Four reasons to love being home
- Family and friends
You’ve spent 10+ uninterrupted weeks with your flatmates, coursemates, and friends picked up goodness knows where during your time at university. Saying goodbye to them can be a drag, but going home means reunions with old friends who you might not have seen since you left for the year in October. Take the time, give them all a hug, and catch up on what of each other’s lives you’ve missed.
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The same goes for family – as much as we all love the weekly call to mum or gran, there’s nothing quite like seeing them face-to-face. I guarantee they will be thrilled to hear of your homecoming and nothing works wonders for the ego like someone saying how pleased they are that you’re home.
- It’s the little things – AKA ‘luxuries’
After weeks of considering pasta and pizza as staples, it’s nice to have a bit of variety in your diet. Home is a time for indulgence – to eat something that’s not from Sainsbury’s Basics range. And, most importantly, it’s food you didn’t have to think about buying. Does anyone else get inordinately excited when they open the fridge at home because you literally have no idea what tasty surprise is waiting for you? Oh, just me?
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Home-cooked meals can’t be beaten; no matter how closely you follow your mum’s recipe for shepherd’s pie, it will never turn out the same as hers. So savour the food, put on 10 pounds! Or if you’re less greedy than me, there are other home comforts to be enjoyed – being able to take a bubble bath, for example, or leaving your washing for the long-suffering laundry fairies to find.
- Change of scenery
I love Lancaster and, especially compared to where I live in Teesside, it’s picturesque. However, you can have too much of a good thing and sometimes, just sometimes, having a change of scenery can help break the monotony of existing within the campus bubble. Yes, a brave new world exists outside of that bubble.
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Don’t get me wrong, I love stumbling over the cobbled streets of Lancaster as much as the next person, but there’s nothing quite like your hometown – even if mine is frequently covered in smog.
- Freedom!
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In everyone’s heads summer practically equates to freedom, to having the time (and reason) to just chill out. Perhaps to make the most of the nice weather and have BBQs with friends, or to sleep all day if you want to, to finally marathon that boxset with zero guilt felt as you click onto the next episode. Whether you’re picking up some part-time work, hanging out with friends and family, or curling up with a good book in the sunshine, summer is your freedom to do that without the weight of all the essays you have to do looming over you. It’s a good feeling, enjoy the freedom, you’ve earned it.
- Too good to be true?
There is a tiny caveat: home equals parents, which equals people not currently attending university, which equals people who are less than sympathetic about the lifestyle you’ve fallen into whilst there.
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So, by all means marathon eight hours of Orange Is The New Black, sleep until 2pm, complain about how regimented meal times are at home, but just be aware of how much judging will go on. It doesn’t need to be said, a single judgemental look can do it if you parents are anything like mine, and then there you are feeling like you’re incompatible with home life now you’ve experienced the shiny lure of independent living.
Maybe you feel like you don’t quite belong anymore, or maybe you just think it’s insane that your parents go to bed before 11pm and judge you when you don’t.
My advice? Grin and bear it, because just from this list alone, there are four perks that definitely sweeten the deal and make home a welcome break from university.
Unfortunately, we have lost track of who originally wrote this article, as it did not have any author information..
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