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There is something about sun, isn’t there? Something that justifies lying on the grass next to the lake, or in The Quiet Place, and pretending to study.
These last couple of days at York have been truly phenomenal – weather-wise that is! And it’s turning out to be fatal for my work ethic.
For those of you out there who know English students or do English, you’ll understand why this isn’t an especially good thing. For us, this is the term that starts to count.
Yes, that’s right, the very next essay I write will count toward my final degree mark.
I’ll be honest; I’m a little bit terrified.
On the one hand, I keep telling myself I don’t need to be. My procedural essay that I got back the other day received a pretty good mark. My first proper marked essay and I come up with a 67. I think that’s pretty good.
Surely, if I can get that with a rushed, under-researched piece of improvisation, I can do well in an assessed one that I’m going to concentrate on weeks in advance?
But therein lies the problem – I thought the latest essay was rubbish: and it was good. But assuming that if I think something is rubbish then it’s good, is probably a very bad idea. Especially when the total extent of work this warm weather inspires is to lie in the sun reading Wordsworth to a Physics-studying flatmate. Needless to say, the words “bloody poets” have been bandied around a lot. Those scientists just don’t understand.
Not only does this crazy weather drain my work ethic, it also makes me do some crazy things. Like reducing my diet almost entirely to ice cream. Or not caring so much about something that I probably should. Everywhere I look lately, there are people lounging around – some attempting to work, others brazenly using their books for pillows. I especially like the guy who sits outside my window and plays guitar – guitar-boy, keep up the good work, it’s actually pretty relaxing. Although saying that, having an entire block (it seems) outside your window can get a little bit annoying at times. On the whole though, these past few days have passed as if in a dream.
And campus is so (dare I say it?) beautiful in the sunshine. The grass looks that little bit greener, the duck excrement fades a little in comparison, and even the horrible geese that attacked me on the way to my 9.15 the other day (a truly terrifying experience, I can tell you) seem that little bit friendlier. Maybe it’s just chilling everyone out.
It doesn’t feel like Uni. It certainly doesn’t feel like May.
But now, the weather has taken a turn for the cooler and I can’t help thinking this is a good thing.
However much I love the sun, by taking the fierce heat out of its rays, the clouds are returning students all over campus to reality. We can settle down to work once more – important for those of us with essays to write or exams to revise for. Sunshine on campus can be a terrible thing – the combination of more independence than ever before with so many places to go, plus crazily fantastic weather can make us freshers a little punch-drunk. Staying up till 4am is pretty standard, but playing hide and seek around campus at this time is less so.
And while it’s good to go crazy every once in a while, we need to recognise that we can’t live off ice cream forever.
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