Don't let this be youMonterey Bay Holistic

If you click on my phone’s Calendar App, you’ll see the words 'BOP' in the 30th January slot. It’s in red, bold, capitalised and underlined. Pretty obvious that I was set on going for my college’s first 'Bop' of Lent Term then. Unlike my degree, my career goals and general purpose in life, I had set out a list of (humble) objectives to achieve that night. I was going to 'reconnect' with all the people that I had glimpsed at the Matriculation Dinner in Fresher’s Week, only to be put to shame by their work ethic and never see them again. I was going to catch up with all the medics. Not to forget the lawyers, of course. Vocational subject banter was going to be had. Such lofty ambitions were speedily pulled down to earth, as over half the Freshers began dropping out like flies on the day.

To be quite honest, you can’t blame them. As hard as Cindies try, we can never quite get 'Refreshered' up for Lent Term, especially when mocks, MATLAB submissions and student journalism deadlines rear their head before Week One even begins. Bops are there to break the ice, to meet new people and to make a fool of yourself. For some people, bops are a Michaelmas thing. Even if you or I do remain quite partial to making fools of ourselves all year round, it’s not as fun when there’s no one else to do it with. Innovative ways of meeting up with people and mooching round with them - or even just tearing yourself away from work for one minute to get a bit of company - are the order of the (Lent) term. So here are my top three:

COMMUNAL GYP ROOM TEA

This magical gathering proves itself to be 'communal' on multiple levels. The tea is communal. One giant red box of 80 Fairtrade tea bags keeps us fuelled for the term (though we might need two for when Prelims kick in, in Easter Term). The experience is communal. There are days when we’re so exhausted that conversation is eschewed for the simple, synchronised movement of our hands raising the steaming mugs to our lips. A therapeutic slurp follows, and eyelids all around slide shut contentedly. We could rival the tranquillity exuded by Shaolin monks in their own sacred tea ceremony. Then the caffeine kicks in – just enough to prod the brain cells back into functioning for work, but not so much that you end up staying awake beyond 3am. Ultimately, we are a micro-community build around the action of drinking tea; it sounds ludicrous but it’s actually full of rich historical precedent. Of the view that no conscious Socialist should ever drink vodka, the Bolsheviks supplied their haggered troops of the Red Army with free tea that was raided from the storage warehouses of Odessa and St Petersburg. We couldn’t claim to be plotting a socialist uprising in our gyp room (even if we were at King’s), but the Cambridge workload does pose something of a battle in itself.

UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE NIGHT IN

Have you caught the latest bought of imposter syndrome? Don’t feel good enough? Convinced that everybody else in your year has the genetics of a child prodigy? Gather your friends together in a room and watch an episode of University Challenge. It’s an activity that is gloriously self-esteem lowering and morale-boosting at the same time. Paxman’s tinny voice throttles from your mate’s laptop: “What is the term for a mass of spermatozoa and other products exuded by male fish during spawning?” A beautiful silence of ignorance fills the bedroom. The motto of the story? I may not be a genius, or a proto–Ted Loveday, but at least I’m not the only one.

SKYPE

That’s all well and good, but what if your best friend from school is at Girton or Homerton? That’s a tricky one. Maybe you are keen walker, but the fact that your buddy in boatie crew nearly contracted pneumonia last week after his boat capsized in the gale force winds has temporarily put you off l'air fraîche. In that case, don’t feel guilty about staying curled up in bed with your laptop and turning off the webcam (your bedhead face isn’t a pretty one) for a long natter with your BFF on Skype. Student life is expensive – might as well make use of the free eduroam while we can.