This academic year has already had a year’s
worth of drama (good and bad). Of course, it would have made more sense to
write about this last solar year when it was actually happening, but I can’t
move most days (yay thank you October 2015) so this the best that can be done.
The university has brought in a few changes
this year, just to make life more stressful (because it wasn’t stressful
enough, apparently).
Bath
Spa University has brought in this new policy called ‘Attendance Matters’. The
principle is that if a student isn’t well enough to attend lectures, they’re
not well enough to complete their work, thus meaning they’ll fail and that they
should be kicked out of uni. I instantly talked myself out of this
non-negotiable, universal policy (naturally) because the argument is flawed for
me: I have never achieved below a 2:1 in any assessment yet my attendance is
abysmal (as I said before, I cannot move most days, so it is impossible for me
to attend lectures). Clearly there is no correlation between lack of attendance
and lack of achievement.
Uni
has become quite obsessive with attendance. We now have these stands in every
lecture hall and seminar room to tap our student cards against to sign
ourselves in. Why the lectures can’t just do a register like always in beyond
me. Are most of them incompetent? I don’t think so.
Unrelated to attendance but stressful all the same. The washing machines no longer take change. I can’t wrap my head around it (it involves an app and apps baffle
me). So now I take my laundry with me when I visit friends! I’m loving that I
don’t have to pay to do laundry anymore. That’s £2.50 I save a week and £10 a
month.
There has been another change this year which
is more centred on me: my new kitchenmates.
My
kitchenmates have proved to be brilliant people. I was worried for three
reasons. 1: I was living with eleven other people, not seven like the past
three years. More people = more anxiety/stress. 2: I was expecting to be in a
kitchen full of 18-19 year-old freshers. 3: I’d have to fight over appropriate
fridge space.
1:
Everyone turned out to be really nice so living with this many people hasn’t
been as difficult as I expected. There is one person who is not pleasant, but
10/11 people being great is very lucky. Plus, one person (unfortunately not the
Disliked One) has decided over the Christmas holiday to leave uni and their
room has become the relief room, meaning I live with less people and have less
stress!
2:
There was only one 18 year-old (the one who left) and was only one 19 year-old.
So now I am the third youngest. I’ve been here the longest yet I am the second
youngest out of eleven people. We have a 27 year-old, a Masters student from
China and a second year student who has transferred from another university. So
I needn’t worry about having too many young freshers to deal with.
3:
As soon as I came into the kitchen to say hello to everyone properly after
moving in, they cleared a big shelf for me in one of the fridges. I didn’t have
to even say anything. So they are a nice bunch of individuals.
And now for my new society, the Alternative
Faith Society. It was created last year by two of my friends. Now, every
society requires a President, a Secretary and a Treasurer on their Committee.
This society didn’t have a Treasurer. So I became the Treasurer. Of a society
that has membership fee nor deals with money whatsoever. Simple, right?
Wrong.
I
quickly filled in the role of Secretary (because they weren’t doing anything
for the society) so I’m Acting Secretary. I also filled in the role of
President so I am basically Acting President. Which means I am every role on
the Committee. I am the Committee. I am the Committee-in-Full.
Like
you know in Myanmar how Aung Sun Suu Kyi isn’t the President but is the de facto leader? That’s me.
The
President of the society is meant to lead it, make the decisions, decide what
direction they want the society to go in, to think of event ideas. But no. I
have to lead us. All the time. I try and engage the President in discussions
but they have no ideas of what to do at all. So it becomes me telling him ideas
that I thought of only briefly (because 1: he’s the president and should be
doing this and 2: I’m busy with a dissertation; I can’t be the entire
Committee) expecting feedback but he agrees with them. Just like that. Whilst
this proves useful when I have a particular idea I want to happen, it is
frustrating that no one else puts in the effort. Our President is excellent at
fulfilling the role of support, the role of a Vice-President, but he’s meant to
be higher than that.
All
in all it’s an interesting experience. I came on board to provide some input
and now I have a society that I have no preparation for. I became Treasurer in
late October. Nothing had been done in the society in late Spetember/early
October to entice in the freshers, meaning the society has missed its
opportunity to get dedicated members. I am hoping that in the New Year with the
‘ReFreshers Fair’ that we can drag in members for a fulfilling and beneficial
society.
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