The Lake

I already mentioned I have moved out of Dalton and into Aston Brook Green. What I have missed was the whole moving process. When I left my room for the last time I finally understood I a going to miss living on campus so much. I have been longing for living in a house outside campus since January and now that I finally do I miss the whole student atmosphere on campus. One of the most influential places for me has always been the Lake.

For me the Lake is not just an artificial pond of water but an Oasis in the desert of constant studying, exams and work, a place to relax after work or read in the sun for your exams, a place to have a pint or a barbeque dinner with your mates. Yes, in the summer the Lake is the heart of social activities on campus. Everyone goes there and everything happens right there.

But for me the Lake is not only a place to drink and eat, when I move to Uni in September last year I used to sit and stare at the lake on my evening walks. Well, it did not make me feel more at home but it did make me relax and forget about all the cr**.

There are so many more stuff that I will miss but there are four that have made the biggest impact on me: The Main Building, The Lake, The Library and DALTON!

The Library

The Library had become my home during the exam session and now that I finally moved out I am starting to miss it. I mean I don't miss the studying or anything, but the atmosphere itself. Basically, during exam sesh the library was always buzzing with people and never died out. Some people will finish studying in 4 in the morning, other will just start.

The funniest thing, though, is how no one is actually studying. Most of the people are on Facebook. Facebook, the plague that has spread over world youth. Even the people that are not on Facbook while studying will have it minimised on their Taskbar. Well, don't get me wrong some people are never on Facebook in the library, they're on Youtube.

Anyway, in the end of the day, most of us students spend loads of time studying in the library and I have to say were it not for the library I would have failed the exams.

The Main Building

Today I have been making final arrangements for the house I am moving in on Saturday. All the packing and electricity and gas arranging made me think, think about living on campus. So, I decided to make a series of posts about all the stuff I am going to miss.

When I was giving my application for the accommodation I new I wanted to live in the expensive Lake Side flats. Yet, I got the cheap high-rise. I am going to be absolutely honest with you, at first I thought that I am going to live in a s*** hole. After I arrived to Dalton I started seeing things from a different prospective. Now I see my Flat as the most convenient location to live. The best thing about me living in the Dalton Tower is that it is right in front of the Main Building. I can basically go there in my slippers (and some people actually do).

The main building has been my refuge in so many situations. If there is a fire alarm in the middle of the night because someone decided to bake sausages at 4 in the morning and started a small fire, I can just run in my slippers to the main building and find a convenient location to wait the alarm out. If it was the middle of the night and I needed Internet fast (KeySurf not working of course), I could just run to the main building sit in the lounge on ground floor and use the free wireless. If I wanted to go out for Coffee with my mates and we were feeling lazy, the main building's different cafeterias were my location of choice.

I can still vividly recall one midnight adventure. I was back from work. It was around 1 and I had already stopped my contract with KeySurf. I had just remembered that this was the same day as the deadline for paying tuition and I had been too late. So I just took my laptop and credit card and ran to the main building to access the net and pay online. I was running like some phsyco. I hope security don't remember me :)

I remember having my little snacks in Lafe Lago. There I fell in love with the Costa Late and brownies. The thing that always sucked about Cafe Lago, though, was that the good food was always taken for seconds and I always got the 'leftovers'. TIP 8 for prospective students: Do not eat at Cafe Lago after the rush hours, go there before that!

I do not know why, but I have always loved having little walks in the Main Building when I can't sleep, just looking around. That is when you actually see the small details and even hear the walls talk. Oh, the Main Building is amazing in the night. TIP 9 for prospective students: If you get the chance just have a walk in the Main Building during the night, you will be amazed at the people you are going to see and the atmosphere itself.

Now that I think about it all these thing may seem absolutely small and insignificant to everyone else but for me they meant the world at the time.

The Fannie Story /continued/

I am sitting in our Dalton Tower Common Room. Probably this time may be my last. I am moving to my new house on Saturday. My short trip to Bulgaria made me forget some part of my daily routines here, like the annoying Nigerian girl that constantly plays music on her laptop in the common room. I mean, I like R&B but it is kind of hard to concentrate when she is rapping next to me. And, seriously, she needs to download some new music. Anyway, I will try to concentrate and continue with my story because I am going to Gosta to see the Poland Sweden game.

