The Warm-Up Act

I am monumentally tired. So tired, that I feel physically sick and my head is forcing its way out the side of my head, despite the taking of Nurofen tablets. It's almost as bad as the long, sleepless weekends I put myself through last Summer and a couple of weekends this Summer, but not quite as bad.

The reason I am like this? I have had a very long, interesting and generally quite nerve-wracking day. 3 days before I leave for Eastbourne, yet I had to enrol at the college I am studying at. It seemed tedious that I had to dedicate a whole day to enrol on a course, when it would of been much easier to do it next week, but hey ho. I had been invited, and it would of been suicidal not to attend, so I hauled myself out of bed at the crazy hour of 5am, (some would say I should be used to this by now!), and caught the 5.40am train to Brighton.

You know what? I'm so tired, that I'm not going to bother to continue. I need sleep, desperately. This is going to be a long post, so I shall continue it when I've had my required 14 hours kip. Until tomorrow.

Ok. I'm fully awake, completely aware, and positively ready to explain the madness that yesterday brought. Sorry about my apparent eagerness to sleep last night, but I needed it.

Where was I? That's right. The journey. There's no point making this part of the story any longer than it needs to be, but in short, the train was delayed 20 minutes, making me rush and pay an extra £18.10 for a faster route to Eastbourne plus an extra £6 for a taxi to the college. Even then, I was 5 minutes late, but the embarrassing entrance into the introductory talk was lessened somewhat by the fact that many people seemed to be in the same position as me. So much so, that the actual introductory talk didn't start until 30 minutes later than scheduled. I sat down on the assembled benches, and attempted to start a conversation with the chap sat next to me, which didn't get very far. He didn't look interested at all, and looking around the room, the atmosphere resembled more of a doctors surgery waiting room than a University Enrolment Day. In fairness, I can possibly get away with saying that the awkward nature of both are very similar. I recognised a few faces, some that I had added on Facebook in an attempt to get to know them before we start, but most people just looked like they didn't want to be known.

After the very brief introductory speeches, we started the main activity of the day. "Team-Building Exercises" ran by a company called Adventure Unlimited. Now. Bearing in mind none of us had ever met each other before, and our group was being headed by a man who looked like the behind of a particularly ugly, (and uninterested) gorilla, the first half an hour or so was extremely painful. The generic "team-building exercises" we were being asked to do though, after a fair while, helped us communicate and get to know each other more, and by the end a few jokes were being cracked and things seemed a lot better. These exercises included getting all of the "team" through a spider's web without touching the web, getting across a makeshift and imaginary river using only 9 lillypads, (or pieces of carpet if you're a realist), and a lot of things that included being blindfolded, which gave me a painful and disorientating headache. At the end of the session, we were split into three groups, and taken to enrol, followed by a tour of the campus and much-needed lunch.

At this stage, I had gotten into a group of about 6 people. My initial evaluation of the group was that some people were outgoing, loud and ready to get to know people, and the other lot mainly kept themselves to themselves, not keen on keeping a conversation going for too long and were mainly pretty quiet. I wanted to get to know people, so talked to the outgoing group, who were ... I don't know how to describe it... "classic lads". They are the sort of people I wouldn't usually hang around with in Bedford, the sort of people who comment on every girl passing them as "f****** hot!" or "I would definitely smash her back doors in!" The sort of people who are incredibly homophobic and their only joys in life are sex, football and FIFA. They talk like they're wannabe gangsters, and boast about their holidays in Malia, where they slept with at least 6 girls a night and are going back next Summer to be a rep. They are the sort of people I would do my best to stay away from if I'm honest, but it was either them or stand on my own all day and be non-sociable, and I had told myself that I wouldn't be like that. There were a couple of potential friends, who were not like this, who were more .... human, (for want of a better word), but we shall wait and see what develops.

After lunch, the actual enrolment happened, a lot of forms were filled in and I received my student card and NUS Extra card, that apparently can save me £500 over the course of a year, if I "use it wisely", and more talking about FIFA and the nickname-giving began. For the rest of the day, I was merely known as "The Ref", for obvious reasons, with other nicknames including 'Cardle' for a Matt Cardle lookalike, Abou Diaby, for the same reason, and 'Pav' as one of them looked like a carbon copy of Spurs striker Roman Pavlyuchenko. I gathered from the rest that no-one liked a referee, (common knowledge), and 3 different people throughout the day stated that I even "looked like a referee".. Not sure how that is possible? It was all "banter" though and I took it on the chin.

After a few more talks, that dragged on, plus the giving of our first ever assignment, (that I have already completed, like the apparent "mature" student I am!), we got to go home. The long, and expensive journey home then started, and included arranging a lift to my first fixture as a referee for this season, (that commeces in a few hours time), and having to listen to the rambles of a group of medical students who talked as if everything in life was a life-saving operation.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the day as a whole. After seeing the two groups for the initial coaching that starts next week, I see I have been thrown in with the people I spent most of the day with. I don't see myself moulding into their stereotypical views though, and I think I'd need to get to know some other people to work with. More even-minded, less "laddish" people to work with. Of course, the main event begins in 2 days, where I find out which people I am living with, and move down to Eastbourne for good. I'm nervous, and excited in equal measure, but I have been assured that after things settle down, I will be absolutely fine.

I am officially a student now, and the next few months and then the succeeding 3 years are going to be huge. Things have changed in a heartbeat, and for once I'm ready to tackle them head on. Let's do it.