The Domino Effect

Seeing the blank screen in front of me is a bad sign. I want to scream and shout my feelings in the direction of anyone who cares, and although lots of people do, I just seem to get the feeling that no one really understands. Even that sounds stupid, because most of the people I'm talking to have been through the same experience. But no one understands the feelings from inside my head. The same head that has taken an absolute battering over the past couple of years. The same head that has given up countless times. The same head who cannot hack the demands of life.

I can hear the laddish overtones of a group of guys heading out. A "lad" has just shouted "You Fat Bastard!" in the general direction of my open window, although I highly doubt it was aimed at me. Some more "lads" have seemingly just played a prank on another "lad" because the howling laughter that is now eminating from down below is too loud. I have no idea where people are going, whether it be to Brighton or to the seafront, and frankly, I don't care. All that is going through my head is the moment is the mountaneous desire to go home and the rising temptation to give in. Again. I cannot quite believe I'm feeling like this. After 8 months of looking forward to fun times with similarly joyous flatmates, I have been landed with a whole Halls worth of absolute cretins and louts. The disappointment and guilt that is slowly filling inside me is becoming too overpowering, and once more, I find myself in the same position as always. I cannot do this. And I'm really starting to think... Can I do anything?

It's not as if the day started badly either. I was nervous about our forthcoming coaching practice at the local primary school, but I was confident I would do OK. No one else in the group was seemingly enthusiastic, probably because they had been out the night before, but I was raring to go and give it all the energy I had left, despite the emotional draining I've had the last couple of days. We turned up, and got into our groups from yesterday, admittedly not really knowing what they were.. Yesterday was incredibly rushed and given I wasn't in the best of moods, I wasn't prepared to traipse through drills and exercises to use after our session, and decided that going with the flow would be the best thing. Turning up at the school this morning, I realised that this was the best thing, as I saw the kids running across the field. I swear I wasn't that small when I was 10?

The session, given it was an hour long, absolutely flew by. We played a few games of 'King of the Ring' as the whole group of 8 seemed to enjoy it, before doing a few shooting exercises that included scoring a lot of goals before a little game and a penalty shoot out at the end. We went with the flow, and concentrated on trying to make it fun for the kids, and I think that worked. They were amazingly hyperactive, and it was sometimes very difficult to keep control of them. Some of them were very handy young footballers, whereas some of them... weren't. It made it challenging, but the challenge was good!

So, this is my dilemma. The course, right from the off, is fun. Halls, is anything but. I want to carry on with my course, more than anything, but in equal measure, I want to leave this place. The university lifestyle is just not what I imagined, and I cannot see myself settling in at all. I just can't see it. I'm going home tomorrow, coming back on Monday, and many a discussion will take place about what to do next. But, after 8 months of looking forward to the craziness of it all, it's taken a single week for me to realise it really isn't what everyone says it is. Not in my eyes anyway.

Why am I like this?