Let the busy times commence.

My first week at University studying masters was quite insightful. First of all, I learnt that in masters, due to the classes being much smaller, more discussions take place and with that, more group work. Until recently, I've never really been big on speaking aloud, expressing my views and contributing to in-class discussions. I guess that's just how I've always been, even in secondary school, teachers used to have nothing negative to say apart from contribution to in-class discussions. But ever since I was made to do presentations and working in groups much more during my final year studying Psychology as well as entering the working world with my part-time job - I can really say hey, I actually have a voice. As well, I don't think I really wanted to talk much before because I was afraid of outside perspectives on myself - now I could really care less about what people think. But of course, studying masters, you rarely ever get those judgemental idiots that are quick to disrespect you and criticise your way of thinking. People are generally more objective, open minded and if they do have something against your views then it's always constructive and never just because they don't like you. I guess this is one aspect I like about studying masters - everyone is friendly and open to listening to your opinion. I really feel like after a year of these group chats every week, presentations and workshops - I'll really develop as an individual by the time I get my 2nd degree.

Generally, the lectures were great. I like all my lecturers which is a good sign. Not much to say on this part since the first week is always "introductory" lectures that just outline what is it you're actually studying. I have so much coursework though and exams in January T__T, this will be new to me since I've never actually had exams in January - only 8 exams in the summer for the past 3 years of my undergraduate =___= I guess it'll be interesting having to split revision time evenly across the year rather than cramming everything in a month before the exams. There's just so many dates and deadlines to remember because there's also workshops going on during November and I pretty much have one for every module I study which is a pain. 

Other than that, my job has been getting more and more enjoyable - maybe because I work less hours now. I don't know how people can handle full time retail. But I had a meeting with the store manager yesterday and she's keeping me as a permanent member of staff now! Awesome since I actually have some income coming in, I was trying to think of a backup plan in case my temporary contract doesn't get renewed but looks like I won't have to anymore. I feel very lucky to have such a lovely department manager, store manager and assistant store manager. People say working in retail is horrible but it's really who you work with that matters. I love kidswear despite the horrible customers and the annoying plastic hangers that barely fit the clothes so you look like you're trying to rip people's clothes up trying to get the hangers off in front of the customers at the cash desk, the mess people make trying to find the right size clothes. But I really love the people I work with so it's not all that bad. 

Roll on 2nd week of masters!

 

University & Life.

So how have I been recently? 

I've been fat, busy and poor. Pretty much sums up my previous week up till now. 

Had fast food THREE times last week - crazy fatness, my cholesterol levels must be through the roof right now. Don't mind me if I have a heart attack sometime soon. Had to have KFC twice just because it's right outside my uni and to be fair, I hadn't had it for a very long time. Had McDonalds as well sometime during that week and then Subway when I was at work this weekend. To make matters worse for my health, I had McDonalds today as well, only a happy meal but I was so hungry okay!? Tomorrow, I swear I'll grab a subway or something. At least subway has veggies right? NO MORE KFC FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH. I've also been snacking on random things this week like chocolate here and there, crisps now and then. 

As for being busy, I've been busy with enrolment and orientation/induction week at uni then I've been working at the weekend as well, manager called me and asked me if I could do 4 hrs overtime on the Saturday - I thought why not? I'm working on Saturday anyway, may as well extend it and earn some more monies. I only do these things for kidswear and not any other floor like downstairs. Turns out my old team leader from downstairs is now the new team leader on kidswear, I'm so glad it wasn't that other newbie woman, she's nice but like ground floor said - she panics WAY too much. My team leader now is just cool, calm and collected and lets us work at our own pace even though she gives us time limits. She's casual as well. I think the type of people I hate most are those that are too formal in a retail job, in retail I think as well as working and doing what you're supposed to do, it's good to have fun with your colleagues as well. So work was atrociously busy that weekend, I was so pooped by the end of Sunday and to think I had uni the next day was something I wanted to forget. 

