Stuck in the Bubble

I didn't understand it when people said that returning to University was like returning to a Bubble, but now the only way I can describe University is a parallel universe. Honestly, I did not believe it when people said that it was so entirely different to any life you will ever have, and I did not expect it to be so all-encompassing and challenging in so many ways. Now, I find myself with a week to go, without any deadlines but still a lot of reading if I don't want my suitcase to weigh a tonne, and itching to get away. Not from the people, or the city, or the experience of learning and trying so many new things, but just from a world which doesn't feel quite real.

My section of my shared room at University

Last year, I faced the realities of everyday life in marginalised communities in London, and it was a wake up call. Foodbanks lie dear to my heart, as does issues of poverty, benefit sanctions, and community groups. Even in a city that seems to be pretty idyllic, since being here I have learnt that it is unique among the county and that there are parts where the lifespan decreases by 10-20 years in a ten-minute drive. Yet, I am part of a weird world where students complain about money yet rarely face the real problems of hunger, electricity, water, shelter. And they are hugely apathetic about the Foodbank collection in our post room, which only had one tin of food in the last time I checked. Many are incredibly ignorant of real situations in real lives, yet are some of the most intelligent people I have met. There are a few which have real hearts of compassion, real love and drive and have even set up this incredible organisation to get students involved in local charities that would otherwise struggle to get volunteers. I was thrilled when I found out about them, but disappointed in myself that apathy set in so quickly as I was swaddled up in a cradle of comfort, of meals in a fancy dining hall and my money going towards the next best event and making friends than my passion for community. Why does being a student exemplify me from being a part of society as a whole?

You can easily spend all day going from breakfast to the library, to a lecture, to lunch, to basketball practise, to your kitchen for a tea break, to your room, to dinner, to the library, to bed. Stuck in your bubble of friendship and intellect, afraid of missing out, branching out, and really considering what is important in life. Rarely considering other people outside of this alternative reality.

Some people say you have to embrace this world in which a week goes by so fast and yet everything evolves - you have hours and hours of knowledge crammed in, new people and the dynamics of the group of people that you see everyday seems to reform every hour. For me, it feels more like staying afloat and remembering my true identity and passions which exist outside of this maddening sensation of not being in the real world and losing some of the convictions most important to me. I feel threatened.

This makes out as if University has been a bad experience, and it undoubtedly has not. I've been surprised at how much I have loved it. I've really quite enjoyed learning again, discovering and rediscovering, becoming excited by the vastness of the classical world and the underlying features of novels and the new ways of reading theology. I've enjoyed weighty discussion. I've enjoyed taking up exercise more regularly in an atmosphere where it is encouraged even if you are really very bad (like me). I've enjoyed having people around to talk to over cups of tea. I've enjoyed meeting so many inspiring people through church and Christian Union who show such generosity and help to such a confused fresher, and learning through them how to stumble along in faith at University. But I've also felt smothered by the workload, smothered by the constant social expectations, none of which I would classify as being quite real.

University is bizzare and I don't understand it yet. It's a bubble which feels inescapable, but I'm sure that over Christmas I will miss it. No matter how much I complain and grumble, I still am living in a real world. It is just a world I hadn't really considered before, a world tainted with far more privilege and freedom than I am used to, and a world far further from home than I've ever been.