My Dad is in Norwich right now

Which makes perfect sense, because that’s where he lives. It’s also where I’ve lived for the majority of the time since Christmas. I failed my first year of university by ballsing up a sixth of my modules, and my only option was to take those modules again as an external student. That means I didn’t pay tuition fees or go to any lectures/tutorials, but it also meant I wasn’t entitled to any funding, even though I was stuck his a housing contract up in Sheffield.

Well, I tried to find a job up there for four months. I also tried to find someone to replace me in the contract, but I had luck with neither. With £17 in the world, I moved home again and found a job serving patients meals on hospital wards. I didn’t stay up boozing or oversleep by hours, but I still managed to make only a fraction of the pay Peter/Alcar was getting working for a foreign government, and the estate agents were still expecting me to pay three grand for three months’ accommodation, so my net gain for eight months’ employment was a few hundred.

Tonight was my last day of work. Tomorrow I’m moving up to Sheffield properly. I went ahead and agreed to a new housing contract months ahead of knowing I’d be let back to study; in fact, I only found out this week, one week before the start of term. How anyone might be expected to sort themselves out in that timespan is beyond my merely human comprehension, but then I’m going to university with possibly the shittest administrative effort of any organization ever. While I secured a house, I haven’t secured my student loan, and without it I can’t complete my re-registration, which must be done by Monday.

So for all of this and many other reasons, it’s been a shitty year. Although it has made the highlights seem extra shining special, I’ll be so glad for all the crap and circumshit to be over and done with. When I’m a registered student with money and housemates that get on (which may take a while, it now seems), I’ll let you know.