First Year.
It is 1:44am on April 19th 2016 and I am sitting in a mess of bags as I once again pack up my life… 8 months ago I was packing all this stuff in the car to move here… Now after what feels like a blink, I am leaving, having completed my first year of university, working towards a Hon. BSc Biochemistry. I am writing this mostly because it happened so fast I feel that I need to write down as much as I can so that in years down the road, when I think back to my first year, I have something. So future Emily, here is your first year, this is what it felt like
September
The first month was scary, so many new experiences, learning my way around the school, learning where I liked to sit, where to eat. So many high moments since everything was new, first university tests, first 100%, making the team, meeting so many people. A huge sense of freedom. September was busy, settling in, trying to find myself. For the first time since I started school I was not with the same people, I felt disconnected with everyone from home, but I had not yet found people here, but at the same time, I had some great people in my life, I could always call home and talk to my parents, I kept in touch with those closest to me. I was mostly too busy to be lonely, and at night I would be too tired to really think of anything.
October
School is now in full swing, and true to everything I had been told. University math and science classes move FAST. I started to get to know the other members of Brock Eq. I went to the windsor OUEA show, and I volunteered Autumn for our show. In the middle of the month was thanksgiving, and that friday I finally graduated from high school, the week following this was fall reading week and it was nice to be home and to play with Autumn. I took a bunch of lessons, getting her ready to represent Brock. My coach trailered and spent the day watching, it was a COLD but fun day. Everyone fell in love with Autumn, she hacked her little heart out. After this going back to school, midterms, which was my first sense of difficulty of university, and was pleasantly surprised with how well I did. I also ended up helping my friend out with communicating with volunteers for the RAWF. I do not know what went through my head that doing this while in my first year was a good idea, but I did, and I think I managed to do it pretty successfully too. The last weekend of October was our first IHSA show weekend. Lot’s of nerves but also a lot of fun. I had a bad show on the Saturday, I let my nerves take over and I rode quite poorly, but on Sunday I did much better, even got a second on the flat.
November
November started with the Royal, which is a highlight of my year every year, I was away competing again the first weekend, which was hard as so many people were contacting me asking questions, and my phone did not work in the states, so I had to try and get as much info to people before hand, and in the brief moments of wifi. Since our coach was at the royal, we had the woman who started Brock eq step in and coach for us. It was a good weekend, neither of my over fences trips were great, but got some ribbons to add to my growing collection. I had a lot of fun bonding with the team over the weekend and it was nice to get away from school and hang out with horsey people at a horse show. I got back and despite how tired I was, it was nothing compared to what I would be like in a week.
- Tuesday → Day 1 of the royal for me, I go to class, starting at 8am, finishing at 2pm, go to the downtown terminal in St. Catharines, catch a bus to union station terminal, take the go train to ex, get let in, get my wristband, parking pass, and some other stuff, sign the waiver. I do some work in the lounge for a few hours, then I wandered the fair, then I hung out and just chatted with people, until other volunteers started to arrive and I met them and gave a bit of a run down, dinner, then out to the show, hunter spectacular that night. After the show I met the coach from the past weekend and she drives me home, since the bussing didn’t run that late. Got home at about 12pm.
- Wednesday → Thankfully only had 2 classes, finishing at 11am. Crashed for a while, did some studying, then got ready to go to the Royal again, this time one of the girls on the team was also volunteering and she was giving me a ride to Toronto. Since Wednesday is the world cup qualifier everything was much busier and hectic but we made it, my friend had never been to the royal before so it was cool to take her and give her a wristband and the backstage view. When we arrived, I found out that we needed horse handlers for the Cavallo Equestrian Arts demonstration, and so we rounded up the volunteers and sent them.
