End of term musings

Term is over. I left the ’Bridge this afternoon. At the end of last term, I was having emotional farewells left, right and centre, and sobbing melodramatically into The Boyfriend’s t-shirt about how much I didn’t want to leave Cambridge. This time around, I wanted to go home. Not least because I wasn’t sure how much longer my body could stand the horrendously unhealthy diet I was inflicting upon it (sample menu for a day: the remainder of a packet of M&Ms, a sausage roll, a bag of crisps, a plate of Nachos, microwave salted popcorn, chocolate biscuits. Oh, and a plum, which I maintain cancelled everything else out – that’s how it works, yes?). This term has been exhausting. I’ve done so much more: yoga, badminton, getting involved in the play, seeing other plays, English Society, formals, randomly-themed room gatherings (who could forget the Egg Party?), and the odd bit of work for my degree, too. That’s a lie; I’ve done quite a lot of work but if I say that, the scientists get angry. All I’ll say is that it isn’t my fault they have 9am lectures six days a week.

Now I just want to sleep for a week, watch some appalling daytime television, and then get started on my vacation work of reading the complete works of Shakespeare, a task which my Director of Studies casually informed us of as though it was the sort of thing one could easily manage on a lazy Sunday afternoon. No matter: I am ready to immerse myself in reading, and alongside that will hopefully manage to do a bit of writing and drawing too. I shall miss the Cam lot, of course, and The Boyfriend, but five weeks will fly by, and with a bit of luck I may even meet some of them between now and then.

And then I shall return to Cambridge for my final fresher term, prepared for the six weeks or so devoted to the Bard. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a weird term. Everyone else will be stressing about their university exams, whereas we English students will have nothing more to worry about than our usual workload and one measly Preliminary. To put it in perspective, most of my friends have over eighteen hours of exams that count towards Part I of their degree, while we have a three-hour internally set test that means nothing. I’m a little worried that I will be unable to stop myself from making smug jibes to everyone, and that eventually I’ll push someone too far and they will either burst into tears or punch me in the face, which I’m sure I would fully deserve. So I intend to at least try to be extra-nice to all the people panicking about exams – I thought it would be cool to become the Food Fairy, delivering de-stressing cookies and cakes and the like to people who are shut away revising. Perhaps that’s patronising, but who would say no to cookies?

It will also be my last term in Cripps Court, our lovely 1960s accommodation block. For non-Selwynites, I will add that Cripps is often described as a rite of passage for freshers: it has an abundance of asbestos, depressingly brown décor, toilets situated right next to the tiny gyp (kitchen), chairs you frequently fall through, showers with spontaneous temperature malfunction tendencies and ceilings that collapse. Well, the latter happened just the once, but still. Compared with the lovely Ann’s Court rooms that my über-cool Crew of Six last week managed to secure for next year, Cripps rooms are a little bit grim.

But I’m going to miss it all the same. I’m actually very fond of Cripps. I wouldn’t have thought I would be when I arrived: once I’d finished putting all my stuff into my room on my first day, I looked around and I almost cried. It didn’t feel like a home, and I was generally being a bit pathetic, but once it had been buried under all my clutter and had some geeky/arty/lame posters in it, I grew to like it rather a lot. If nothing else, it sort of stands for independence and freedom, however trite that may sound, being the first place I’ve lived in away from home. I didn’t anticipate how fantastic it would be to live within a massive community of friends, and Cripps is where I found that. Probably the weirdest thing that I’ll miss is the glowing tree outside my window – when I come back to my room late at night, before I turn on the light all I can see is this big tree which is lit up by some means. Being me, I’ve become attached to it.

Of course, the substantially larger gyp that awaits the crew and I is quite an appealing prospect. As is the en-suite bathroom I will have with a (hopefully) consistently warm shower. And the awesome balcony that runs all the way around the third floor, which we are strictly not allowed to go out onto; this is a rule that we will of course obey (balcony RAVE, guys!). Still, despite all this, Cripps will always have a special place in our hearts, I feel. So here’s to Easter Term: our final one in our grotty haven, and one that will almost certainly see most of my friends coming to hate my exam-free existence.