Week 7 truly is a grim time to be alive. All your pre-term enthusiasm has finally sapped away but the light at the end of Cambridge’s eight-week-long tunnel is still just out of reach.

To make this even better, in the run-up to Christmas every Tom, Dick and Harry will be coming down with their own bespoke version of influenza: avian, swine or the more common variety of ‘man-flu’. Class numbers will start dropping lower than Britney Spears’ jeans circa. 2003 and lecture halls will be emptier than an Anne Widdicombe’s meet and greet, whilst those who remain will be swaddled in blankets and snorting sachets of lemsip. But despite all the homemade remedies, no matter how much honey you shove down your blistered throat, the malady probably won’t budge.

"Be proud of yourself for making it out of term alive"

A personal anecdote: I am hardly ever ill. This isn’t a boast, just a fact. And yet, despite the strength of my immune system, this term finally got me. Within days of arriving in Cambridge a pustule had taken out a lease on the corner of my mouth, my lips began to resemble the aftermath of bad botox, and my coughing made me sound like Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD. Not ideal at all. I am glad to now be on the road back to recovery: I haven’t coughed since I choked on a chip a couple of days ago and my lips are once again pre-swelling size.

In the words of Charles Baudelaire, “life is a hospital where every patient is possessed with the desire to change beds”. I’m not really sure what this means, but someone else quoted it to me the other day, so I decided to pass the message on. 

Currently it does feel like life, and in fact Life, has turned into a hospital. But never fear, you will soon have the opportunity to escape from this seething petri dish and go back home: the sacred space of mince pies, parent-cooked food, and more importantly, unlimited access to all your mum’s medication and painkillers. Until then, be proud of yourself for making it out of term alive.