- Thursday → Again starting my day with an 8 am class finishing at 2pm. From 1–2 I had my calculus midterm, and tests have a strange affect on me, but we will get back to that a little later. So my plan was to be at the royal Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. However when I had been talking my friend decided that she would like to do another night, so we both did Thursday as well. So we get to the Royal, business is normal, except once I got to my door of choice, I “zoned-out”. When I write tests (or write) I think in a different manner, I think in a much more 3rd person manner, and when I get out of that situation, I often find it very hard to get back to myself, I am also uncomfortable in crowds, this combined with pure exhaustion from 2 weekends of horse showing plus all the travel back and forth, and of course attending classes meant I was very susceptible to losing myself in my head, so I do not have many memories of that night (which is weird for me as I pride myself on my memory). I remember sitting on the floor of the lounge, curled up in a corner, staring at the ceiling, wondering why there are plugs there, I know I spoke to some people, I remember having some difficulty figuring out how to talk at all. I have since found out that security thought I was sick and someone, I don’t know who, was close to calling an ambulance.
- Friday → Having made it through the week of classes, we head to the royal, everything was fine, for the first time, actually relaxed a little and just sat and hung out, chatting with the other volunteers. After that, my friend and I instead of driving back to Brock, we went to my house, stopping at Mcdonald’s first at 12am of course. After we got there, we chatted with my parents for a little while, then went to sleep, as we were getting up early to get to Toronto for about 9am.
- Saturday → get up at a fairly early hour, go to Toronto to watch a friend of ours show in the TB classes, she ended up winning the under saddle class. Then got a rosti (a potato pancake) for breakfast, wandered around with a few other brock eq girls, then I met my babysitter from childhood for brunch at around 12pm, then head back just in time for the Cavallo demo. Then my friend heads back to Brock, I hang out with another one of the volunteers who had been there for a bunch of nights, we end up buying scarves and apple dumplings (which if you ever go to the royal are a must), then it is the Big Ben Challenge, go and watch, end up just chatting with the coach who’d driven me home on Tuesday and a volunteer for most of the night. McLain Ward and HH Azur won, which was great because I adore watching that combination. After the awards, I made my way around and said goodbye to the ring committee as I only see them once a year. My father picked me up around midnight. I then went to bed, and woke up pretty early to ride my horse before going to a ti-cats game with my family.
My dad and uncle sat in their seasons seat, my mother, grandmother, and myself sat a bit back, but I ended up sleeping through half of the game… Now this was a playoff game, against the rival Toronto argos, and both teams had scored multiple times in the first half, but I was out, it had been a long 2 weeks of my life. After the game, I head back to Brock and sleep some more. The next week was by far the worst week of university, actually has very very little to do with school. I ended up imploding Monday, I didn’t eat breakfast (I never do) but I did eat a muffin at around 3pm, then I had a lab for calc at 4, and a meeting at 5, and then I headed back to my room, and ended up getting in a huge fight with my friend, about my zoning out the previous week, and he ended up telling me he wouldn’t talk to me for an entire month. I basically shut down, I didn’t go to class for days, I didn’t eat, I barely left my bed, I just curled up under all my blankets, hugged my giant manatee stuffie and cried for like 3 days straight. I also found out the Tuesday someone was trying my horse to buy, which was just added stress on me. Thursday morning my friend caved and started to talk to me again, and by that night I finally ate something, I was so hungry the thought of food was nauseating, and I figured I was just feeling the effects of crying so much, I actually forgot that I had not eaten a real meal since Saturday. I managed to eat some and by the weekend felt almost back to normal. The following weekend was the last IHSA show of the semester, it was my best, I wanted to bring both of my flat horses home! All in all november was so busy, but a lot of fun, lots of horsey stuff.
December
Really this month was all about exams, classes were wrapping up, and we were gearing up for our first set of university exams. I had 2 half year classes that would be ending after this exam period, and 3 that would continue on. My first exam was calculus, and my last was physics. That entire period is such a haze, I don’t remember that much. I know that after my calc exam, the next day I ended up going with my friend and a couple of people she had met on tinder… I got hit on by a 30 year old married engineer with a baby and a girlfriend. It was really funny, after that my friend and I just hung out at mcdonalds for a bit before crashing. I also remember coming out of an exam, I don’t even remember which one, and I was really in my head, I walked into the bathroom, and was muttering to myself, in a sorta sing-songy way, I didn’t realise there was someone else in there. They just looked at me very strangely and walked out. I went home, and celebrated christmas with my family and chilled which I really needed. For my friend’s 19th on new year's eve I went down to niagara and we went to the mandarin and then a concert at the falls, fireworks, then we played cards against humanity at Tim’s until around 4am.
