My story

I saw this poster on one of the walls in the hallway. There must be a lot of international students who actually look at the walls in the hallway; everyone else seems to have their attention on their phones all the time. They wouldn’t even have a clue about what’s going on around them, unless they saw it on social media.

I’m a first year student. I finished year twelve last year but wanted to take a gap year to know what I really wanted to do. My dad didn’t allow me. That’s the thing about life… timing! We all come out of year twelve and haven’t even experienced life yet, only to jump right into our futures. It’s like one minute we’re wearing uniform and just breezing through life, and the next minute we have to pick a career that will supposably take over the rest of our lives. I study teaching, but the thing is, I’m not sure if I enjoy it. I’m too scared to tell my parents about this because I’ve pretty much wasted this year taking the course. But this course really annoys me. I only have three days a week.

I moved from my family to come to a whole new atmosphere with different people to me, but so far I’ve made no friends. I always thought uni was a social environment, but not the social I knew of. Uni is more of a social media environment. Everything is being submitted online, you can follow people on Twitter and Facebook and there are so many apps?that Uni asks you to download so you can connect with them in your own time. I pay rent and buy my food every two weeks. Sometimes I regret doing this course internally. I sacrificed so many things to be here… for nothing! I believe that everyone has a purpose in life and I have not found mine yet.

I feel alone so often, but I cannot tell anyone because I have no friends here. I think that’s why I am writing this. You don’t know me and I don’t know you and so I feel confident telling you this. Who you do and do not tell won’t affect me, as you do not know me.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.

E