This Michaelmas has been even more chaotic than usual, which is a feat in itself. I didn’t think terms could be more disorganised and generally bewildering, but as it turns out, they can. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt in the past year or so, it is to never underestimate Cambridge.

As of late, I have taken Cambridge to new heights. Or in other words, to the North of England. Having spent a grand total of three weeks in flatland, I was struggling to cope with it, and so I headed back to the land of Yorkshire Tea and real hills. I’m glad I did really, although I do worry I am wasting my Cambridge ‘experience’ away. Then again, putting myself first and accepting that I might have to sacrifice the ‘experience’ for more sanity is no bad thing. Of all the decisions I have ever made, it is definitely one of the better ones.

“When I first came home, I felt like a bit of a failure.”

Returning to Cambridge was very difficult. I had built it up to be a place of happiness and joy over summer, only to find that it has not radically changed in the past year (or, rather, several centuries). It is still quintessentially Cambridge. This isn’t all bad at all, but it does involve a constant pressure to be ‘productive’, and an underlying guilt for a failure to achieve that. Like most people, I have found the whole lockdown saga draining and stressful. I try to ‘get on with it’ most of the time, but it can be so hard. Deadlines make things worse, and I often find myself exhausted from doing literally nothing at all.

When I first came home, I felt like a bit of a failure. I thought that if I can’t manage a few weeks at uni, then I’m not really equipped for adulthood at all. But then again, I don’t think I ever have been ‘equipped’ (or ever will be) so there’s not exactly any changes there. Upon reminding myself about that, I immediately felt a bit better. So after the initial sense of defeat, things started looking up.

“... after the initial sense of defeat, things started looking up.”

On my average day, I roll out of bed at some (unspecified) time before midday; I’m too scared to specify in case STEM students are disappointed in me. I then spend a generous hour or two ‘waking up’; this involves drinking tea mostly (or maybe even coffee, if I’m feeling daring). Then I might go for a quick breath of fresh air to reinvigorate. Sometimes that breath of fresh air may end up taking up about two hours because I might coincidentally bump into a friend. Stranger things have happened, after all. Following my warming up phase, I may tentatively turn on my laptop to face the world of endless emails and deadlines. This of course involves a procedural checking of Facebook just to make sure all’s well with the world and everything.

After that, I really have no other choice but to turn to my essays. The bizarre thing is, I do mostly enjoy writing them, so my dread of them is completely melodramatic. Sometimes though I wish that they could be magically written for me. Hopefully STEM students will be working on that as I write this, and so the world will become a better place some day. Otherwise, in between my essay reading, I might just give my friend a call, you know, to check they’re okay. Once in a blue moon, those calls may or may not last for longer than five minutes, meaning that my essay reading is pushed back somewhat. Last week, my charming friend described me as ‘one of those people who is extremely scatterbrained, regularly stays up until 4am, but somehow manages to get everything done’, with, did I detect, a touch of bitterness in their tone? I might pop that quote on my CV. There’s nothing else to put on it at the moment.

Doing term from home also means that I come into close contact with my siblings, a lot. My two little brothers are 6 and 8 and can be real fiends when they choose to be, which is often. I picked them up from school yesterday, and one said that ‘I very strongly doubt we will get home alive’. It’s always great when your own family believes in you, isn’t it? On a rainy walk the other day, it was also suggested that I be ‘reborn’ in a ‘less sarcastic’ form preferably, which is always food for thought. I pointed out that that would be quite a difficult feat, but apparently my brothers believe in me when it comes to being reborn, even if they don’t with driving.

Beyond the charming words of my siblings, a truly wonderful thing about being home is that I am quite close to a big Tesco supermarket. And however much I may love ‘Mainsbury’s’, it just can’t match up to a heavenly supermarket shopping spree. I went to Tesco last night with the express purpose of getting hot chocolate, and rather predictably, returned with no hot chocolate, but I did get a chocolate cheesecake, on the bright side.

It’s the tyranny of choice, I swear…