Posted by Sebastian, just graduated from studying Law Foundation at Bellerbys Oxford
Dear followers,
First of all I want to apologies for my long absence. I was asked to
continue blogging or at least write another entry but since I went
back home to good old Germany, I became incredibly lazy. I guess it
just happens when you have nothing really to do and you are hanging
around, staying up until the crack of dawn all the time, sleeping in
until afternoon and then still feeling tired and wondering why.
In
the beginning it is okay to live like that because you have been
looking for that for such a long time and you are really enjoying
every minute of that but after a while it gets a bit boring though
and also you might feel a bit miserable because you are always tired
and you are always doing the same. That is why I now choose to do
break the circle and do something different, for example writing this
blog entry and feeling good and relaxed about that.
I still remember quite the day when we had our last exams at Bellerbys.
Both exams, Law 3 and Politics 3 were on the same day, one in the
morning at 9 and the other at 1:30 in the afternoon – so we knew it
is going to be a tiring and difficult day for us. However it was good
that Law was first because it was the harder part. I just remember
that I learned over 130 cases for just law, so I really felt like a
walking casebook! By now I probably have forgotten most of them
again.
At that time my mind was dominated by names and facts of cases
but just knowing the cases is not enough because you also had to
learn the legal principles and the information around them that
belongs to the cases. In addition there was Politics to learn, so it
became really difficult to keep all that in mind and there was a
little lack of motivation. I must again thank all the people, for
example my parents, brother and friends who told me to sit through
this and in the end it all worked out as I imagined.
On the exam day we told ourselves we would not talk about the first exam
and compare what we wrote because it would only make us nervous and
we would think too much about that. Instead we tried to revise for
Politics after the Law exam. I said we tried because we did not feel
like revising the information again, we just wanted to finish the
exam and then feel free as birds and in my case before the exam it
felt like eternity until the Politics exam was due and then the
worries began.
As usual we all hoped the questions would be as we
prepared and the luck was with us. However, as far as I remember I
have so many things in my mind that I want to write so I can never
finish but it was enough to achieve a good pass and to qualify for
Oxford Brookes. I already knew that right after the exam was over, it
just felt like I did it.
In addition it took some while to realise that we just finished our last
and final exam and could now relax and let go. As I told myself, the
good time began!
The following week my parents came to visit with my
sister and they wanted to be there when the graduation for the
leavers took place. The graduation was before the results of the exam
were out but the atmosphere was still great, relaxed and happy. I am
still very proud to have won two awards – one for 100% attendance
throughout the whole year and a second for outstanding effort. Two of
my classmates also received awards, so we were all extremely happy
and I was happy for them because they really deserved them. Besides
it was another good occasion to wear a suit!
It just came into my mind that my father recorded most of the
graduation. So I will ask Bellerbys Oxford if they want to have a
copy of the film to upload on YouTube for everybody to watch. Feel
free to watch it then if you are curious!
While my parents were in Oxford with my sister, we went to Jamie's twice –
the restaurant of the well known English cook Jamie Oliver and we
seriously enjoyed that food. It was very tasty and the atmosphere in
the restaurant was fantastic. Also I think we deserved to celebrate
all that success.
So two days after the graduation, we were told our exam results and this
was another relief! From that moment on, it was all clear that the
hard work was worth it and it was official that we qualified for our
chosen universities. I was able to finish the Foundation Law course
with an average of 75% and my university asked for 65%, so I think
they were quite happy to accept me and to change my offer from
conditional to unconditional.
After saying good bye to
everybody in the college – which felt terribly hard by the way
because you have made so great friends with everybody and all that
things you have been through together – we stayed in England
another two days until we drove home by car which took us a whole day
from Oxford to Germany. So after that long journey I first decided to
have a very long and good sleep at home and I think it is funny when
you think that you drive through 4 different countries while
travelling – England, France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Finally this adventure in the United Kingdom of England was finished and it
first felt strange as you had developed this routine and you were so
used to it and it took me a long while – I guess until now – to
really calm down because I always thought that I need to do things
quickly as I used to while studying and that time is running. I
always had to tell myself too slow down now and really try to relax
and it is not easy I must say.
Another thing that got me excited right after coming back to Germany was the
World Cup, of course (I think another reason for delaying the blog for
so long), it really caught my attention and I was very enthusiastic
about the German football team and it was a very happy time,
especially if you see such wonderful football. The atmosphere in the
local pub where I watched Argentina against Germany was amazing.
However, after the World Cup it started to become boring as I
mentioned in the beginning and doing the same things all the time is
not so satisfying. The only thing that got me excited after that was
when I received a letter from Brookes confirming my accommodation and
forms for me to fill out. It makes me want to start to study as soon
as possible and I am really looking forward to September. Furthermore
it is nice that I already know Oxford like the back of my hand and I
can visit old friends, for example I will definitely visit Bellerbys
in September when they are in their new building near the river and
say hello!
I think that more or less gives you a little overview of what has
happened in the meantime. I could go on like this forever but I do
not want to make it too long so that nobody is interested in reading
it any more. I will try enjoy my holidays in Germany as best as
possible, for instance I am looking forward to go to a music festival
in August and also my niece will be born in August which is really
exciting for me. When I think about that I will be an uncle at the
age of 20 makes me feel old somehow but I promised myself to be the
best uncle possible and a very modern one, too!
In my last post, I promised that this time I will include some pictures
and I am holding my promise of course! You can see some pictures from
graduation and from my parents and me being at Jamie's with my
sister(you just can never see her because she took the pictures)
including some of the food there we had.
So I hope you enjoyed this entry and I also hope that I can make some
more in the future , hopefully when I am at university I can tell you
about my experience there!
Thanks
for reading and bye for now.
