Qr in Edit - Novice Final for Print1

Add onto this growing anxiety-inducing list the fact that I didn’t know how to speak any languages other than my native tongue and you have the recipe for a nervous breakdown. [...] There was a positive outcome to all of this though; I managed to lose 20 kilograms during my 6 years of study! No one prepared me for the academic pressure and resultant stress that comes with being a varsity student. [...] By the end of my first week I was drowning in work and even started regretting my decision to enrol at all. [...] In the end I was able to survive all the ups and downs of my academic hurdles by finding techniques to juggle the time my studies demanded from me as well as the need for a living a little. [...] He stares at me and beckons to all of his friends. I mourn my body before he performs the act in his mind. [...] The space of university can be daunting and exciting, and the emotions and anxiety that come with going to university in a foreign country is enough to make one turn down the opportunity all together. [...] At the time of my departure I was involved in my first serious relationship with a guy who had me absolutely smitten for him. [...] But what I was to face in the coming weeks and months was not so much a meeting of other people from other parts of the world but a confrontation with my relationship to my own sexuality. [...] But as luck would have it, it was around this time that I would meet a guy and a girl who’d become my closest friends for the rest of my undergrad. [...] Patrik’s words touched me, and reminded me that sometimes in our most uncomfortable and disorientating times we need to foster a sense of bravery toward the unknown.