Well this summer hasn’t been at all what I thought it would be.. After first year finished I was so devastated to go home but excited for the summer plans I had.
It started with a trip to London to see Rihanna which was amazing and it was so lovely to spend time with my sister as I don’t see her a lot! After that, I went to Budapest with one of the girls which was a nice break, it’s a nice city but if I was going again I think I’d stay in a hostel (we went with airbnb). Then when I came home it started going downhill.. Even when out in Budapest I started to feel unwell but when I got home it worsened completely, I was just so drained and constantly boiling hot – finally figured out I had severe heatstroke, which lasted about a week! I don’t think my body was used to the 36 degree heat in Budapest at all.
Then the dreaded results day came & unfortunately for me when I saw mine they weren’t what I thought they’d be, I found out I’d have to go back to Bournemouth later in the summer to resit exams.. Can’t lie I cried my eyes out when I saw my results, I was just so disappointed in myself & was worried I’d be disappointing my parents. When I told them they were supportive of course and knew I’d have a lot of hard work to do. It took me a while to tell my siblings and even my closest friends about my exam results.. I felt so embarrassed and ashamed, all I needed was 40% and I couldn’t get that, I was just unbelievably disappointed myself. But this changed my summer plans completely. This meant no more festivals, not as much going out and having fun – my life just consisted of going to work, coming home and revising on a cycle for weeks which isn’t what I had planned at all.
However, this soon got disrupted slightly as I became very ill again. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me I thought it was food poisoning as I just felt drained, sick and had a bad temperature to the point all I could do was lie in bed. Anyone who knows me will know that I don’t like feeling as if I can’t do anything, so I became very anxious and feeling like this for a while plus not knowing what was wrong with me let negative thoughts creep into my mind. It was horrible, all I ate was one piece of toast a day and drunk orange juice and ice packs became a necessity all the time for a good 2 weeks. It came to the point I couldn’t take it and had to go to the doctors (it was left this late as having both parents in medical professions they know what to do but they then got worried as I wasn’t improving at all). It was concluded I had a nasty lung infection which had apparently been brewing for a while so I was given antibiotics and these kicked in after a few days as I slowly started to pick up my energy and my appetite slowly came back thank god!
As soon as I started to feel myself again, my time to go and resit came, and I’m not sure how they went last week but all I could do was my best & I revised every time I had a burst of energy so I did try. But this summer hasn’t been a highlight, aswell as having infections I think some of my illness came from the stress of having to go back to uni and revise all summer. All the resitting though, I know I have no one to blame but myself for that.. I think part of me definitely got caught up in the whirlwind of being a fresher and didn’t put 100% into revision and my degree. Although I am dreading results day in 2 weeks all over again, I know that whatever the outcome is, I will be going back to uni with a more focused and determined mindset. To get where I want to be in life I know I have to work extra hard, not give up and continue to turn anything negative into a positive.
Times like this make me extremely thankful for the people I have around me. I don’t know what I would have done this summer without the support of not only my brother/sister and best friends but my mum especially who I know I’ve put through stress these past few weeks but has been the best! I’m so lucky to have people who support me no matter what happens in my life good or bad. So, this is also a big thank you to those people who’ve really been there for me this summer in any way!
Ellen Anjali 