Five Things Fridays: Five reasons why I'll be sad to finish uni

(and coming next week, five reasons why I won't be sad to finish uni :P)

1. I'll miss having my own space.
In the short term at least, I'll have to move back home. There's no way I can afford to rent a place, pay bills and afford to live at the same time, especially as I'm not planning on getting a job for at least 6 months after graduating. I find it strange when I go back home during the holidays; I really miss having the freedom to get up and go to be when I want, to go out and come home when I want, and to be able to make my space my own. I'm not saying that my mum's super strict - she's actually really relaxed and doesn't mind if I go out places and she doesn't force me to get up/go to sleep (I really hope she wouldn't, I am 21 after all...), but she does start to nag and tell me that I've got so much to do and I could be doing so many other more productive things (e.g. tidying up, cleaning the house or doing uni work) and the nagging starts to grate on my nerves after a while. Plus I feel like I'm getting in the way of her life and disturbing her if I go about doing my own thing.

2. I'll miss living in Cornwall
See point 1 about having to move back home because I won't be able to afford to live, so this rules out staying in Cornwall too :(. The more I think about it the more I realise that I've really liked living here as it's such a beautiful place, but due to spending all of the first and most of the second year of my degree alone and feeling pretty depressed (and consequently spending most of my time indoors because there's only so much you can do alone) I really haven't made the most of my time here. When I've learnt to drive and got a car (which will be this summer if everything goes to plan, about time too!) I'd love to come back and either take a long holiday or get a job down here so I can go out and do all the things I've wanted to do but now won't have time to do (or things that I simply haven't been able to do because lack of a car makes it impossible to get there).

3. I'll miss having people to talk to close by
Apart from one person, I haven't kept in touch with anyone I was friends with at school/college. I drifted away from the people that I was friends with at college at the beginning of our second year there, and to be honest while it was hard at the time and I still feel kind of bitter that they didn't want to keep me as a friend yet stayed friends with each other, I think it was for the best as I've come to realise that most of them aren't very nice people. As I mentioned above, I spent the first half of my degree alone as I had no friends, so I got used to having no one to talk to but it wasn't very good for me. Now I've finally worked to the point where, even though I still don't have people that I go out and socialise etc. with, there are quite a few people that I can have a decent conversation with, so I don't feel completely alone any more. When I finish uni that's going to completely disappear, and I'll be back to square one on the "make a friend" game, which for some reason I seem to find abnormally difficult. It'll be even harder because I won't have a school/college situation to aid me in making friends, and until I get a job I'll be out there in the big wide world by myself and I'll have to work so much harder to find friends. I don't want to get a job for a while after I graduate (I want to enjoy the last decent holiday I'll ever have!) so it's going to be a very long few months...

4. I'll miss not having to get up and do something every day
At the moment I can have quite relaxed days. The past couple of days, for instance, have been spent doing casual bits of work for my research project, catching up with Junior Doctors on iplayer (and cringing at some of the mistakes they make), baking shortbread and rock cakes, and generally being a bit of a slob. While I do work hard (trust me, I usually have 4 modules a term plus SJA so I'm usually constantly on the go), when I do have a bit of time when life isn't so busy I like being able to get up and do my uni work at my own pace, in my own room, and I can get up and do something else or nip into town for half an hour when I need a break. When I get a job that's going to disappear, because my employer will tell me when I need to be there, what hours I need to work and how much I need to get done, I won't have the freedom to choose for myself any more.

5. I'll miss student discount
I think this one is pretty self explanatory ;)