students
Join Guardian Students
Sign up to get access to our weekly email, exclusive student advice and a discount on subscription to the Guardian.
Click here
It wasn't the normal student lifestyle. We attended classes all day, five days a week, and because it's all about your personal training, you can't have a day off. Then I worked as a dancer one night a week and in a pub three nights a week, so I spent most of my student life exhausted. As dancers we didn't have that booze thing – we'd be up at 7am to go on the cross-trainer before class. I don't think I could have partied as well; I would have had a nervous breakdown.
We all lived in shared flats. Like most people, I was also totally incapable of looking after myself in the first year. I remember waking up one day with conjunctivitis and just lying in my bed shouting "I'm blind! I'm blind!" Eventually my flatmates came in and took me to hospital, thankfully.
I wasn't too worried about making friends – I just made friends with the other weirdos. I'm quite sociable, but I've always been attracted to outsiders. Russella the drag queen was on my course and we are still friends.