When I decided I wanted introduce some people that have made and huge impact on me in the last year for the blog readers I was anxious I may make it boring. Yet I'll try, feel free to stop me :D

One of the funniest thing Fannie has ever told me was her descriptions of the school board meeting. That is the meeting of all the teachers in my high school. I happened usually once a month/at least I think so/. I found it interesting because we students never know what is happening with our teachers outside the classroom and how they communicate between themselves. So, I am going to tell you one of Fannie's school meeting stories.

She has always found bureaucracy very boring and as she says, she hardly stayed awake during the school meetings. She would tell my math teacher to wake her up if something important was going on. Basically every teacher was complaining about his/her own problems with students and teaching and the meetings were like a buzzing orchestra of complaints. Every now and then the principle would desperately demand silence in her high-pitched voice. To conclude, evidently teachers are just normal, air-breathing humans.


No that I think about it /although it is hard to think when listening to 'turn me on, turn me on girl...' from the annoying girl's computer/ the best feature of Fannie's character was her absolute nonchalance. I don't know how she makes it, but she never seems too worried, and I know she has tons of stuff going on and tons of problems. I had always been most jealous of that part of her character. She can, probably, pool a smile off in a worst moment.

I am trying to think of all the thing I want to tell about Fannie right now but nothings seems enough /and the annoying girl is trying to get on my last nerve/. You will be hearing a lot more about her, anyway.

Now, I have to go meet Ania and Cara and go to Gosta. Oh, god bless all the people still standing my shitty character. Here at Uni I had found out that I have to be a little bit tolerant towards other people because one needs time to be able to make an accurate approximation of their character and qualities. I have made too many bad first impressions and thought bad of amazing people. So here is TIP 7 for prospective students: Do not make rash judgement of people!

The Fannie Story

Recently I felt as if I did not have the inspiration to write. That is why I haven't had a post in more than a week. I sign into blogspot and I cannot write a single word. Maybe that was influenced by the alcoholic/euphoric/melancholic dream I had fallen into. As much as I have been having fun in the past week, I felt absolutely empty, desperately needing some inspiration to think. I finally found it back home, in Sofia.

My friends here are very, very different from my friends in Birmingham, interested in different stuff, having different problems, leaving different lives. Anyway, they have inspired me and now I can continue writing...

As I was walking along the dark alley around midnight yesterday I was finally feeling calm. I was on my way back from Fannie's, quite tipsy, with an amazing headache and a frightened expression on my face. I had forgotten how dark some streets in Sofia were. In this state I was recapping the event from the evening. I have always loved going to Fannie's... but wait you don't know anything about her yet.

Fannie was my closest teacher, and by closest I mean that I could actually share with her. After I graduated last year we have kept in touch and every visit in Bulgaria goes hand in hand with a visit to her house. Fannie lives in a huuuuge house. The best thing about it is the attic where her cabinet is. It is a small room with low ceiling, wooden floor, walls and ceiling. Half of the room is a gigantic book shelf with old books of her father's. Two wooden desks sit in the middle of the room and a bunch of other smaller furniture is spread around the centered tables.

Fannie was considered by most of my friends magical for her amazing orator abilities. She is capable of transferring you into the action of a story and I remember how in school we used to gaze enchanted once she opened her mouth and started narating. Anyway, now Fannie has become one of my closest people and getting drunk in the attic is a tradition now.

The best thing about my little visits is that they always go in the same exact way. Sometimes I think that even our conversations are the same. I usually take a bunch of old classmates with and we chat for hours. We always start with fresh gossip about absent people, then some stuff about the current situation in the old school, each informs us of any changes in plans and life, and then we start discussing world hunger/politics topics and start arguing. The best thing is that the political topics that we discuss are so controversial that we know we would never find a solution, yet we do it every time.

I am going to continue 'The Fannie Story' tomorrow since this post is getting a little too bulky. Of course I have to give - TIP No 6 for prospective students: Life abroad can get hard so find an inspiration, a person that can calm you down when you are stressed and help you look ahead!