31 October 2017

Arachnophobia, Broken Locks & Losing My Phone



NCS (a national summer programme for young people) was massively challenging for me; being shoved in with a bunch of new people for 4 weeks isn't exactly my cup of tea. It most definitely involved a few anxious nights during the lead-up to it but it ended up being probably the best thing I could have done to help build my self confidence. There were, however, a few 'mishaps' and 'issues' (title says it all)... won't lie though, they all make some pretty hilarious memories.



Yes - I'm scared of spiders. In fact, the word itself makes me shudder.
I would like to point out that at the age of 17, I still scream and cry until my parents come and remove spiders from my room, so put a spider in my room at NCS and I'm basically in hell!

Obviously, that's exactly what happened though. It's past midnight and I'm still up, finally getting ready for bed, but then I see it... The biggest frickin' spider I have ever seen (no exaggeration).

I remember just slowly backing away, not wanting to stop looking at it in case I lost where it was. I was probably stood there staring at it for a good few minutes. I ended up calling Lucy (who was in the room next door to mine) multiple times, but unlike me, she had made the smart choice of going to bed on time. I ended up going and knocking on her door until she eventually woke up to come and 'save me'.

By this point I'm full on crying and shaking. Lucy tried getting rid of the spider, but it was just so damn fast so it didn't really work. There was basically no way I was sleeping in that room, so I took EVERYTHING (again... no exaggeration) from my room and went and slept on the floor in Lucy's room using the duvet as a sleeping bag. We actually had one more night staying at Keele University and I did end up sleeping in my room on the last night. I would like to think that the spider just stayed behind the wardrobe the whole time...

Long story short: I have arachnophobia.




Unfortunately the spider wasn't the only issue with my room (clearly wasn't having much luck). I don't know what was wrong with the lock on my door to be honest, but I think one of the screws was loose so the door was just a pain to lock.

 I was pretty much using a key as screwdriver to tighten the screw just before I locked the door every time. Probably looked like a right idiot to be honest, but I was damn proud of myself for figuring out that worked! Thank you to everyone who was patient enough to wait for me to lock my door every day. :-)




I guess you could say I was lucky this time because, spoiler: I didn't lose my phone!

This happened during the first week of NCS, when we were staying in shared accommodation. At first I thought I had just misplaced my phone, but then I had searched literally everywhere (spoiler #2: I searched everywhere except the one place where it was) and couldn't find it. I ended up freaking out a bit, mainly just worried that I couldn't contact my family or reply to their messages.
I then took Lucy with me to search the whole place we stayed at which was unsuccessful. We even went to the information centre and told them to look out for my phone.

5 minutes later, I get back to our dorm and realise I put my phone in the front pocket of my suitcase... Why was it there? Because I put it 'somewhere I would remember'.
Sums up my life to be honest, haha!

Do you have arachnophobia?