My first Cambridge summer has been mediocre at best. I sit here writing this with eyes wild with ennui, more than ready to see friends, lovers and supervisors (not mutually exclusive – hello Adonian society!)

Yet when I think back to my last term in Cambridge, I am not filled with feelings of warmth and nostalgia; far more a feeling of dread, for the tsunami of exams rushing towards us all. I think that it is like women having babies: they are said to forget the pain of giving birth in order to allow for the want of more children. 

And so are forgotten, over the relatively barren Cambridge summer, all of the Cambridge breakdowns. Memories are filled with formals, fun and friends, and “more over-hyped brunch, fewer Gilmore Girls marathons” becomes the mantra of the bored student over the lingering break.

With Michaelmas approaching, I am preparing myself for a barrage of "how was your summer!?" said with all too much zeal. My answer, oddly enough, will not contain a smattering of visits to obscure countries to teach English and shag a local; no no, think less of the attempt to relive a gap year and more of a summer spent in Swansea.

I spent most of my time seeing how long I could go without being there, staying with family and friends across the country. An LGBT Law Careers event? I love Legally Blonde! Oh, it’s your cousin’s 1st birthday? I’ll bring the booze! I managed to venture as far north as Derby. I am aware this isn’t considered to be properly “northern” but that ignores the fact that everyone there sounds like they were made in Greggs.

I realise that I should in return ask “how was your summer?” to every man, woman and creature I ever looked at in first year. Then of course I must react as if I am listening to the word of a prophet, and be subjected to the tale of how they used college travel grants to make their socialite status international, how in the process they acquired an Instagram account that Annie Leibowitz would be proud of, how they are one tattoo away from being an influencer.

I am expecting to arrive on the first day only to be surrounded by fresh-off-the-plane pseudo-bohemian twenty-year-olds wearing various animal print pantaloons. I can picture it now: “oh, I almost bought that exact purple baby elephant pair – how embarrassing that would’ve been!”

I suppose the Cambridge student emerging from a year of unrelenting study into the real world is a sight to behold. Think Milton’s Paradise Lost – less biblical symbolism, more rooftop cocktails bars and dancing. “Virginity Lost” if you will.