There's No Place Like Home

(Somebody stole the 'hat' lyric...)

Sitting this evening, researching homesickness, I was reading through the symptoms and recognising many of them in myself. For example:

• Homesickness means you miss your family, your friends, your house.
• A preoccupation with home-focused thoughts
• Beginning life at university naturally generates… homesickness
• A grieving …over the loss of what is familiar and secure: most often it is about the loss of people - family and friends - but it is also about the loss of places and routines

Being the independent, resilient person I am, I would normally never admit to being homesick; oh the shame of wanting to be with you family, I should be loving university, getting drunk every night, and generally having fun, although I know that deep down I am homesick.

Coming out of this week's lecture I commented to Claire that I was feeling very ‘humm’, an expression which I can only describe as meaning ‘I miss my mum.’

I’m very close with my family, but particularly over the past few months we’ve had to bond, so being away is hard, and I may be speaking for myself, but after seeing everyone’s longing gazes in the exercise we did in class, I think everyone here can definitely relate to missing someone or something that is not at university with them.

Our collective (for want of a better word) sadness, makes our class a very pensive one, but hopefully it will help us create a very moving final production.

Annie Rook