First week of uni, I loved my first lecture. 2nd lecture I had today - I absolutely hated it. It was all economics and this lecturer we have, she uses lots of complex economic terms assuming that we all know what she is talking about. I haven't the slightest clue about economics, so I found it really difficult to do the task in the seminar afterwards, I think everyone in my little group had difficulty. It was awkward when we were asked about what we found, no one wanted to talk and so there was just this odd silence until the lecturer asked the whole class instead. Uh oh. But to be fair, she didn't make the objective of the seminar clear at all. She may as well have been speaking another language, even when we asked her for help, we still didn't understand. Tomorrow, I have 2 lectures back-to-back, so a horrible and rather long 6 hour day for me. Luckily, I don't start early so I don't need to wake up at the crack of dawn to get to lectures. But at least these 2 lectures are lectures that I'm looking forward to having the most, it's not economic related and much more hands-on in terms of HRM. Finally a lecture that isn't just history or economics. 

I'm poor right now because it's payday soon. I'm always poor near payday because I spend too much - simple as. Although I suspect next pay will be better since I've bombed my bank account by buying a monthly travel card therefore I don't need to top up my oyster every week anymore. Though, i've been spending a lot eating with the boyfriend recently =/ we've been indulging on sushi, Korean, Nandos, Japanese too much. Everytime I suggest we just have McDonalds just to be cheapos (TRUST ME TO SAY THIS), he's all like "NO MCDONALDS >:(" and I'm all like "T___T" I love how my boyfriend screws at me for having too much fast food, I used to be the one screwing at him for having McDonalds for dinner every night he was at work >:( Ahh, it's only been 1 day since we saw each other and I miss the guy. Seeing him on Thursday though, my day off from uni - classes scheduled for Thursday don't start till week 2. Can't wait :) 

So right now, I'm planning to stay up till around 8am because there's this tournament on that my boyfriend got me into watching and I reaaaally want to watch it even though I'll be a zombie tomorrow - yay for 4 hours sleep tonight! 

Hectic Sunday.

Another busy day at work.

Ever since sales kicked off, the shop floor looks like a bombsite after every 2 hours. I was so tired today my brain was running at about 10%, I made so many mistakes at the beginning of my shift - got confused with this guy's euros and coins that I accidentally overcharged him 5-10p without even realising or knowing what the exact amount was, typed in £500 received instead of £5 so I was shocked to see the change amount was something like £495. My brain was too slow to even try and work out how much the correct change was. Then these rude customers all came at once, some just looked unimpressed with the till queues and I overcharged this lady by accident and she was like "double check before you overcharge people" - er it was an accident, I'm sure you've made them in your life as well. What a bitch. Then there was this woman with a crazy kid running around causing havoc and his mum was unable to control him, my colleague got annoyed and said something and the mum got pissed off - I had to serve this angry mum as a result and it wasn't nice with her throwing bags at me and giving me dirty stares even though I did NOTHING to her. Then she demanded to see our manager - good, I'll let the manager deal with this bitch.

Closing time. I closed a section I've never done before and it took me pretty long, the table was trashed and I mean trashed. It looked as if someone had come and swept everything off the table and dumped it all back. There was shit dumped WITH THEIR HANGERS ON I mean like 10 of the same thing, I have a feeling someone (not a customer) did this, maybe a member of delivery or something - but oh well, I was left to sort the shit out. It took me forever to tidy that one damn table. Luckily someone helped me with the maternity section so it was about 95% tidy by the time I got to it. Went over to homeware to help out and it by 7pm it looked like it wasn't even done at all. Homeware was trashed, even more so than my table. All of us had to come help tidy it. It was fun with all of us there though, we all chatted and laughed whilst tidying and our manager is so relaxed even though she talks with an authoritative voice when she tells us to do things. I really like the kidswear team, I get along with everyone - we're more like a family sometimes than a team. To sum up my Sunday at work, I was pretty much on tills serving rude customers for the most part, then I was tidying the baby section with babies crying and screaming everywhere. Gosh, I hate it when a mum refuses to take her baby out even though he/she has been screaming and crying for 20 minutes - like, I understand it's hard but please do everyone a favour and do SOMETHING to shut your baby up.

