When Annie met Sally

Hola!

Firstly: I'M REALLY SUPER EXCITED TO BE BLOGGER OF THE MONTH AGAIN! Thank you so much to everybody who voted...Keep going because Blogger of the Year competition is coming up in August (this is basically a total of all the votes since we started blogging); VERY exciting. Ta daaaaa: www.ucas.com/connect/blogs/voting

Last weekend my friend from Wales, Sally, came to stay so I finally have something Uni-related to blog about. YAHOO! I met Sally in France when I was 15 and she was 14..so, being a year younger she's currently looking at different uni's and writing the dreaded personal statement. She wants to study Chemical Engineering (I attempted to understand what this is but my brain just couldn't hack it. Chemistry was never my subject. Or biology (or physics)). ANYWAYS, she came to see me in the wonderful land of Derby (no sarcasm intended) after an open day at Loughborough University, which she really liked. We spent the weekend attempting (and failing) to ride a tandem, having a massive picnic, and eating lots of ice cream.

Overall, Sally's visit made me realise a few things...

Firstly, although at the time of writing them, personal statements seem like THE. BIGGEST. DEAL. EVER, they're really not. Don't get me wrong, you can't spend two minutes writing it and produce 42 lines on how your passion for eating pizza can help you get to University. HOWEVER, predominantly I learnt that as long as you CRAM it with experience, along with a mega-enthusiastic passion to study your particular course, you're personal statement will be WONDERFUL. I spent hours changing teeny words and stressing about things like "DO I USE A COLON OR A SEMI-COLON??? THIS WILL DETERMINE WHETHER I GET IN OR NOT". It won't. Give yourself a slap in the face (or alternatively take a stroll) and remember that this is just another small step towards getting to the University you want to go to.

Secondly, enjoy it! Amongst all the stress, deciding what you want to do with your life is kinda a little bit exciting. Make your decision wisely and do what's best for YOU, not your parents, your friends or your great-auntie Hilda. Definitely not your great-auntie Hilda.

Speech over.

In other news, I started ACTUAL-UNIVERSITY-PREPARATION yesterday! My brother and I made home-made spaghetti and meatballs for tea, along with orange flapjack for pudding. I'm getting there right?

P.s After somebody pointed it out, I am starting to realise that I have a slightly extreme obsession with brackets and capital letters. I LOVE THEM. There I go again.

P.p.s Like the ingenious film reference?? Anybody?

Anna x

Applying, Waiting and Hoping

Hey!

I'm Anna and you are currently exploring my rather sparse UCAS blog. Sparse, but not for long. I'll be a new regular in the blogging world posting about...applying to uni. Some of you may now be tempted to run for the hills in fear, but bear with me. Applying to uni is scary, I can't pretend it isn't, but maybe just not as scary as everybody makes out (honest). 

So if you're at the stage of applying to uni right now your head is most likely ringing with the words "personal statement", "choices" and "UCAS" and your response is probably "WHEN CAN I GO BACK TO SLEEP". Unfortunately, not yet. I think at one point I started reciting my personal statement in my dreams (nightmares). What's the good news then? Well, as soon as you get it sent off you can breathe a (momentary) sigh of relief, and a personal statement-sized weight will be lifted right off your shoulders. Yay!

I officially applied to University to do Journalism on the 20th October (hurrah!). It all seems very serious and occasionally I have heard people say "I think I have just signed my life away"...(Or maybe that was just me, hmm). All in all it's better to get it out of the way. So, like me, you can find yourself a few weeks later getting an email from UCAS saying "Dear Miss Whittaker, something has changed", and consequently screaming at the computer "BUT WHAT IS IT???". Fingers crossed it will be an offer, and then you can dance around happily and post your wonderful news on Facebook (to get lots of 'Well done's' from that Great Auntie you haven't seen in 10 years).

More soon,

Anna x