LIFE, a blog by faye

by **Faye** Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:30 am

Hello guys Very Happy

I hope some of you remember me; I'm Faye. I was born on July 4th 1998 so I'm 18 years old.

At the moment I live in a large city in the north of the UK. My sister and I were born in this country and my parents are from Hong Kong.

I'm interested in local and international politics, science, the law, debating, travelling, music, musicals, food (especially sushi, noodles and chipotle), reading, cats and memes Rolling Eyes

My favourite shows are Suits, The Big Bang Theory, Glee, Friends and How I Met Your Mother - I am always open to new suggestions haha

I've been wanting to write a blog for a while now actually. The blogs of Marilyn and Nadia have inspired me to start, so thank you guys.

I want to apologise for not being more active this year. The past school year was my last year in school, and the stresses of extra-curricular activities combined with academic work as well as applying to university (college for the americans here!) left me little spare time to visit this forum.

In the UK university courses tend to focus on one subject only such as Medicine, History or Maths. That means that teenagers here have to choose what they want to do with the rest of their lives pretty early on because some jobs require certain university degrees - for example, you need a degree in Dentistry to train to become a dentist.

We apply to university from September to January in our final year of school if we don't want to take a year out. We apply through an organisation called UCAS, and we can only apply to 5 universities. We also have to write a personal statement, which is a short essay on why we would be suitable for the course which we want to study, and basically why they should give us an offer of a place at the unis which we applied to. Offers of places start coming in after we send our applications out; I have friends who received all 5 offers which meant they had plenty of choice on which to accept, equally some friends received no offers which meant they had to take a year out and reapply next academic year.

The offers of places are usually conditional which means we have to get above a certain grade in our A-level exams to be accepted onto the course. We only found out our A-level results in late August, which meant that we had a long wait to see if we had been accepted into university. On August 18th this year I was blessed to find out that I had just about achieved the grades I needed for my course, and in October I will be moving to London to study Law! Cool

by **Hazza** Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:39 am

Great blog, Faye! Congrats on going to university to study law.

by **Anika** Mon Sep 05, 2016 12:04 pm

Yayayay! I've already said I can't wait for you to come to London but I honestly really can't!!! Laughing

by **Marilyn** Mon Sep 05, 2016 12:45 pm

Your life is so interesting o; can't wait to read more! And awh yay I inspired you ahehe. xo

by **Helaine** Mon Sep 05, 2016 6:27 pm

Aww I'm so glad to have inspired you! Very Happy

I absolutely love your blog thus far and your life is so intriguing! I can't wait to learn more about you & congrats to getting into London's school of Law! I'm sure you'll do great things there! c:

by **goCards** Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:04 pm

Many congrats!
Great blog.
Thanks for letting us know.

by **Faye** Thu Nov 10, 2016 11:37 pm

#1

11/11/16

Hello! I hope you still remember me because it's been months since I posted here, oops

My excuse is that I've been settling into university! Living away from home for the first time has had its challenges, and my course has been ten times more intense than I expected it to be.

We get a week of classes called reading week which is a bit like half term for UK schools; I've used mine to come home which is two hours away by train and I'm here now.

We only get 10 contact hours a week which are four two-hour lectures and two one-hour tutorials, which are a group of 6-8 of us with a tutor. We are expected to work from 9am to 5pm though and most of the rest of the time is spent reading - of cases, statutes (laws), judgement, opinions and articles on case outcomes. I have essays due for the end of the month as well which can be normal essays/opinions on something, or a problem question which is where the tutors make up a scenario and then we have to advise one of the parties in a scenario on what to do based on cases we have read about.

I've also joined some clubs and societies: the main one is the law society where I compete in debating, mooting (arguing a case and then getting questioned on it by an older student who acts as a judge) and client interviewing. I also signed up to the Christian Union, Amnesty International, refugee support group, chocolate society, non-law debating, Model UN, choir and badminton. Students in the UK get Wednesday afternoons off to play sports/volunteer/do other things so on Wednesdays after tutorials I plan to start volunteering with a programme where they teach Model UN to schools, and my friend wants to work in a care home and asked if I want to join, so I said I would do that to. Also, our law society is part of a scheme where we raise money for legal charities (to fund legal representation to people who can't afford it, among doing other things) by holding a talent show, a quiz and other events throughout the year so I'm going to work on the team for that too.

I live in halls which are across the road from the main university building where I have some lectures, and a 15 minute walk away (10 if I run) from the law building where my tutorials are so everything is very convenient - my dad used to drive my sister and I to school which was half an hour away by car. It also means I can get away with waking up late haha. My halls are catered (I can't cook) which means that meals are at specified times. Most evenings I have clubs so I miss dinner quite a lot, so I have to order a sandwich to eat later and it's a bit sad sometimes, but I have shops and lots of takeaway food near me which makes up for that. Not having a shared kitchen and not sharing an apartment or room with anyone makes it a bit harder to make friends, but I meet people mainly at meal times and everyone is really nice! I found a group of friends and we watched a horror movie together for Halloween - I usually don't like these kinds of movies but I read the plot beforehand on wikipedia so it was not too bad Very Happy

One day I will try and get a picture of my room on here, but I'm not there now and it's messy anyway...

