Blown Away at Eastbourne

Yesterday saw the eventual trip down, and then right a bit, to Eastbourne to check out where I would be going when September finally comes. Sussex Downs College, in the seaside town of Eastbourne. Or more importantly to some people, a 30 minute walk from Brighton!

We left at around 9:45am, for the nearest makes no difference, 3 hour drive. A monstrous straight line trip down the M1 and M25, before driving through a very picturesque south-coast postcard-esque hilly region before reaching the college. 2 hours early... Mother Mitten always likes to make sure we're not late, giving ourselves enough time to get organised and find our bearings, so we drove a little further down the coastline, feeling the vicious coastal winds almost blowing the car into the sea. After driving round an accident, where a car had snapped in half after appearing to glance a van, we parked and walked along the seafront.

Heads bowed against the wind, wrapped up like a Christmas present, we eventually found a "Worlds Famous" Harry Ramsden's and enjoyed a fish n' chip lunch, (or in my case a "Scampi and Chicken Special" followed by a Chocolate Puddle Pudding), and made our way back to the car, in much quicker time seeing as the wind was behind us. We made the 5-minute drive back to the college, and found we were half an hour early. So we had a look round.

I must make clear that I had already accepted my place on to this course. I will be coming here, 100%, and yes, I know I hadn't seen anything before making possibly the biggest decision my life has yet to throw at me, but it seems my acceptance was right on the money. This place was, amazing.

Football pitches, cricket nets, tennis courts, 3rd Generation pitches, a professional athletics track. Just a few of the facilities that are there and they're not your bog-standard things either. There were 16 indoor cricket nets alone, (Yep, I counted), with possibly the same number outside plus more football pitches than I could bother to count and the Athletics track. Wow.

I'm not an athlete. I don't plan to be and am nowhere near good enough at any track and field event to even bother contemplate becoming one, but these facilities were serious. A brand spanking new track surrounded a plush lawn where javelin-throwers were having a practice. The stands around the track looked like they could hold at least a thousand. Imagine that when it's full!

All of this is before I mention that they have just finished building and have subsequently just opened the new £750,000 gym complex. And no, that isn't a typo! Oh My *Expletive* God!

At 3pm, we headed back inside, my mind teeming with smiles and thoughts about what it would be like to spend most of my time here. Surrounded by it all. We were welcomed by a bearded man, Mark, who would be conducting the presentation and subsequent tour and he beckoned us all along to a room where the presentation would take place.

The 40-minute presentation was informative and told us all we needed to know about the course and what would happen and Mark was funny and seemed like a very approachable guy.

I do appreciate I will find this difficult. Getting back into education, when I wasn't exactly good at it back in the A-Level days, will be immensely difficult for someone like me. I'm not particularly motivated, self-dependant or am the sort of person who can knuckle down to work for enough hours in the day independantly, but I will sure as hell give it my best effort. This evening, whilst ploughing through my options for accommodation, (I'll get to that bit), I went downstairs to chat to the rents. A rarity, I'm sure you can imagine.

I planned to tell them about where I was thinking of living and what I would like to do. Instead, after about 10 minutes of discussing it, they started ranting about how much work is going to be involved and whether they think I will be able to do and all of that. I KNOW ALL OF THIS. I wouldn't be going if I didn't think I could do it, so why are they saying this to me? It's almost as if they don't want me to go and they don't think I can do it. "I'll help you if you can help yourself".. I don't want to talk about cliched pre-concieved ideas... I wanted your opinion about the accomomodation. And then you wonder why I don't talk to you that often..

ANYWAY! I will put that out of my mind for the time being. It is my life, after all.

On the accommodation matter, after much deliberation, I decided that a place called Falmer would be my best option. In Brighton, Falmer is a self-catered Halls of Residency, about 30 minutes from my college in Eastbourne. Kettle pointed out that the half-an-hour walk on the "morning after the night before", may be too difficult, and yeah, it might be... But I would like to cook for myself! How cool would that be! Plus it's £1000 cheaper than the other option... Welkin. Situated in Eastbourne, and only about 10 minutes from my college, it is catered and therefore much more expensive than Falmer, and getting to Brighton for the night-life and socialising part of university life, therefore more difficult and ultimately expensive.

I wanted to go to Falmer, but my "Finding a Home Guide" thought differently.

"Students studying in Eastbourne cannot reside in Brighton and vice versa."

Great! Barring a surprising reply e-mail from the accommodation people at Brighton, telling me I am somehow exempt from this, I have a grand total of 1 choice if I want to live in Halls of Residency. The self-catered, Welkin Halls. It's almost as if they don't want people in Eastbourne cooking for themselves! I think this is a bit unfair... Brighton University Students are Brighton University Students, and they should be able to choose where they want to live. Still, rules are rules, so it seems, (barring the e-mail of course), that my mind has been made up for me.

Kettle suggested finding a house, but I don't like the idea of restricting myself to living with 3,4,5 other people and not being involved in the hulabaloo of university Halls. I know it will be similar, in terms of living with new people etc, but in Halls there are more options available if you don't like where you are. In a private house, you're stuck.

So the last couple of days has thrown up highs and lows, and I suppose that will be the story of the whole experience. Good to start the madness early! Just a shame Mum and Dad are more concerned about me failing before I've even started.