I don't matter. At least not to the University of Birmingham. I am beginning to genuinely hate this university, and wonder why I came here in the first place. They have disappointed me on so many levels, and they are not in the least apologetic for any of it.

I had three days to make a decision regarding where I would be living in the next year. They told me that university housing was the cheapest option, that the level of service provided was unparalleled and that I would be provided with a student mentor who would look in on me and find out if I was doing alright. Five months on, I have never met my student mentor. Other than four walls and the internet, I get no spectacular service from the university. I pay more than twice the average of the city rents, even for the two months in the summer when I do not plan to be in Birmingham. They refuse to adjust my contract to make provision for that, because they are bound by some bureaucratic (insert expletive here). My finances are a mess, I can't afford to remain at this University without some form of financial aid and I have tried to tell them this but to no avail.

I have complained to all and sundry, I have cried, written emails and letters, ranted and raved, pleaded and begged but they will not budge. I am one of 26,000 - I do not matter. If I disappear, there will be 25,999 others who will have the money to replace me on their computer system. After all, I am just an international student, filling in numbers, a resident cash cow. The worst I can do is go home...no big loss, they still bag my cash whatever happens.

It does not matter that I have gone to the office in tears on three separate occasions. I can't work any harder, I cant do any more than I already am. I am so tired and fed up by all this. I had a house lined up for next year but the people who are living there decided that they wanted to stay there so we lost the house. The girl I was to share the house with is angry at me because I couldn't go house hunting with her - she feels that she is doing all the work and its unfair. How do I tell her that this has been one of the hardest weeks of my life, that everyday has been a struggle to maintain a firm grasp on my sanity and peace of mind. The only thing that keeps me going is my faith - I walk down the streets praying and talking to God, asking him to look on me with eyes of pity.

Meanwhile my mind is shutting down. British students are lazy and about as intellectually stimulating as a thumbtack. I don't drink or go clubbing, and I practice abstinence so I have almost no British friends because those are the things that define the British student experience. I haven't had a stimulating conversation with an actual British person since I got here; all my friends are international students who are sometimes as appalled as I am at just how shallow the British students can be.

Anger and rage seep through every facet of me. I want it to stop. It weighs down on me and its sucking the joy out of my soul. I am a shadow of the person I used to be, and I miss her so much. I can't go back and they will not let me move forward...

Surely there must be more to life! Is struggling and suffering, trying and failing, being ignored the way of life? I want to be somewhere else! I want to run away and hide somewhere! I just want to feel safe and know that its going to be better. I want to sing again, and dance and worship the way I used to - from that place deep inside where all the good things come from. I want to be free of all this (insert expletive here). I want to think and reason and argue and debate and all those good things that come from actually having an opinion and caring about people and issues. I want to laugh and smile and...aargh

Oh Lord, did you bring me all the way out into the desert to watch me die? How long will you let your humble servant suffer, and my enemies to laugh over me? Save me in your great mercy!

My first morning post... its morning here anyway. I still have my mobile phone on "censorship". I am not taking anonymous calls anymore because there is an 85% chance that the person on the other side is waiting to yell at me.

I got back some of the essays I wrote last term. 2 Upper seconds and one lower second. Not bad until you factor in that I had my name in the paper for national exam rankings before I left. My grades are just not up to scratch, at least not the way I want them to be. They tell me that I've probably been marked down, because I am a first year and they don't want me to do too well. I would be lying if I said I was not disappointed, and I am beginning to wonder if I can do the whole working, studying, society thing. I am seriously considering tossing it all aside and running away to a small island, where everybody knows everyones name and you can drink coconut juice while sitting under the shade of an old palm tree...

Yeah, delusions of escape have become a source of comfort for me. I'm just disappointed because I really worked hard and I would have liked my essays to reflect that but I guess you can't have it all right? I also have this weird sensation that nothing is real anymore, like one day the rug with be pulled from under all this, and nothing will matter any more...Probably just the weather.

