briefly and made our way back home. We were all thankful for my safe trip back home, seeing how many students were stuck in the UK due to the harsh snow weather.

I came back in time for Christmas, being able to celebrate it with my family and friends. Something I see as the perfect Christmas gift.

Not only that, a reunion was conveniently organised among my childhood friends, giving me the opportunity to see how much the people I knew since young, have grown.

Indeed they did not disappoint as they all turned out to be fine young ladies and gentlemen, some still with a slight hint of their childish mischief. I never realised how much I missed them until I saw them in their flesh again. It was a great reunion.

Right after Christmas, my parents and I went on a getaway at Singapore in time to celebrate the new year. The last time I have been to the country was probably 6 years ago and I was impressed by how much they have grown.

Singapore is definitely one of the leading developing countries, showing exemplary progress. Saying so, I have done my part of contributing to their economy: shopping excessively down the endless block of shopping malls at Orchard Road.

Of course, I also savoured their food, though there are much more to savour back in Malaysia. The highlight of the trip was definitely the new year fireworks. It was a splendid display, with stellar sparks of various colours and formations, taking everyone’s breath away. While watching the fireworks, I prayed that my wishes for the new year would come true.

Back from my vacation, I finally had to deal with the assignments that have been hovering at the back of my mind. Yes, I had assignments due in the new year. I spent the last few days writing thousands of words and drawing on multiple sheets of paper, hoping that I am doing them carefully enough to land good grades.

In no time, I had to part ways with the people who meant home to me again. It was never easier every single time I had to bid farewell to them. But all I knew was that each time I faced this moment, I was a different person, constantly growing with more and more experiences gone through.

2010 has been quite a roller coaster ride. It was definitely not as ideal compared to previous years seeing how I actually had to start dealing with many other things like living independently, social networking, rebuilding a reputation from scratch and adapting to new cultures. It was nothing like high school where all you had to worry about were your grades.

A trying year I would say, but one where I have gained the most experiences about life through the new environments and occasional setbacks. It was the year when I started college at Bellerbys Brighton, with seven months of engineering education, then to where I am now: the University of Sheffield. All in all, I still appreciate it and am looking forward to an awesome new year. I just have a gut feeling that it is going to be good.

Bring it on 2011! Thank you for reading!

David studied Engineering Foundation at Bellerbys College, a university preparation college for international students

New Year Resolutions

Didn’t write anything here for a long time – I know you missed me so I will no longer keep you waiting!  Actually at the beginning I thought that I won’t manage to update the blog till the 19th of February – the day of the true nightmare – the Biological Chemistry exam.  But then I thought that my revision (or re-learning to be more exact) would be more efficient if I distract myself from it from time to time. I must admit that I ended up not doing anything, but promise to start studying like crazy from tomorrow. 

So this brings me back to my first New Year resolution – introduce into my life some sort of a study plan. I really did not need it in Bellerbys – everything has been already organized for us by our teachers (thank you all very much again, it is greatly appreciated, especially now!). But university is the time to become independent and take your own responsibilities.  Staff from Biochemistry department showed this to us in a very efficient manner.  Obviously they were always telling us how important is to go through the lectures, understand and learn the material as the year progresses and do not leave it for the last minute. But we would not be students if we would have listened to them.  So they just gave us a test on all the examinable material in biological chemistry course with just one week to prepare. An important take-home message – it’s not GCSE or even A-level - it’s simply impossible to learn everything in a week, even if you are a genius as a couple of people in Imperial definitely are.

My second resolution is to finally start doing some sport – I have been thinking about it from time to time since the beginning of the year (if not since I came to the UK).  But there has always been something – fresher’s week, societies, friends, parties, essays or lab reports - to stop me from giving it a go. This term was about to start in the same way - the test followed by an exam – what a good excuse!  I felt that if I will not start now I will not do it until the next year.

I can tell you that the feeling was weird – I did not have a clue where things are in the sport’s center, had no idea how machines at the gym work (luckily after reading the instructions and with a help of a few boys I kind of sorted it out). It was painful – after the first class my legs were trembling so I could barely climb the stairs (surprisingly it got better after some time in the pool) and it hurt for at least three more days. But actually I felt good. Cannot say that I was very productive in terms of my study afterwards but I definitely felt better. Together with another one of my new year resolutions (yes, I have got a couple of them as you can see) – to sleep at least 8 hours a day - even my parents have noticed the difference during our traditional talk on Skype.

So far so good but then it was Monday and…it was my birthday (I am 19 now for those who don’t know and are interested for some reason)! And my entire perfect study/sleep/sport plan has collapsed. 

On the day itself I went to my friend’s house where we cooked, ate the birthday cake, watched a film and talked till very late. You might think that it was it as I really liked my new life according to my new rules…but actually breaking them felt even better! 

For the rest of the week I ended up wasting my time in endless phone conversations, watching movies for which I did not have time during the whole previous term and preparing for the big party. I decided to organize a cocktail night at my place and invite my dear girls – this obviously involved quite a bit of planning and even a bigger amount of shopping. But the party was definitely worth it – the pleasure to see everyone (my ex-neighbour even came from Edinburgh to attend the party!), some very kind words in the cards and do not forget the beautiful presents - this is just a perfect celebration.

