It’s been a fair while since my last post. My last term at University was hectic to say the least. Once exams had ended it was onto the celebrations and I guess you could say that writing just fell to the back of the line and it’s been there for the last couple of months. Anyway I’ve decided to get back into the habit of writing. I saw a little philosophy bite not long ago that said once you write something down that’s the beginning of you facing or coming to terms with whatever it is that you have written down. That’s the power of writing- you hammer out your thoughts and feelings onto paper or a blog or whatever and there it is right in front of you, you’re literally facing it. By not writing I’ve not properly laid-out the problems that currently confront me, so here we go.

Coming back home to Oldham has been really weird and quite emotional. To begin with I had to leave everything I’d come to love in York: my housemates, my friends, the pubs, the gym, and the takeaways. I had a lot of creature comforts in York that I really took for granted and now that they’re not there anymore it’s like I’ve been stripped of my map and kicked out into the unfamiliar again. I miss the life I had in York, but over time I’ll come to terms with the pain of turning away from the life I’d built for myself there. The most pressing problem that confronts me right now is having the motivation to do something. I imagine quite a few students feel the same way- you come home and once you’ve settled back-in you realise there’s things to do bar eat the contents of the fridge and catch up on trash tv. I’ve found myself knowing in my head there’s things to do, ranging from little things like sorting out my gp back home all the way upto *sigh* finding a job. I haven’t exactly done nothing, like I’ve had some exciting progress on the job front, but I’ve struggled to amass the motivation to do much else. I guess this is down to my days being the exact same: wake up, shower, eat, go to the gym, come home, play video games, watch tv, sleep. There are two issues here: I struggle to even find the motivation to go to the gym most days, and with doing the same stuff every day it’s made me quite lethargic and demotivated.

I think this comes down to the sudden change of pace and environment. At Uni there was always something to be done, somewhere to be and something to think about… usually a deadline. Now that I’m at home there aren’t any important set deadlines, so it’s easy to just fall back and get used to not doing much at all. At the same time, there are conversations at Uni that I just can’t have at home. There’s a whole lifestyle that in many ways has suddenly just vanished. I think that the change of lifestyle has had some impact on my pretty poor levels of motivation at home.

However there is light at the end of this tunnel! The last few days have been quite successful because I’ve established more of a routine. I’ve started to get back into the swing of things, one might say. (roll credits) I’m starting to listen to myself when I say something should be done today and ideally at this or that time. I think University has instilled in me this need to do things. So something I will say to any students struggling to get anything done at home: just do one job you know you’ve been meaning to do. Just do the one. If you can, do another and see where you go from there. The main thing i’d say is just getting one thing done with your day and then going from there. Summer can be a big old boring block of time for students, but there are ways to use that regimented programming that’s been hardwired into your brain by the incessant call of deadlines.

-Nick