...and don't panic! The Know brings you advice during housing
A true friend is always there for you, especially when you're drunk.
Miss Quit regresses to her childhood this week as the prospect of beginning the "University of Life" looms.
Its that time of the academic year when, those of us lucky enough not to be addled with exam stress tend to go a bit overboard in our imitation of a 24-hour party animal-slash-machine-slash-raving-lunatic. After hard work comes hard play, and nothing hits you harder than the effects of a conscious rejection of early nights.
Supposedly, the average human being needs between seven and eight hours sleep a night in order to function in a sufficient manner. I was getting half that, at best, which may just explain my recent state of well being. Or lack of, to be precise. It all started with a promise...
Sat around our living room, consuming copious amounts of gin, my housemates and I reminisced over those innocent days of Fresher-dom. Nostalgia inevitably morphed into longing, and before I knew it we were all shaking hands in agreement that, and I quote, "making the most of these last weeks is obligatory; hangovers are incidental". It was code for 'to hell with health, education or overdrafts, lets kill our livers by trying to regain a false sense of care-free youth'.
Burning the candle is always fun for the first 36 hours: you wake up early with a set plan for the day, stepping out of the house with an enormous sense of purposefulness. Ten hours later, although the day has lost some of its initial shininess, the prospect of a full-on night out keeps you inflated with that smug feeling of being in-demand. You roll in at 3am, safe in the knowledge that you're really living life to the full. Then the alarm goes off at 7am and it starts all over again.
Fastforward four days and its a whole different story. In hindsight I now see that I had begun to pass my limit. Its safe to say that when you can no longer remember where you are or control what you're saying you probably should have been in bed hours ago. Sadly, it was too late for me. I was no longer in York where I had woken up that morning but in London, sharing a joke (though it may have been a stern word, God only knows which now) with a poor guy who, three seconds later, would have a glass of champagne knocked over him. Don't drink and laugh, kids, the results are never pretty.
Beauty sleep is so called for a reason. From this week's quit I have learnt that there is nothing less attractive than a sleep-deprived student with a developing throat infection, whose mid-degree crisis makes her behave like, well, a perennial Fresher.
And yet, despite the dark circles, the caffeine induced shakes and the embarassing lack of motorneuronal control, it has been worth it. Just as I'm ready to put this article (and myself) to bed, I can't help but have one final thought: with the last two weeks of term shaping up to be nightmarishly busy, bed is probably the last place that I'm going to be for very long. Which is, actually, great. After all, I can always sleep when I'm dead, right?
Oh Miss Quit, you and your alcoholism.
You are, of course, absolutely right. When, in the next few years after Uni, are we going to be able to enjoy ourselves quite so much?! We will look back and BEMOAN the fact that we didnt go out more.
Hangovers fade, nostalgic regret don't.
"Lets kill our livers by trying to regain a false sense of care-free youth"
This is one thing that really annoys me about students - why do so many think it isn't possible to have a great time WITHOUT drinking?
because they are essentially little children trying to prove to themselves that they are grown-ups..
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