Blanche Slagharen knows things about homesickness

Well hello and greetings to you lovely students. My name is Blanche and when the good people at The View From The Afternoon asked me to offer up some of my ol’ good Southern wisdom I thought, lawks! What does an ol’ lady like me know? And then I remembered; hells bells on a possum’s balls, I’m old! I know loads of useful things, so here we go.

It's just dandy you young'uns have made it to university. But you know, there is more to university learning than just gettin' good grades. But before y'all get busy switching off my Kum Ba Yah Yahs, prick up yar ears to this; the greatest gift uni gave me wasn't the nice certificate saying how clever I was, but the friends I made for life and the lessons I learnt about myself. And those lessons are the ones that stay with you until you're old enough to need supportive underwear.

I remember how exciting it was to leave home! Freedom was mine! All the glories of staying out late and getting up later lunged at my soul like a bored tiger on a Vegas show stage. But when I got to uni, I realised that I knew no one, and in all truth and grits, I felt a little lonesome. So, my youthful little kittens, here's my advice on how to make friends and not alienate people:

Don't waste Freshers' Week. And when I say don't waste it, what I really mean is don't sit in the dark of your tiny room sobbing over Scrubs and thwacking off to The L Word with your thumb in a Pot Noodle, be brave. Putting up 200 pictures of your wacky 'friends from home' or for that matter running away to the bosom of your 'friends from home' isn't going to help your loneliness - it will just make it worse. Throw yourself into the week. Go to everything your Student Union or College provides. And when you do, remember that everyone in the room is there on their own, just like you - so, talk to them.

The best way to open a conversation isn't to talk about yourself - but to ask people about themselves and remember what they say. As BobbyRay Horsedraper once drawled, as he branded my prize steer high on moonshine: "Remember that a man's name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language." Of course, the sweetest sound for me is still Rodriguez the pool boy clearing out my drains on a hot summer's day - but I digress.

It is tempting to use university to reinvent oneself - and to some extent we've all been there. Oh hell, I told all the boys at Gamma Gamma Alpha Quadrant that I had been a circus performer before college. I thought it would give me mystery and wanted to hide my boring suburban roots. It worked all night long until I did the splits on their pool table and welcomed the crack of dawn with my own chorus line of pink shame. Be who you are, because the real you will always surface, eventually, like bodies in a swamp.

Join a Society. And no, societies aren't just for people who dress up as elves and rely on their saving throws to locate magic rings. Societies are brilliant shortcuts into meeting people you might just have things in common with. They range from people who love dance music, to volunteering, to tea, to politics and to climbing up mountains or skiing down them. My neighbour Mrs Brabbinach said she joined one for gay people at college and it changed her life. I think that's just lovely as Mrs Brabbinach always had such a sunny disposition and her love of Disco was legendary.

Don't use drugs or alcohol to bolster your courage or for that matter your personality. I'm all for a martini in the morning before bingo, but throwing up kebab all down your ironic student attire to make an impression, is the equivalent of sticking dynamite up a cowboy's behind to make him herd cows faster.

Entering into a relationship or just letting someone enter your holy of holies to make a friend is a sure fire way to end up trapped and still lonely. The best relationships are the ones you start when you like yourself and your life.

Don't stick to one friend. Make friends with a range of people - y'all need to leave your comfort zones behind and ride that variety donkey into the sociable rodeo of life's richness.

Be silly, have fun and don't take y'all selves too darn seriously. One of the best things I did at university was to invite some of the people on my course over for supper. It doesn't have to be anything real fancy, but mastering a simple meal and combining it with cheap cava is a great way to bring some laughter into your student kitchen and hell, make some new friends.

To conclude I would like to share what my dear old professor once said to me as I sobbed in his office: 'Blanche, university is what you make of it. So, Pony up there pilgrim and welcome to the big house, where mummy and daddy aren't here to pick up the remnants of your whiney life.

But to end, I think BobbyRay had a somewhat kinder outlook: 'Friendships are like keeping cattle, with good pasture and hard work, before you know it; you've got yourself a herd.'