My sister came to visit one weekend and we went out to eat - usually I don't have time (or money, but she paid with my parents' money). Here are some pictures, most of it is food because I like to eat and I hope they will cheer at least some people up after a rough few days of world politics

Spoiler:

If anyone's interested, I have pictures from my summer holidays from places that I visited including the USA, the Niagara Falls part of Canada, Greece, Italy and Croatia so I could do a photo post at some point maybe

Thank you for reading! Cool

by **Anika** Fri Nov 11, 2016 5:33 am

Wow, it sounds like you're having loads of fun! You've joined a crazy number of societies so you must be exhausted but it must be awesome! What you're doing in your law society for those who are unable to afford legal representation is just amazing! O: My friends had their reading week on the week of Halloween so you can you guess what they spent most of their time doing. Laughing

Catered halls sound really good. I completely forgot that you don't share an apartment with anyone for those halls but I swear you guys get a common room, if I'm not mistaken? {When I visited I only looked at self-catered halls lol}. London food is amazing and so diverse but super expensive!

Camden is amazinggggggg!!! I don't go there specifically for the food, though it's nice, but there's a store there that sells really pretty jewellery and that's where I head to. Very Happy

Also, where is the shake shack bc this is the first I've heard of it ?!?! :OO

The candyfloss w ice-cream looks so amazing too!

Overall, did your freshers week go well? You're the only person I know who has had a freshers party on a boat!
It sounds like you're having a wonderful time at uni! Smile

I'd love to see your holiday photos, btw!

by **Hazza** Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:04 pm

That sounds amazing! It sounds like you have a lot of work, but you are also having a lot of fun which is always important too. I don't know much about how UK university works, but it's interesting to learn how it works and how different it is from USA college (I'm not there yet, but will be). Your pictures are amazing and Shake Shack is delicious. There's one of those at my mall (outside the mall actually) and I go there sometimes, just incredible hamburgers, fries, and shakes.

by **Marilyn** Fri Nov 11, 2016 5:00 pm

So interesting! And those macaron ice cream sandwiches look amazinggg. o;

by **Sarabeth** Fri Nov 18, 2016 6:51 pm

I still love your blog, Faye!

by **Faye** Wed Dec 28, 2016 5:49 pm

Thank you so much for all the replies on this blog and sorry for the very late update again, I promise I haven't forgotten about it! Now that I'm home for Christmas, I have a bit more time to upload things I've done in the second half of my first semester at uni. Very Happy

@Anika
I wouldn't say I'm the most committed member of all the societies, as uni work always comes first for me, but they're good for making friends. xD I actually didn't end up doing much in my reading week, I stayed home and slept for most of it Very Happy

We do get a common room in our hall but I don't go down there much to be honest because I get quite busy, and people use it mainly to play table tennis, watch TV and be loud in general. If I could cook I would definitely have chosen self-catered apartments, and I know next year I want to move somewhere where I have a kitchen to cook for myself. You're right, food does get quite expensive so I don't eat at fancy restaurants (or any restaurants at all) unless I'm with other people lol.

I actually haven't been to camden since my sister came to visit because it's not within walking distance from me, it is amazing though and I wish I had more time to explore the market stalls!! There are several branches of shake shack, I know there's one in covent garden and another is pretty central as well (near the tourist areas lol). Perhaps we could go one day? Laughing

My freshers week was great because the law society organised loads of activities so we could get to know each other well but I wish I had joined some of the other societies' freshers events as well because I missed the orchestra auditions for example, which means I won't get to play my instrument for a whole year D: It's strange because I do know that a number of my friends who aren't on my course have been to boat parties, haha. Maybe it's because a lot of my friends go to unis near the river?

I'll upload my holiday pictures one day when I have lots more time. xD

(sorry for the very long reply, and if you ever need to ask anything about my uni/student life(?) feel free to pm, snapchat, anything!)