Everyone seemed to like the food and the process of cocktail selection and preparation was just awesome! The birthday cake (#2) was very special as well. We girls just love Martini Asti - it’s simply the best sparkling wine ever! I obviously had a few bottles in my fridge but what I could not expect was one more…chocolate one! Ordered especially for me it was definitely the most unique and fabulous cake in my life (see the photos!!!). As you can probably guess we did not go to bed early.

 

A few girls stayed overnight so I started my morning (or afternoon to be more precise) by trying to clean some space in the kitchen to cook the breakfast. The breakfast itself continued for almost the whole day starting with fried eggs and finishing with another piece of my gorgeous cake. Sitting there at the centre of complete chaos we chatted, looked through photos made yesterday and drank an endless amount of coffee.

As soon as the guests left I started cleaning and washing up - that wasn’t much fun and I did not finish till very late that night but the satisfaction I felt when I saw my flat returning to its initial state with every glass perfectly clean and shiny can only be compared to finishing a huge and awfully complicated assignment. Ok, I have to end it here or I will ignore my “8-hour sleep a day” rule completely one more time. Hope you all had a very nice Christmas and now ready to party hard, work even harder and probably change something in your lives as well.

Good luck to us!

Ksenia achieved six A grades at Bellerbys Brighton in 2009

Merry Christmas!!

Hey everyone!

If you were frozen to death during the past few weeks (it was pretty chilly here in London, don’t even want to think how it was in Brighton – I love the sea but not the wind!) then defrost yourself and get ready for the Christmas – Santa and (hopefully!) presents are coming! Hope that all of you who were to travel home or wherever else you were going had a safe journey which was not too disrupted by the snow.

When I saw snow in London I was just so happy – not even because I hoped that the University will be closed (can you imagine that?) – I love snow (the reason is my Russian origin I suppose…). The thing I could not predict was that my flight will be delayed by almost 6 hours – I would then probably be somewhat less happy. So it’s actually great that we cannot foresee the future?

Okay, back from philosophical questions to Life After Bellerbys College! Quite a lot has happened since my last post but it’s pretty hard to organize it my head - so I will just mention a few things that happened. Firstly, my mum came to visit me two weeks before the end of term – basically to check that the flat and myself are still okay… and do some shopping obviously (I did not take part in that – what a shame!- had lectures instead). It was fun – we had a look at a few Christmas markets (looking for fudge – my parents’ favorite), went for a few walks around the city (I realized that Thames is 15 minutes away from where I live and the riverside is actually very nice), ate in a few good restaurants – so far so good but I did almost no studying so had to catch up as soon as I could (well, after I have invited my friends to come over to my place on the weekend).

I also booked some tickets to see Phantom of Opera in Her Majesty’s Theatre. The balance between singing and words was exactly right to pass across the story, beautiful singling was carrying the audience away with it, gorgeous costumes and constantly changing decorations (the most famous one with the lake and the candles was really impressive) kept my attention for the whole time. The atmosphere of mystery and danger made the musical really special as well. My mum also liked it even though she did not completely understand what they were singing about (not to say that there was something important). So my advice to all who did not see this masterpiece yet – go and buy your tickets!

As the end of term was coming almost every society was organizing a Christmas dinner. As they were quite repetitive (sometimes even in the same place) I decided to attend the biggest one – The Biochemistry Christmas Party. The evening was great as almost all my new friends were there - I learned that cranberry sauce is actually delicious (even without turkey), had an interesting discussion about the British culture and took lots of pictures with my new friends (almost everyone was properly dressed up). We then went to one of the London lounges that was hired entirely for the purpose of our party and with great music and cheap cocktails (I love student parties) this night was the one to remember! Then we had to do the last push before the end of term as all the deadlines were on the same week (student’s destiny or just an attempt to teach us to organize our time efficiently that always fails?).

After all the essays, lab report etc. were finished (we got an essay to write over the holidays but at that time we were unaware of it!) it is party time again – Christmas was separating us for nearly 3 weeks! So now it’s time to sleep, eat, meet with your family, study (especially if you have exams in January, good luck to you A-level!) and look forward to the new term!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you one more time!

Ksenia achieved six A grades at Bellerbys Brighton in 2009

Christmas Holiday Timetable

I seldom make any list or timetable of what I am gonna do, for my schedule often doesn’t fit real life due to too many changeable elements in life.  That means even if I make a plan, I may not be able to achieve the goal.  But I made a list for whom to meet.

During the holiday, I have more or less made my place a "Shiny Inn".  And I am just like an ambassador for guests.  People want to come and stay.

Just after the trip to Scotland, friends started coming to visit me like floods.

Here is the list for what I’ve done for the first half of holiday:

December - January List:

20-23rd December: Trip to Scotland
24th: ICU
25th: Home (sleeping all day long)
26th: Boxing Day shopping with Qiu
27-28th: Ann
29th: Bob
30th: Howard (until 5th Jan), plus Singaporean Party
31st: Oscar & Wilson House Party plus countdown
1st Jan: Sophia & Henry
2nd: G & K

So I seemed to be busy everyday.  My friends told me, "You don’t know how to say 'no' to people." I totally agree.  I often just say 'yes' when I get invited.  It reminds me of Forrest Gump.  "For some reason, I fit in the army like one of them round pegs.  Not really hard, you just… and always answer every question with, 'Yes, drill sergeant!'"