Wings are Made to Fly

Got to college guys!
What a different week this has been for me! So many experiences already!


So getting to college got off to a little bit of a bad start. Me and my parents hadn't finished unpacking my room, so they took my room key to see if they were allowed back up to my room to finish it off and finish setting up my computer (I took my dad's small compact one in his room) while I did some 'mingling' activities on the first day. My parents told me they'd leave the key at reception, but that closes at 5pm and by the time I got to reception it had closed. I couldn't find anyone at all to help me so I started to get overwhelmed at upset as my parents had now gone. I went to the next activity and asked Lucy, a warden, about my key, but she didn't have time to talk to me and went on do do a Health & Safety talk. So there's me sat there stressed about my key, literally holding back tears because I didn't know what to do. Hardly any of the information given in that talk went in because of this. I asked Lucy again afterwards but she had to talk to another girl about some personal problems so I had to go wait outside. 15 minutes waiting and I'm just stood there like a lemon on the verge of tears looking like a complete baby which wasn't a good first impression. Luckily someone else called Kari, not sure what her job is, but she saw how distressed I was and thankfully got me my key. I was just so glad to be in my room and saw that my parents had been allowed to finish it off.

So this week has mainly been lots of induction stuff. The old boring regulations talks, lol.
Not a bad time to mingle though

I've received more information about my course though, which did grab my attention. Sounds like it's gonna be quite a fun year, but extremely exhausting. Thankfully despite the lack of help on my first day they've made up for it. I suppose it was a busy day for them too. I've made some new friends, one of which called Sara, who's 21 soon, and she's absolutely FAB. She's amazing. She did Level 1 first so she knows what she's doing, and has helped me so much, I don't know what I'd have done without her!

Unfortunately, I've already had a bit of trouble with one person, called Katerina. We've fallen out twice now, well more like she fell out with me, because I apparently offended her over literally nothing which she took completely the wrong way. She's insulted my looks and said some very harmful and disrespectful stuff to me this week. I reported her straight away to my course manager. We've kinda made up since then...but I bet she falls out with my again soon over nothing. We were fine on the first day, but the second day she came back as a completely different person. I think it's because of this other girl who joined our friend group who was severely influencing her to say these things. But still, that's no excuse at all. She's just shown me how immature she is for not standing up to her and saying no, I'm not going to do that. Thankfully Sara did stick up for me, but with the second argument she didn't want to get tied up in it, which is fair enough, but that made me feel like absolute shite. I wanted to quit and go home that day.

Everything's okay now I suppose, but I'm very wary of her now. I've made some other friends, Gabby and Shara, who live residential on my floor in my block. I've been shopping with them, to the cinema and done a few college activities, which was fun I went to see the Keith Lemon movie with them Wednesday, which was great! Awesome movie

Thursday we finally did some horsey stuff! Mucked out, groomed, watered and fed our allocated horses, I got a gorgeous skewbald paint horse called Bailey, approx 16.3+. He is beautiful. He was stood falling asleep whilst I did his stable, picked his hooves up no trouble when I asked to pick his feet out, he was just an angel. He was even patient with my when I kept accidentally knocking him with the shavings fork He give me a few mucky looks though haha, I embarrassed myself in front of a horse! Awkward. But I did my best to learn what Sara was showing me and she said I did very well for my first go to say I barely knew anything

We had to tack up next, but unfortunately I was sharing my horse with two other girls, who tacked up like lightning before I got a chance to. I really wanted to tack him up too to practice what I know, because I'll never learn if others do it. They put the saddle on the door too which our course tutor had just told us to never do, so I was like Bishop Burton College has very strict rules and there's things like that, that you just cannot do. Luckily I didn't get told off for it though because I actually told them it's not supposed to be there when Lucy, the tutor walked past and she confirmed it for me. Hehe, which made me look good And apparently, if your horse has any mark whatsoever, even a shaving in his tail, you'll be send out of the riding lesson and you won't ride But they were lenient with us because we were new and had a limited time scale. I can groom a horse for hours me, I really wanted to do it all perfectly which disappointed me a little. But I'll get chance to next week because we won't be sharing and we're in our own much smaller groups, we'll have a horse each

I got a small 10 minute ride on Bailey. Had an awful start, when mounting, he started walking and I was stuck there with one foot in the stirrup like a complete dingbat. Nearly fell off straight away. Luckily managed to redeem myself and quickly gather the reins up, which I suppose can be more important than getting it right all the time, because horses are unpredictable!
He was very headstrong and sensitive to your leg, which was weird because the girl before me riding Bailey was kicking him all the time, but I barely had to at all I struggled to slow him down and not get him too close to a horse called Gemma in front of me, because she kicks out at other horses. I need to practice that. I got to trot to the back of the ride, Bailey almost getting carried away and going into canter like, haha, but I managed. I then got to canter after everyone else had trotted, which went quite well actually! He had a very nice canter, it felt very dressage like! I feel I sat to it well and I didn't have to nag him to canter, he did straight away. On the corner I didn't quite manage to keep my seat in the saddle but Sara told me afterwards she think I did very well! Bailey wouldn't slow down though before running into Gemma at the back of the ride so I had to turn him in a circle and show initiative, something I sometimes can lack, but I think I impressed them because they didn't complain. To say it was only 10 minutes, it was very nerve wracking, as about 20 other girls were watching at the side! I had to ride in official long boots too, which have wrecked my heels, they're absolutely raw. I could barely walk. You're not allowed to ride in jodphur boots

I can't wait to start for real next week, I ride a proper lesson next Wednesday! Wish me luck!

The title is based on Little Mix's new song, Wings, which I think describes me so well right now, go listen!