Week 3: Keeping Busy

This week I've managed to do something every day which meant I was out of the flat or not in the mood for revising. I don't recommend that but it does mean I have a fair bit to report back on.

First of all, on Tuesday I decided to treat my boyfriend to a Big John's (Selly Oak's answer to halal KFC - with proper chips) after an exam he was dreading. Thankfully, it was a lovely day so we could eat it outside Joe's Bar (at the Guild) and enjoy the sun. Before coming to Uni, I generally didn't even think about take-away food because I always cooked it myself or my Mum would cook. My association with take-aways was (and still is, mostly) grease and fat and horrible stuff. I found Big John's, though, and treat myself to a dinner from there every few weeks. Ah and the milkshakes are gorgeous. Proper value for money!

Wednesday was insanely busy. I had to call for a committee meeting in the morning, for the Northern Society, because we needed to expand our committee and talk about a few more important things. That was really productive and we had a good discussion, coming up with many ideas both for now and for the next academic year. Then I went off to the centre to find a dress worthy of wow-ing my boyfriend as he had asked me out to dinner at Strada at the ICC in Brindley Place. I headed straight to New Look because I love their clothes and their prices are student-friendly. After spending about an hour trying on and deciding, I went up to pay and noticed they were running a limited student discount. Whipping out my NUS card, I slashed a £25 dress down to a £20 dress. Good times! On a different note, I'd reserved some dumbbells from Argos (in the Pallisades, the shopping centre attached to New Street and the Bull Ring) so I headed back to pick them up and go back to Tennis Courts to get ready. That was a silly idea. Dumbbells are heavy! I managed to get them back to my flat without any help but weighed the box - I'd been lugging about 20lbs (I weighed my weekly shop last week and that was about 30lbs altogether, too). Dinner was lovely. Strada is always a very good place to eat. The prices are not too bad and there's usually a discount voucher either online or laying around somewhere in a voucher book (about 10 got shoved through my flat door a while back so that's a lot of discounts right there!). For two main meals and a drink (I stuck with water, boyf had a coke - which is served in a posh bottle), we paid around £12. Well, when I say 'we', I mean 'he'.

Quite a few of the people on my course get involved in the Guild's many performance student groups. I've been to see them in Equus (amazing) and on Thursday I went to see Alice in Wonderland. The design of that piece was absolutely fantastic. The costumes were brilliant, the set was awesome and the use of lighting, especially to show Alice growing and shrinking, was really well thought out. Even if you're not naturally into theatre or performing, you should definitely go and see any of the many productions put on by the various performance groups. Even just to appreciate how much effort they put into them - whilst maintaining a good standard of work in their own degrees. Brilliant.

On Friday it was the End of Year Drama night out at the o2 for Propaganda. I don't really go out a lot but because this was the end of year one, I decided to make an effort and join them. I put the message out that I would provide my flat for the meeting point and we'd all go to Propaganda from there. The night was really fun and more people than I imagined turned up, which did wonders for my social esteem. I was able to let off some steam by dancing the night away to really good indie tunes and eventually getting back to my flat at about 3.30am. I'll definitely be joining the drama people for a night out again soon. It was good to see everyone again after finishing the year and not quite realising we had no more classes together until October.

This weekend has been a nice relaxing one, so far, and the only thing left to do is go to Bar One for a few games of pool and see if anyone turns up for the pub quiz. Due to exams, the quiz has been sparse for the past couple of weeks. They'll probably cancel it soon then restart it back in October. One thing I haven't indulged in is a BBQ on the Vale, which I assume is allowed because disposables are being sold in Cost Cutter and I haven't heard of anyone being told off for it, yet. That must be done before term ends completely.

Final Term: Week 1: Election Hosting and the Two Bars

Firstly, the University of Birmingham hosted the political debate this week. One of the things promoted by the Guild was the vote for students campaign. They encouraged everyone to wear either a Vote for Students shirt or just a pink themed outfit. The first thing that sprang to mind, apart from 'I don't own any pink' was 'I can't wear red, then'. I'm all for this particular campaign because it's about tuition fees and such but the first thing I think of when a 'wear -colour-' day comes up is either the lack of that colour in my wardrobe or the clash of colour that I will likely choose instead. I wore blue on Thursday. No pink.

