After finally reaching the half-way mark at uni, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the past months and share some of the moments I have experienced during my first semester at Leeds uni…
Fresher’s week
I think everyone can agree that Fresher’s week was a whirlwind full of late nights, lots of alcohol and a million new faces and names. In my eyes it was very worthwhile as it set the foundations for solid friendships to be formed and many a fun nights to be had.
Family nights
My ‘kitchen’ seemed to form a close bond quite quickly and decided we would try to have ‘family night’ every Sunday evening where two of us would cook for the rest of us. Using the resources available to us, in true student form, we started this trend off by using the fajita packet we had in our welcome pack to have a Mexican night. Despite a few accidents with knives (as some of us had never cooked before) and a few odd questions (what is this inside the pepper? Do we eat it?) the meal proved to be a delicious success with (thankfully) none of us getting food poisoning!
Our second family night came with lots of hype as the never-having-cooked-before chef duo decided they would surprise their dinner guests with a three course menu: the content only to be revealed at the dinner. Of course we weren’t expecting Gordon Ramsay standard, but they did seem pretty confident; so who knew? Perhaps they could surprise us? Surprise us they did, as nothing could have prepared us for the starter of bruschetta cooked ‘simple’ style – a lightly toasted piece of French bread with a delicately placed tomato on the top and hidden chunks of raw garlic buried in the bread (none of us were pulling that night for sure!). The rustic style was actually quite tasty and was followed by jacket potatoes with a range of toppings – including homemade chilli! To end there was a choice of break-your-jaw-whilst-eating mars cupcakes or m&s bought little dessert pots served in a shot glass (that could be put to good use later) – I think you know which I chose.
Spontaneous nights out are the best…
I’ve always heard people rave about how spontaneous nights out are the best, but I never really understood how they could be since I’m such a control freak and always so organised; I just couldn’t quite understand it! However, there is one particular night that springs to mind that makes me now agree with that saying.
It was one of our flatmate’s birthdays and we made a sudden decision late afternoon that we would go out that night and we would go out in fancy dress! Of course that meant a very rushed trip to the fancy dress shop with frantic phone calls to our flat mates about what they would like to be. To sum it up, that night proved to be one of the best, as we weren’t worried about looking good – our costumes had already decided that for us. Instead we were more concerned about having fun and having a good time! Besides, on a practical note, fancy dress proved to be very useful as the club were very eager for us to come in since we were the only ones dressed up, and it was easy for us to find each other when we got lost!
Halloween…
There was a lot of excitement in the few weeks prior to Halloween as everyone was trying to decide which club to go to and what to dress up as! For me, the best part of Halloween was decorating our kitchen as we went all out and truly got into the Halloween spirit, even using face paint as well!
The Christmas break was a much needed one, giving me the chance to catch up with family and friends at home and even getting some homemade meals that weren’t a risk to my health! But, after my first semester proved to be so much fun, I’m ready to get back to Leeds now; I just hope the fun times continue throughout my university life!
By Kirsty Rhodes