Having spent most of the first week and the majority of the holidays reaching near nervous breakdown point as I struggled to balance paid and academic work, I am finally getting into the swing of things!
Being a humble arts student, the real work has only just begun as I discovered at 10.15am last Monday lectures don't start until the second week! I've now had two lectures both of which have proved much more interesting and easy to understand than expected. It's just the first seminar tomorrow which I'm dreading now.
Another new group full of people who I'm sure are far more widely read and have of course used the five week holiday to do that reading I umm meant to do! On the plus side however I have just had an email from one member of the group asking what we were supposed to prepare for tomorrow so I might not be the only one who finds it hard to contribute to discussion. I may also take the advice given to me by a third year who suggested that I aim to make one extremely sage and provocative comment per seminar and than mumble responses to any topics that I haven't quite as much time to focus on!
Outside uni and 'the job' (which was the subject of much discussion at family gatherings during the holidays) I'm still doing the placement in a primary school once a week, which is still great fun if exhausting. It was fantastic to be welcomed back last week with hugs, invitations to parties in December and poems about dragons! Also managed to rush from work to the second half of my Spanish course (once a kind porter bashed the door open)!
With the unusually sunny weather, suicidal ducklings and BBQS on the fairly soggy lawn outside my window, spring is definitely in the air at York so maybe it's time to make some new resolutions?
Here's to a term where I spend more time on the right side of the door to my room, achieve a balance between paid and academic work and do at least some of the required reading for my course. However given that its spring is traditionally a time for cleaning maybe I should do a little dusting and tidying before I get started on that next chapter of Pilgrim's ProgressÂ…? Veronica Could you be a student diarist?
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