The best thing that happened to me today was a cute little Chinese kid waving to me after his mum and brother left after paying. He came back to the desk and waved at me before running off to join his mum. I was like awwwwwwwwh HE'S TOO CUTE. He had that typical mushroom-bowl-Asian haircut too. So cute.

Other than that, I'm completely exhausted right now, filled with greasy chicken wings and rice that I had for dinner. I'll need a couple cups of green tea to emulsify that fat before sleeping. Going to grab myself some fruit, green tea and a slice of pandan cake when I watch Breaking Bad to end my night nicely.

Already feeling somewhat stressed out.

It's only the 3rd day into my induction week and I'm already feeling stressed for some odd reason.

It might have just been because the weather was complete shite and travelling is rather stressful in itself. I still haven't quite gotten used to the whole having to leave a whole hour before class so I can actually get there on time from home. Sigh. I'm also still figuring out how to do things as well as submit all the paperwork for elective modules.

Today's induction was 3 hours long and in that time I pretty much managed to get everything important handed in such as my elective module choices. This was pretty stressful in itself, because I couldn't find the right person to hand it into at the end of the session, so I just handed it into someone that could hand it to the right person for me. I needed to hand it in asap so I can make sure I get my module choices - I think I'd hate to have to study something in my secondary choices...

Also, for some reason, I now have to write 1000 words about MYSELF based on some personality questionnaire to hand in on Friday as well as a presentation to do. Term hasn't even officially started and there's already a mini essay and a presentation to do... I can already tell this year is going to be most definitely all work and no play.

A very tiring Sunday.

Today was especially tiring for a sunday. Normally, I work on Sundays and they're usually not too bad because Sundays are usually quiet in H&M with the mornings being generally chillaxing, maybe a busy period lasting for about 1-2 hours but nothing extreme. I thought today would be like any other Sunday but OH HOW WRONG WAS I. 

When I got to work, straight away I was put onto helping set up kidswear sale... Sorry what? Kidswear SALE? I didn't hear about no sale. Turns out this is some MEGA sale, I saw tons on clothes scattered around on the floor by visuals who were arranging the shop floor to set up sale rails. I didn't even have to touch delivery today, straight away I was putting hangers onto 100 pieces of clothing all over the floor, my poor knees T__T. Then I was putting stickers onto all the sale items with everyone else, I can't believe all that took 2 hours to do. 

By the end of the busy unexpected sale day, we had 2 rails and Mount Everest in the fitting room. I have no idea how so many dumpings accumulated so easily. The people in kidswear tomorrow are going to have a really lovely Monday morning clearing 3 rails worth of dumps. Oops. 

2nd week of orientations at uni tomorrow. I can't wait till lectures actually start, I feel really disorientated going into uni and not actually learning anything yet but rather hearing about things I've been doing for the past 3 years like academic referencing, plagiarism, how to write an essay etc etc. So I've decided to give those "talks" a miss because I'm assuming they're aimed at international students who have no idea how to write essays in the UK. But still, trust the important course-related talks to be held in the morning =____=. Luckily 10:30am is the earliest one I have, which is tomorrow, the rest I have are held in the afternoon which means more sleep for me. Woohoo. I'm dreading Wednesday though, because I have work straight after uni... I'll be waking up early for my talks at 11am then finishing at 5pm, then travelling to work straight away and finishing at 10pm - a glimpse of what working whilst studying is going to feel like. Goodbye life. 

A more positive aspect of my upcoming week is that I'll have been with my boyfriend for 7 months on Wednesday (the day I have that horrible day of uni and then work *cries*). It feels like a long time. Then on Friday I'll be having a double date with a friend I haven't seen in a long time and her boyfriend. This is technically my last week of being able to go out during the day - after this week, it'll be all work and very little play (or no play at all, depends on how antisocial I'm feeling by then). 

New university, new course, new beginnings.