Aside from the colour grumble, having the UK's media on campus was mental! It was a perfect opportunity for me and my friend because we both wanted to get some work experience in the TV industry so rather than shamelessly standing in the background of a shot we went and spoke to a few people and got some contact details. There was definitely a buzz around campus and everyone was excited to see Mandleson roaming free with a camera on him.

In other news, Joe's Bar has been moved and prettied up! Joe's is the bar in the Guild of Students on the main campus, where you can go for a drink or some food any time of the day and where quite a few events are held in the evenings. I love spending time in Joe's - even more so now that it's all done up. The prices are really good, too. For half a four seasons pizza (which, to me, could well have been a full pizza as it was a generous half) it's £3. A huge portion of chips (and I mean HUGE) it's about £2. Absolute bargain. It's all freshly made in the kitchens of Joe's, too, so it's very good quality food. If I wasn't so conscious about calories, I'd have my lunch there most days. There's also the biggest dessert in the world (perhaps not an official claim but it is pretty huge) which is aptly named the 'University Challenge', with the tag line 'do you dare or do you have to share?'. Fantastic! The onion ring tower also looks interesting. ...now I'm hungry.

Last night I met up with one of my friends from back home. He brought his BCU (Birmingham City University) friend along and I brought my boyfriend along so we all sat on Bar One (the bar on the Vale) and had a drink together then played some pool. Our original option was to go to Broad Street but considering it was a Friday night we didn't want to get caught in the mass crowds of people going to Gatecrasher and such like. Bar One always has a good atmosphere and plays good music so it was definitely a better idea. It's £1 for two games of pool (or 60p for one) so we played a good few games, which was a welcome return as I played a lot of pool in the last two terms and was itching to get back there. On Sunday I'll be returning to Bar One for the Pub Quiz again. Not quite sure what our team name should be this time round.

Through the whole of the Easter break I've been doing work and avoiding doing work. Thankfully, I only have one essay left to complete then only one exam on the 19th May then I'm done for first year. I'll still continue blogging after I've finished because I'll still be in Birmingham for the rest of the term. The contract for halls ends on July 4th and my second year house contract starts on July 1st so I'm taking advantage of that convenience and will be moving my stuff over gradually. But, as I said, I still have one essay to complete. That's in for Tuesday so I better get cracking!

Week 0: Moving and Settling In

Hello random readers! I may as well introduce myself considering this is the first post. There is a section somewhere on here with a few facts about myself but I can write more in here. I'm Vici Royle, I'm a Drama and Theatre Arts student at the University of Birmingham. I'm living a self catered flat Tennis Court (Centre Court, to be exact), which is part of the Vale student village. My family home is in Doncaster, near Sheffield, and I appear to be one of the very few northerners at the Uni. We're a rare breed. What else? As well as being clearly interested in theatre - acting, backstage stuff, theory and everything else to do with it - I like watching (not playing) ice hockey and I'm an utter Harry Potter nerd. In this here blog I'll be pretty much keeping track of what's going on in my life and how it feels to be a student living away from home (though my flat feels like a second home already) and facing up to proper adulthood.

And so onto the post! The week before moving to university was a bit hectic. I was sent a reading and equipment list which meant I had to buy two books (the complete works of William Shakespeare and a drama anthology) and some steel capped boots (the Drama course isn't just about acting, it also includes backstage work which includes building the set, props etc which requires safety equipment). I had a mini panic when I looked at the reading list because there were so many on the list. There were two must-haves, aforementioned, six 'essential reading' and a few more on general reading. I was advised that I didn't have to buy all of them and should just buy the must-haves and exploit the 2million+ volume library on campus. To buy all the essential and must-haves would've set me back over £100 so I was happy not to hand over so much money especially as being a student means this horrible thing called budgeting enters your life, which I will develop on later.

It took me two hours to drive to the university and I was still an hour early (I was allocated a time slot to move in). The atmosphere was incredible when I arrived. There was music blaring out of the TeCRA (Tennis Court Residents Association) office, a marquee to collect keys and Freshers Fest (I'll explain later) tickets as well as the internet CD and insurance. I'm in Block 21 which meant that I couldn't escape the blaring music (TeCRA office is just downstairs) but that didn't matter at all because it added to the excitement of moving in. Naturally I let my Mother sort out the kitchen stuff while I set up my PC and put my books away. The internet was very easy to set up and took only ten minutes and a restart. There were three options: free, £70 and expensive. I chose the free package and it's really good. I haven't yet tried to watch anything on the iPlayer or 4OD so that could be a good measure to see how awesome the internet is but I'm sure that won't be an issue at all.

