Personal Writing

First Day at University

 As my step-dad’s car rumbled through the gates of my new home, taking care to avoid the groups of students huddled together, I could feel my heart slowly beginning to sink into the darkest recesses of my body. What should’ve been a celebration of being the first Jakeway to go to university, suddenly felt more like being dragged to the gallows. It didn’t feel right.

My fiancée grabbed my hand and her smile said something that faintly suggested she was trying (and failing) to reassure me that everything was going to be OK. My mother was busying herself with the occasion whilst trying not to give away her own sense of grief. It was certainly a morbidly chastening experience.

The university itself was bathed in sunshine and the chapel’s roof pointed to the sky, as if to say ‘the only way is up from here’. And a majestic sight it was too. It resembled a gilded crown, all glass and steel pointing to the heavens but at the moment all I felt was that it was crown that was far too big for my own head, like Macbeth’s ‘borrowed robes’. I’d always considered myself to be smart, but at the moment all I felt was a fraud.

The Students’ Union building was our intended destination. It was here that I was to be dropped off, deposited. Abandoned. Apparently the university had planned some of those tedious ice-breaking ‘games’ to welcome all the new, scarf-wearing undergraduates to Canterbury Christ Church College, to soften the blow. I looked into the faces of those gathered around me and many of them seemed more ‘up for it’ than I was. Even at 23, I felt I was too old for this kind of nonsense but I sauntered into the room nonetheless and struggled to get my bearings over the mic-wielding MC who was struggling to establish a carnival atmosphere.

However, it was time to say goodbye to my mother, step-dad and fiancée. As we shared our last hugs, they turned and walked out of the door. I tried unsuccessfully to stifle the tears that demanded to make themselves known to everyone and I trudged reluctantly towards the margins of bar where the Freshers Week was taking place. As the tears continued, suddenly I was four again, and this was my primary school, and I was all alone, and scared. A stranger in a strange town, where no-one knew me or even cared.

 

Teaching and Learning Points:

• I have no idea if this is how things happened. There is a kernel of truth in there (I really did cry!) but I have little recollection of the precise order of things. This is how I IMAGINED the memory, what I would LIKE it to look like.
• I’ve tried to create a strong sense of mood, the anticipation of going to university is contrasted with the fear, the reluctance, the sense of loss, of being alone.
• I come across as a bit cynical in places but I also wanted to capture the very different moods/emotions I was faced with.
• I try and describe the setting but I don’t allow it to dominate the piece.
• Look at the selection of vocabulary used. the car ‘rumbled’, I ‘stifle’ a tear, I ‘sauntered’ into the room. These words, for example, do a lot of heavy lifting.
• This is meant to be entertaining, though not particularly humorous.

 

What does your memory look like on the page?