January
The start of a new term and the start of a new year. For the most part my schedule was the same, a different calculus but same instructor and same classroom, also a new physics but new prof and time and stuff. The nice thing was for the first time I actually had a few friends in a class, I ate lunch with them most days, we worked on assignments together, for the first time all year I had a connection to some people in the school. I had one large stressor outside of school hanging over my head and that was Autumn, she needed to go somewhere, I had promised my dad I would figure something out, and I had been advertising and answering people but she’s a mare and a thoroughbred off the track and people willing to try one of those are few and far between. I had had a few leads but with her hormonal thing and not being in regular work it never panned out, it was so annoying because she is such a great horse, just no one could tell. I made the promise to my friend that I would try getting back into therapy, so I found a therapist in the area and gave them a call but nothing had happened for a bit.
February
Like October, things really started to pick up workload wise. Midterms started up, I finally had a real lead for Autumn, it was after reading week, which meant I kicked her butt over reading week, and then we had someone else ride her the following week, so she didn’t have much of an excuse to be bad, but of course she was quite bad. She threw a hissy fit before picking up the canter, but then settled down after and jumped pretty well. I was sure the girl was going to walk away and I would never hear from her again, but by 2 days later she said she would take her on lease for a year, which was a huge weight off my chest. Also the week following reading week was my first appointment with the therapist, my friend came to take me, for which I will be eternally thankful, I would never have gotten the courage up if the fear of letting him down wasn’t greater than my fear of therapy. It was hard and easy at the same time… It was mostly paperwork and then life history, and so I could just kinda zone out and just talk, but she asked questions for which I didn’t have answers, and if you know me, you know there is little I find more stressful than that. With Autumn sorted out, midterms done, and a few friends February was all in was a pretty decent month.
March
The month starts off with finding out the day before, that Autumn is leaving, it made sense, and with the contract signed, it was fine, but I had been expecting a few more weeks to hug her goodbye. The hauler was about 45 min late but that was fine, however he accidentally locked his keys in the truck and we had to wait hours for CAA to come unlocked the vehicle before we could load her. She was supposed to leave at about 8am, she was loaded at about 1pm, I went from keeping a handle on my emotions, to being ready to lose it about 40 times in those hours, I managed to only cry slightly as I went to return the lead to the barn after she was loaded. Dad and I went into Toronto and went game shopping after which was nice not having to just sit at home and miss her. As much as I missed her, I knew it was going to be a great home. The next day was really hard because my dog Mika, had a sudden decline in health and I thought I was going to lose him on Monday, he wouldn’t go outside, he wouldn’t even get up, he didn’t eat. It looked like it was time, I didn’t go to class the next day because I wanted to be there, thankfully he seemed okay Monday, he went out, he ate, he seemed enough himself that we weren’t going to take him to the vet. After that I went to school, it was annoying because I had told 2 of my friends in calculus that I wouldn’t be there, and asked if someone could send me the note (the class ended up being cancelled so it was moot), I even told them why I wouldn’t be there, and one of them was being a bit of an ass about me missing some of my classes, and I just did not want to deal with that as well as everything else. The other dog got diagnosed with thyroid cancer soon after that, and we opted not to do surgery because of location, and age, and on account of her being happy and otherwise healthy. All in all, March was a rough month for the Kovacs family. I went to therapy again, this time getting more into some of my anxiety and social isolation, it was was it was, I still felt a little zoned out during it, very disconnected, which makes it hard to talk, and that’s kinda the point of therapy. Again, it helped having my friend as moral support there. He took my favourite book to read (tho as of writing this he has yet to even open it). I really hope he likes it, because I love that book so much, because it was so important to me, at the age where a book (or anything) can mean that much, I am almost nervous he won’t like it, or he won’t get it. I know that that will not change how he views me, or vice versa, but I still hope he likes it. After this, he has a huge conflict come up before my next appointment so my mother ends up coming down to drive me, which is not ideal, while realistically she asked less questions than my friend, but I am not comfortable talking about this stuff with her. She felt like she was invading, since I am going 100% for my friend, it doesn’t feel like an invasion when he asks what happened, besides he knows it all anyway.