Anyway, I am still here. Bent but not broken, tired but not finished, "pressed but not crushed, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed..." still going strong...

Yeah as the title says, I'm still copping a lot of slack for my decision to quit the society. One "boss" wants me to stay in a minimal capacity just for continuity, and the other wants me to either get my job back or quit completely. One represents the University and the other represents the national society, but they have no relation to each other except that they were both in charge of some facet of the society. I've switched off my mobile phone and I'm ignoring their emails. i've had enough of people yelling at me on a mobile phone, and angry emails and I'm just not emotionally biult for this bull s**t. I know that there is a Reverend out there who reads my posts. WWJD? What would Jesus Do? And everyone else, what would you do?

I just can't deal with this right now!! I just CAN'T!!!

I feel so poor... What did I do wrong?

Its my 21st in a couple of weeks and I have been feeling the sting. Youth is no longer and excuse!! I do not feel "finished" so I am more than a little concerned. Anyway my friend (the same one who sent me the other post) sent me this and I wanted to share it with you. For me its just one more confirmation of what I already know. I am getting old!!

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.

When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip-flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels.

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags -riding in the passenger seat was a treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same.

We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy juice with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark.

No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no DVDs, no Ipods, no Internet
chat rooms.

We had friends - we went outside and found them.

We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt! We fell out of trees, got cut, and broke bones but there were no law suits.

We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

We played chap-the-door-run-away and were actually afraid of the owners catching us.

We walked to friends' homes.

We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of...They actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new
ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow as real kids,before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

For those of you who aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us.

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face:

The majority of students in universities today were born in 1986........They are called youth.

They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and theUptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena Cherry or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam. AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born.

Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance.They believe that Charlie's Angels, the Bourne identity and Mission Impossible are films from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers.They'll never have pretended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five.

They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.They can't believe a black and white television ever existed.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile phone.

Now let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a
night out.

3. Your friends are getting married/already married.

4. You are always surprised to see small children playing
comfortably with computers.

5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time
around.

7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good
old days, repeating again all the funny things you have experienced together.

8. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...

Yes, you're getting old!!

Aaahh... I am unfortunately getting old and I do relate to many of the things in this email. I remember what it was like to have just one radio station and one t.v. station, which ran from 4 p.m. until midnight. I remember vinyl and tape players and the Jackson 5. I remember "Sunday best", those clothes that only came out on Sunday for church, and the original high tops. I remember Michael Jackson's single white glove (and thinking it was the pinnacle of cool) and the original straight fit trousers. Stonewash jeans, jerry curls (or curly kits as we called them in Kenya, side ponytails and hopscotch. I remember the running man, MC Hammers pants, biker shorts and hi tops.

Oh dear, I'd better go and find my knitting!

As I said, I recently resigned as head of a society that I am in and I just wanted to keep anyone who is interested updated. (Actually I think this is more for me to actually look at and see, because I can't believe it happened).

Anyway, through some bureaucratic nightmarish situation, I has no less that 3 "bosses" in my capacity as team president. I was in the process of systematically informing these bosses of my decision when all hell broke loose and one of them gave me and angst driven phone call.

Her tone of voice went fro condescending, shouting/angry to placating all in the space of 22 minutes! If I had any idea what had happened I would be hurt, angry or guilty, but it was such a blitz of sentiment that I sincerely don't know how to respond.

The gist is that she wants me to stay in the society (guilt for letting her down), she demands that I stick with it because I started it ( anger- who does she think she is?), she could have given it to anyone but she chose me(defensiveness- why doesn't she?). All this while shouting down a mobile phone (I hate those contraptions! Who needs to be that accessible??!!); even my mother figured out when I was about 16 not to shout at me - I'm like the hulk with that, it makes me angry, and you will not like me when I am angry!

So, I've decided not to make any decisions until next week and I told her as much. My mind is still reeling.

Thoughts are welcome...