My flatmates (there are six of us in my flat) arrived at staggered times with one arriving a day late because he couldn't make the allocated move in day, which wasn't a problem at all (though he did have to arrive before 8.30 to get his keys whereas my move in time was 12.30 - 13.30). There was a welcome meeting the whole of Tennis Court at 2.30pm so we had enough time to organise the important things in our rooms and the kitchen, to remember names and sit around in the lounge to chat. We all agree that we were really lucky with flatmates because we already feel like we've known each other for ages and act like a family. If there are any problems (cleaning, for example) then there's never an argument because we all understand that we have to look out for each other and make sure we're all happy to live together. We get along really well, too, so that helps. There are already a few in-jokes and lots of funny stories.

The girls and I made a few friends on the way to the welcome meeting who, we found out, were living in the block right next to us, so we've seen them alot all week. We actually class one of them as the extra flatmate because he spends so much time in our flat. It was really easy to make friends with random people here because most people are very social and like to knock on random doors to say hello and get to know everyone. Danny, one of my flatmates, has a mission to get to know the name of everyone in centre court by the end of the year. He's already off to a flying start.

After we all settled in on Sunday, we went down to Bar One at the Hub in the Vale for a drink. Unfortunately the frivolities were cut short when there was a fire alarm and we were all evacuated. We all went back to the flat to play a few card games and make the most of the first night, regardless.

Monday was the start of the Freshers Fest. This is a university organised festival that includes nights out almost every day of the week (not compulsory) as well as vouchers for one free admission at the cinema, one free game of bowling and one free comedy night at Jongleurs. There were various levels of the pack depending on what the individual wants to get involved in. I bought the Silver Package which included all the nights in FF as well as Calvin Harris for next Friday and the Freshers Ball, which was last night. The Gold Package also includes N-Dubz. The prices ranged from cheap to expensive. The most expensive (gold) was £65 plus postage/booking fee and the cheapest was just a Freshers Ball ticket at £20 plus postage/booking fee. There's also a comedy night with an actor from The Inbetweeners for £7. You could buy individual tickets for Calvin Harris, N-Dubz and the Freshers Ball if you so wished to. That was mainly for people who missed out on buying them online before arriving at University.

Wednesday wasn't a particularly nice start, for me, because I had to wake up at 7am after a late night to make sure I was down at the Selly Oak campus for 10am, it being a 45 minute walk away. The reason for this was an introduction lecture to the course. There was a Facebook group already set up for the people doing Drama at Birmingham so I posted a notice to say that anyone who wanted to walk down together should meet in the Centre Court courtyard. About ten people turned up, a few from other halls but mostly TC. We had a lovely walk down to the Selly Oak campus, together, chatting breeze on the way. After the introduction to all the staff and the basic structure of the course, we were given the name of our Personal Tutor and had a meeting with them where we were given our timetable. We had to work out which slots were ours because there were various groups. I have Thursday off, which is nice. I doubt I'll actually have it off compeltely though because I've been advised that for every hour of contact (a lecture, a seminar etc) I have to do five hours of reading. I have about eight hours, at a guess, of contact, per week.

This morning my student finance information arrived in the post (which was delivered directly to my flat) so I could embrace the lovely task of budgeting. I chose to organise a weekly budget. I'm getting the full tuition fee loan, which I won't see because it is paid directly to the University, the full maintenance loan (income assessed) and a non-repayable grant which means I'll be surviving on £80 a week, which is very comfortable. As well as that funding, I'll be getting two bursaries from the University which are paid in two installments in January and May, I believe. I'll comment on them when I get them because they're irrelevant at the moment. With the budget I'll be able to do a limited weekly shop, save some money for laundry (£2.20 for a wash, £1 for the dryer), have a few notes for entertainment and perhaps save some money for summer or birthdays/Christmas.

And with that I'm off to make myself some dinner and hang out with the flatmates who have arrived back from wherever they escaped to. I should be updating this blog once a week with the happenings of Birmingham so do come back every Saturday or Sunday to see what's going on in Flat 135.