April
Last month of university! Classes finished early, on the 4th, which was a Monday if you looked at the calendar, however we treated it as a Friday, to make up for having lost Good Friday. After this I had to focus on Psychology, calculus, and biology as those were my first 3 exams, Psych being on the Saturday and bio the following Monday, then calc on Tuesday. I spent the first few days just worried about psych and bio because I was feeling very confident for calc. Psych was not too bad, then I spent sunday with my friends studying calc in the library, then again I met up with a friend and studied calc for a bit then she helped me with bio, and killed the million hours until my 7pm exam. The next day I met her and someone else and helped with calc before the exam, it ended up being 5 of us sitting studying. The calc exam, I was the only one to feel good about, most people were meh or very upset. Then I had a few days break before chem and physics. I went to therapy on Thursday, however the day before I find out that once again my friend bailed on me… I understood, he had work and stuff he needed to do as he had been out of the country for a while before this, but for some reason I completely lost it, I got the message on facebook, as he didn’t respond to my texts or snapchat, so we used facebook, and I was sitting sideways on my bed leaning against the wall with my laptop in my lap, I read the message telling me he couldn’t make it and started crying uncontrollably, unfortunately my roommate was in the room, however she didn’t notice. I ended going into the bathroom as I had ruined my makeup, but before I managed to wash my face, I found myself sitting on the floor sobbing. After removing my makeup, I go back to my side of the room and curl up under blankets and cry, I was still talking to my friend, and it was not great, I was pushing back hard, and that never works well, and I was crying into my blankets, crying so hard I couldn’t breath, but I still ended up screaming into the blankets. Shout out to my roommate for never noticing this. So I spent the whole night like this, I would feel like I had cried myself out, and have my breathing under control, but then in a few seconds I would be just as bad again. Looking back, it was probably exam stress catching up to me as more than anything. I got very little sleep that night, the next morning I went to therapy, I was ready to shoot my mother before she even got there, and my therapist had a lot she wanted to go over, so I didn’t actually get a chance to talk about the night before, whether it was part of my feeling abandoned or if it had more to do with exam stress. After my mother payed, and she was being really clingy and pushy on when I saw the therapist. This was why I never wanted her to know details, I knew they had to know a bit for insurance, but I did NOT want my parents involved, but it happened, but it will not continue, if it does I will just not go. After this I wrote my chem exam, then my family came to visit me and we spent the day at the falls on Sunday, then after that, I sent them home with a lot of my stuff, then I studied for physics the next night. Then after physics, I packed up my room and started writing this post (it is now the following Monday). I got all the stuff packed up and by 4am I went to bed, the next morning my mother came and we loaded up the car, then went home, where I just chilled for the week. My mother and I went to Ripley’s aquarium on Friday for fun day. Then on Sunday(yesterday) I had dinner with my childhood best friend. It was nice to see her as we had sadly not stayed in touch over the school year, she told me about her troubles, and I didn’t really have any of those stories, as my mental breakdowns involved not moving for days, not so fun. I am glad we met tho, and I hope to keep better in touch with her. She will be in guelph so it is not that far from me. Now today I am going to try and get a job. Tomorrow morning I am going to therapy and my friend is coming, I am glad, maybe when I am better I will be more open to my parents being more involved, but for now, this is about me not them.
Overall
I was very unsure about Brock, but looking back, I can’t imagine having gone somewhere else. I met some great people, I had so many laughs, I got to live on my own for a while. While I did have my share of meltdowns and cried many tears, it was not a bad year, it was hard, but not bad. To the people I met at school, thank you for giving me an unforgettable first year! To the professors and TA, thank you for proving the voices in my head wrong that the classes would be too hard for me. To my friends back home who have supported me in this, thank you, for every like on facebook, and every nice little comment in passing at grad or on the street, it is great to have a bit of connection to home still. I am signing off now, I survived year 1, maybe I won’t leave next years to the end, if I remember I will try and write more, and maybe do a recap each semester.
Puppy dog kisses and fairy dust hugs
Em
