It would be odd if this column – one in a series preoccupied with shallow and self-centred interests – didn’t join the rest of the media in commenting on Valentine’s Day. Having sufficiently characterised myself as a jaded spinster at the age of 21, you might assume I have done so to place myself in an advice-giving position. Such an assumption would be woefully wrong.

The dating advice I give to my friends is more similar to dialogue from The Godfather than an episode of Sex and the City – it’s all “trust no one… play rough… there are no good guys here” – grunted through a haze of cigarette smoke for good measure. I walk through the gritty underworld of dating, armed with the only weapon a girl ever needs: wit so razor-sharp it cuts straight through ‘Banter’, and could castrate any suitor who seeks to impress me with such.

I cannot impart any wisdom on how to be single and fabulous à la Sex and the City because, frankly, I am not. I haven’t seen an episode of SATC where Carrie turns up to a meeting with DNA evidence of last night’s indiscretion still matted in her hair and a hash brown in her pocket, because she was too hungover to keep down a McDonald’s breakfast. Equally, I have never seen an episode where all four women eat their weight in toast and have a hugely in-depth discussion about which historic period they would most like to visit and why. Somewhere between these two extremes exists the non-glamorous reality of single life.

That being established, I will make my predictable contribution to the hoard of Valentine’s Day opinions. I took the time to research the tradition of Valentine’s Day, in a quest to uncover its true meaning. Unfortunately, this Ides of February I just didn’t have time to observe the traditions of Lupercalia, and missed all the fun of burning salt mealcakes made by Vestal Virgins before being whipped by Luperci in order to ensure my fertility. With any luck, by next year I’ll have a date to accompany me and I will no longer be a sad, lonely woman longing for someone to gaze lovingly at ME over flaming mealcakes!

I spent Valentine’s Day not in the arms of a lover but instead in the throes of a full-on essay crisis. Whoever managed to synchronise the most romantic/depressing day of the year with the most dreaded week of term is such a sadist that I almost want to meet them, as they would satisfy my usual ‘type’.

Warnings about Week 5 are in place as soon as you arrive in Cambridge. They are included amongst the other necessities (Domino’s vouchers and a Pasante condom) in every fresher’s welcome pack. We are all familiar with the language surrounding the feared Week 5 blues. Coping strategies are put in place to ‘survive’ Week 5.

Welfare officers do a wonderful job of looking after stressed and exhausted students during this week. Pigeonholes are filled with cookies, motivational quotes are harvested from BrainyQuote.com and distributed to wallowing scholars, and, if you’re really lucky, Pets As Therapy come to visit your college. If you haven’t gone to a PAT session before, I thoroughly recommend it. Stroking a beaming Labrador for ten minutes genuinely warmed the cockles of my frozen heart. Even if the lady accompanying Merlin (the dog) didn’t appreciate the comic genius of me grabbing his head and asking him whether my insecure attachment fuelled my insatiable appetite for attention.

All these provisions are incredibly worthwhile, and do go a long way in assuaging the angst that accompanies Week 5, but still, it feels uncomfortable to have one week of term dedicated to simply ‘surviving’.

As you witness your life fall to pieces around you, it sounds like a sensible response to create a pragmatic solution for each problem, and manage to retain some sense of calm in the eye of the storm. But why not reconceptualise the survival of Week 5 as a Bear Grylls-style ultimate survival challenge? Such is my infatuation with destruction that I genuinely think we may all be able to enjoy thrashing against the tsunami of Week 5, if only we consider ourselves brutish castaways.

Not for the first time in my life, I turn to cultural icon/self-proclaimed god Kanye West for inspiration. This week Kanye has claimed that he is $53 million in debt. Does he take time to regroup and think of sensible solutions to his issues? Of course not, he is Kanye fucking West. Kanye, caught up in the hurricane force of his own self-belief, takes to Twitter and starts asking anyone he can think of to bail him out. Kanye posts a mad series of tweets, and as always, opts for spectacle over sense.

There are many valid criticisms of Kanye, but it must be said that he stops at nothing to feed his own self-image. I don’t suggest that we all behave like Kanye (even Yeezy is struggling to pull it off). What I am trying to put across here is this: don’t settle for less. Kanye won’t settle for just being rich enough to ‘buy his family furs’. No, he is striving to fulfil a higher purpose. Don’t settle for ‘surviving’ rather than thriving. It can be really fucking challenging, but sometimes essays conceived in a crisis are far better than mediocre. And so, via diversions through Week 5 and Kanye, I believe I have found the secret to love: don’t settle for less.