At Your Door

I am officially free from school for 2 weeks! Since it's the last week before Christmas, I've been feeling really unmotivated and have just been super duper lazy. It is safe to say that this past term has been ridiculously busy, so I'm very glad to see the end of it! In these next 2 weeks of Christmas holidays, I plan to relax (a lot) and attempt to revise for my upcoming mocks -- but mostly just relax!

It feels really weird to think that I've just completed my last ever winter term at school. And after the holidays, this next term will be my last full term at school. Even though I literally can't wait for university, a part of me will also really miss my time at school. I've been here for over 6 years and in that time, I have changed a lot, learnt a lot and I really do think that I owe a lot to the school. It still feels so weird to be in Upper Sixth - the fact that I'll be done with school in 6 months still hasn't really registered in my brain just yet... I'm excited, but the sentimentalist in me who lives on nostalgia is desperately trying to make the most of these last few months!

Anyway, speaking of university, here is some more news for those who would like to know: As I had suspected, I got rejected from Oxford University a few weeks ago. With fierce competition for my chosen course of Economics & Management, I knew that it was going to be difficult to get one of the nine interviews at Christ Church college, especially since I knew that the admissions test had been horrific! Obviously, I'll always be a bit disappointed for not getting an interview. But when I really think about it, the closer that it got to the applying-to-uni stage, the more doubts that I had about Oxford. But regardless of such doubts, I applied anyway, because I felt that I owed it to the eight-year-old me who had dreamt of becoming an Oxford student. However, now, I realise that maybe I loved the IDEA of Oxford more than the actual prospect of studying so intensely for weeks on end, plus there were aspects of the course that I really wasn't interested in. So, in hindsight, I'm actually quite relieved that I didn't get an interview from Oxford - I suppose it just wasn't meant to be!

In other news, the week after my rejection from Oxford, I got an offer from LSE(!!!), much to my surprise! The opportunity to study Economics at the London School of Economics seems like too great an opportunity to pass up. Currently, I'm trying to weigh up the pros and cons of LSE vs. UCL - it's going to be such a difficult decision to make!!! It'll definitely be a good excuse to make a trip to London and visit the two universities again though, so I'm looking forward to that. :-) The prospect of studying in London become more attractive as the days go by. And on that note, here are a few more photos from my trip to London a few weeks ago so I can reminisce some more!

I'll definitely try to post a little more regularly over the Christmas break & show you all what I've been up to in recent weeks. Hope you're all well and looking forward to Christmas & New Year! I can't believe it's almost 2014... Where has the time gone?!

Chloe. X 

P.S. I watched 'Stuck In Love' recently and fell in love! I strongly recommend this film, it is so so so good! The soundtrack was absolutely superb, full of Bright Eyes & Conor Oberst which instantly makes it a good'un. Two members of Bright Eyes, Nathaniel Walcott & Mike Mogis, created a beautiful song called 'At Your Door', which I've successfully listened to about 50 times since first hearing it in the film. It is such a lovely song, so go listen to it!

London

I went to London last Wednesday for my offer-holder open day at UCL... Is it really cheesy to say that I fell in love with London all over again? (Yes.)

The day didn't start off as planned though, as I found out that my train to London got cancelled in the morning. Cue me stressing out and trying to prevent the oncoming panic attack that I really didn't want the rest of the population to witness. Miraculously, I managed to stay quite calm, even though I was anything but calm! Once I'd gotten to Birmingham New Street, I managed to locate a friendly member of staff who told me that there was a replacement service from Moor Street. (...Aaaaand breathe!) I honestly wanted to hug that woman, but luckily for her, I exercised some restraint and hurried along to Moor Street station.

*Note to all: ALWAYS arrive at train stations at least 20 minutes before the departure time, just in case you find yourself in a situation like mine and end up having to walk to a different train station, or have to buy another ticket or something.

So luckily, I managed to get myself on a train to London at long last! And as luck & coincidence would have it, I actually got the same train as my friend, with whom I then spent the morning in London! We arrived at Marylebone station and just walked round London, eating our lunch in the lovely Regent's Park. Since it was early on a Wednesday morning, it was pretty quiet, which is quite a rarity in London. Then we hung out in Waterstone's near Euston and then headed to our Open Day at UCL's Economics department.

Upon arrival, we sat in a small lecture room and tried to make eye contact with other students who had also received Economics offers at UCL. I finally managed to pluck up the courage to talk to a few people and soon after, we were given a talk about Economics at UCL and later had refreshments and got to chat with some current students and lecturers. Finally, we got to have a tour round the UCL 'campus' and got to look round the main quad and the iconic UCL main building! All in all, I got to meet some really lovely people and honestly just fell in love with the place. The atmosphere, location and general feeling at UCL was incredible. The course is pretty much perfect and suits my interests down to the ground. Plus, the students are all so diverse and come from different backgrounds, which is something that I'm really looking forward to at university; the social opportunities and active student union also sounded great. Overall, I could really picture myself getting involved with everything that UCL has to offer and really enjoying my time there!

After the open day, I headed out to meet a friend who is currently studying Biochemistry at UCL! We hung out near UCL and then headed to UCL's Print Room cafe, which is a really cool cafe with decent priced coffee (by London standards!) It was so good to have a big catch up with her for a couple of hours. But before I knew it, it was time to head back to Euston station and get the train back home. I don't think I've even been more sad to leave London before... Now that I'm at a point where it's quite likely that I'll be living in London next year, I just love it even more. Hopefully I'll be back there soon enough.

^^^ London ^^^

^^^ Coffee with friends at The Print Room cafe! ^^^

So, that was my UCL open day experience! I hope you liked it :-) I have some more uni updates to share with you next time. Hope you're all well & speak to you all soon!

Chloe. X