Just now, I found myself re-arranging and sorting out my bookmarks on Chrome, deleting all remnants of RHUL links I used to use on a daily basis throughout my course - I must say it made me miss RHUL just a little. I'll be replacing those links with Westminster uni links soon enough. Like the title says - new university, new course and a new beginning. 

I enrolled at Westminster today, I'm glad the campus was simple enough to locate, being situated right next to Baker Street station and all. The building itself is very simple to move around in, of course, for a second I forgot that London university campuses aren't very "campus-like", they're more like clusters of buildings dotted around different parts of the city. The finance office was very easy to find which was a relief as I wanted to get the fees part of enrolment over and done with before actually enrolling. I realised I had turned up for some pointless talks, such as the introduction to the university and its history - not particularly relevant to my course. Also, some annoying girls were chatting behind me which made the talk slightly unbearable to sit through. 

I spent half of the lunch break sorting out fees at the finance office so I didn't get to do anything apart from find KFC, McDonalds, Subway and Starbucks - they're all I need right? I only managed to buy a green tea from Starbucks before having to head back to the building in time for the first course-relevant talk of the day. 

This was where I met my fellow course-mates who I would be spending the next year around. The majority are girls (yet again, in a course full of girls) and are international. They're all lovely people, I felt like the baby of the class being a freshly graduated 21 year old whilst most are either married with children, been working abroad for a couple of years or started off in another field and wanted to get into HR suddenly. I met only 2 home students, one of them was from another part of the UK and the other was from London like me! Woohoo, a fellow Londoner - I felt less lonely. I only got to properly talk to him during enrolment though. I like that my class is fairly small, we're taught alongside international HRM students which is cool since our modules overlap somewhat. Enrolment was easy peasy since I was a home student, so the queue was tiny compared to the huge line of international students. I managed to enrol and get my photo taken for my ID card in 30 minutes which was great - not so great because it meant I was ridiculously early for my date with the boyfriend. 

I wasted a lot of that spare time in Costa reading through the elective module choices, we have to pick 4 optional modules to study on top of the core modules. I'm pretty much picking all the organisational psychology related modules because that's where I can fully utilise my psychology degree - luckily there are 2 in each block that I could choose. I just need to be early with submitting these choices in case the spaces get snapped up quickly. 

So far, I'm really liking the university, the course is really suited to me as well. I remember being worried that the majority of students would have a business/management related first degree so compared to them, I will have very limited knowledge in anything business/management related. But these modules are pretty much the organisational psychology course I did in third year, but expanded and in much more depth. So right now, I don't feel so worried about not being able to catch up - playing to your strengths is a very good thing to do. 

I'm looking forward to when I get my full timetable after I make my course choices. I'll need to plan working at H&M around it as well. I just hope I can cope with work and studying as well as social life =/

Mexican food, catch ups, crap weather & the start of a new chapter.

It's been a year since I've seen my main girls, I can't believe it's been so long since we've all been free and been able to meet up for dinner. We ate at Chiquitos, Mexican food - the food was okay, stingy amount of chips, bad tasting salad but at least the wrap I ordered was pretty decent. Not really worth the £10 though for the amount they served. Had a really nice catch up with my girls, it's time like this that will be really rare from now on since people are heading back to uni. But at least we managed to get one evening together chatting about life and about our futures. I found it quite exciting talking about the future with them - although not many people I know like to think about what lies ahead, I really want to. Maybe I'm just turning into a career/life driven woman but I'm really excited for what lies ahead in the future. I feel like I have much planned out and I can't wait to start working and working towards my goals.

I should be asleep right now because I have my enrolment/orientation at Westminster tomorrow morning. I need to find out where is this Westminster Business School is first haha. I'm really unprepared in terms of where the building is, I'm on prepared on the paperwork part. I'm excited to see how small my class is - I'll be looking around thinking these rich people around me who can afford £10k+ to study this course. I'm pretty much assuming most will be international, maybe some will be rich middle class people or maybe some might even be mature students looking to go into HR. All I'm worried about is payment of fees and stuff, this information isn't even as clear cut as it should be online so I'm hoping I can find the right person to talk to about these things. I know tomorrow will be a long day for me because I'll spend most of my time searching for buildings and departments =____=. I'll hate getting used to new environments - if only I studied at RHUL still, things would be much more straight forward. But then again, new course, new environment - not all so bad.