@Sammy
I guess the main difference between UK university and US college is that here we have to choose one main subject to study at uni and that's it, where as in the US you guys get to choose a number of different subjects/classes if I'm not mistaken? Personally I prefer the sound of you guys' system because a lot of people don't know what they want to do as a job once they leave school and apply for a random degree or something that they're not passionate about, then find out it's a bit of a useless degree and end up working in fast food or something competely unrelated. xD I suppose one advantage we have is I believe that university costs less here than in the US (£9000 a year at the moment, for all unis) but on the other hand some countries provide it for free and the cost of tuition will probably continue to rise over time D:
The cheese fries at shake shack are the best Very Happy

@Marilyn
Thank you! Yes, they were really delicious! The company which sells the macaron ice cream sandwiches makes them by hand during the week and sells them at the weekend and they only ever have 4 flavours available I think, so I had a red velvet one another time which wasn't available the first time I went, and that was nice. Very Happy

@Sarabeth
Thank you so much Sara. <3 Hope to see you online soon! Laughing

by **Faye** Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:46 pm

#2

29/12/16

First of all I'd like to wish everyone a late merry Christmas and early happy new year, it's that time of year again when you eat everything and still aren't in school/uni so you have no idea what day it is (or maybe that's just me) xD

I did my first essays, and although I enjoyed doing them (for the most part), I wasn't completely happy with my grades on them. I suppose I can learn from my mistakes and I definitely know what to improve on now. I have exams after Christmas as well, and they don't count towards my grade at the end of the year but I still want to do well so I hope I do enough revision for those now LIFE, a blog by faye 3253451262

Most of November was dedicated to doing my essays and the first time I properly went out with friends was the first weekend of December lol. Some friends from my hall and I went to a place called Winter Wonderland, which is in Hyde Park in London. They shut off a bit of the park each year and fill it with rides, Christmas market stalls, food stalls, funfair games and lights, and it was amazing! (I actually ended up going 3 times with different people haha). They had an ice rink and the world's largest portable rollercoaster I think, but I didn't go on those because I'm poor - I'm saving up to go on more rides next year because I love rollercoasters, but £9 for a ride of that rollercoaster when I live off a student loan just didn't seem economical at the time. If anyone ever comes to London to visit, I would highly recommend Winter Wonderland as there is so much to do there and the lights are really beautiful! The churros are delicious as well. xD

winter wonderland pictures:

The day after that, I went to a concert with my friends, it was classical music and we listened to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and The Nutcracker played by an orchestra Very Happy

every Christmas while I was in school I would actually be in the orchestra and play Christmas songs so it made me really miss doing that, but at the same time it was relaxing to listen to and I'm grateful to have found friends who share the same tastes in classical music as me. The venue of the concert was overlooking the river Thames and I managed to get a photo Very Happy

concert picture:

After that, I went to a Christmas ball organised by our law society which took place in a really fancy venue near Leicester Square. It was like a prom so we sat down to eat a Christmas meal first, then they moved the table, a dj came and played music and people started dancing. There was a chocolate fountain when we got there and my friends and I stayed there for about 10 minutes while everyone sat down in there seats waiting for starters, and I was so full from eating the sweets at the chocolate fountain that I didn't finish my whole meal haha.

christmas ball pictures:

Last post I wrote about how I am part of a group within our law society which raises money for people who need legal aid, which is legal representation for those who can't afford it. We decided to hold a bake sale so I went to my friend's halls where she has a kitchen (I don't lol) and we baked lots of food together as a group. We made brownies, rocky road, coconut and lemon cakes, red velvet cupcakes, salted caramel cupcakes, macarons (that we didn't end up serving in the end because they broke) and funfetti cake. It was a fun experience because I got to know people a bit better and made some friends there through baking together and selling cake to members of staff in the law building and other students was really funny. In total we raised over £200!

bake sale picture:

Nothing too interesting happened in the last few weeks of term until my friend from school came to visit. We both love musicals so for her birthday in September I bought us both tickets to see Les Miserables after the end of term for both of us (which essentially meant that she was forced to buy train tickets to come and visit me Laughing

) She stayed for three nights in total, and on the first day her train arrived at midnight (her uni is about 4 hours away from me by train) and we stayed up until 5am talking and doing 'karaoke' on youtube xD We probably would have woken some of the people who live in rooms next to me, but by then most people had gone home. The next day we went for dessert and we went to see the musical, and it was performed live in a theatre which was a whole different experience to watching the film of it - it was awesome, and although the tickets weren't cheap for two people I would go and see it again tomorrow. During her stay we also went to Winter Wonderland again, walked to Covent Garden to eat grilled cheese and did actual karaoke (apologies to whoever saw that on my snapchat) xDD We were both exhausted on the train back - we took it together because we live in the same city - and quite glad to be home after a long five weeks.

pictures of when my friend came:

As for Christmas celebrations in particular, I mainly spent time at home with family which means I don't have pictures. xD It gave a real meaning to the 'I'll be home for Christmas' song/message though because as a kid I used to take things for granted a be like, 'yeah, obviously I'll be at home, I don't have a choice' but living way from home for 5-6 weeks at a time makes me appreciate my family and the things they do for me a whole lot more.

Thank you so much for reading! <3

by **Hazza** Wed Dec 28, 2016 7:54 pm

Wow that sounds like tons of fun! The pictures are really gorgeous also.

by **Marilyn** Thu Dec 29, 2016 9:40 am

Sounds eventful! I think it's so wonderful you're part of a group that benefits others. I like the photos as well.

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