To make my day more exciting, I'm seeing the boyfriend tomorrow as well. I've had so many concerns ever since he started his new job working 11pm-7am =/ I still have my concerns but I guess I'll never know if this arrangement will work out until a month or two in. I'll really miss being able to see him whenever I want to which was the case in the summer. Looking back, summer felt really short. But then again, being in a relationship, you have to learn how to adapt with these situations. We can't always be living like bums, seeing each other whenever we want to, can we?

Great, now I have things on my mind and I'm in the middle of the last episode of Breaking Bad season 3. MINIMAL SLEEP FOR ME TONIGHT!

Back from Barcelona.

Finally back at my home sweet home, took a shower, ate some dinner and tucked into my own bed with my laptop catching up on things I've missed.

I feel a little under the weather at the moment. I was so glad to come back for a number of reasons, even though the weather was great everyday during my visit, there really is no place like home. Right now, I feel a little sick, I had carsickness earlier due to Dad's crazy driving, he rarely drives at night so he was blaming his bad driving on that. I think he was just tired and hungry to be honest. That carsickness feeling is still in me despite having eaten and washed myself - I still feel a little sick, no fever though.

So how was my holiday? I have very mixed opinions about this holiday, a number of bad things happened that really outweighed the good things about the city itself and my experience of being in Barcelona for a second time. Firstly, my brother got pickpocketed in Las Ramblas on the second day of our stay, this was really distressing and a major negative aspect of the holiday which really affected my opinion of Barcelona as a city. Unfortunately he lost 100 Euros, 2 bank cards and the wallet his girlfriend had bought for him but on the upside he didn't lose anything else that would have been in the wallet since he emptied everything beforehand. Since that day, we all went out worried about our stuff, keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings and just being plain paranoid about safeguarding our belongings in crowded areas (which was in most cases since we were quite obviously tourists visiting crowded tourist-y areas which is usually swarming with pickpocketers). It just dampened the holiday as a whole as when you go on holiday you expect the experience to be enjoyable, relaxing and free from danger - except we all felt the opposite, the holiday was not as enjoyable as it could've been because of the crime in the area, we always felt vulnerable because we stuck out a lot from people that actually lived in Barcelona.

Secondly, almost everything was goddamn expensive, almost everything was more expensive than in London, even McDonald's was £2 more expensive. Although we were willing to pay because when you go on holiday you don't want to be watching what you spend since that's not enjoyable. But £70 for lunch? £90 for dinner? Way too expensive... It really made me miss London. Also, in a lot of tourist destinations, they don't put prices on their menus outside the restaurants and just charge you any number out of the blue after you order. Everytime I ate at any one of these type of restaurants I felt like I was being scammed.

With both things combined, it really feels like some people in Barcelona are desperate for your money. It makes me pity them somewhat, in places where the economy isn't good, they tend to make money using underhanded ways such as the whole menu-pricing thing, pickpocketing, working in groups to steal your belongings. It's really shocking. My brother saw a WAITRESS hand over 7 smart phones to a one of those people that ride around in those bikes with the seats behind them - what does it say about the waitress? She's been pickpocketing customers? It's sickening to see something like this happen whilst you're on holiday. You lose all trust in the people and it makes you just want to leave the country because you feel unsafe.

I guess some upsides of the holiday was the weather itself, we had glorious sunshine and endless heatwaves for all 5 days we were there. I was really sick of it by day 5 though, walking around a park when the sun was at its highest point is really bad. Also, the seafood in Barcelona is delicious, pricey but delicious. The place we stayed at was nice, the apartment was cosy, the beds were a bit rubbish and the service wasn't great because it's not a hotel. But overall, I think I'm glad to be back more than sad to leave. I think 3 days is enough in Barcelona - I never really want to go there again because of all the crime, maybe another part of Spain where crime is less but definitely not going to Barcelona again for a long time.