I’m Rhiannon, a final year History and Creative Writing undergraduate who is deeply panicking about life after university and watching too much Netflix to pretend that real life isn’t happening. I live off-campus in a house of ten, and almost all of us are from Bowland College.
Monday, 26 February
With deadlines looming, I thought that the best way to start my day was by continuing with a 30-day yoga challenge, which would calm me down and even me out before I started to tackle an essay on the Royal Society for my Special Subject course. The yoga YouTube video looked short and the thumbnail deceptively simple, so I figured a little breakfast before the yoga wouldn’t hurt. How wrong I was. Twenty minutes of core work and sweaty yogi bicycles later, I staggered for a shower regretting my Weetabix.
Because of the sub-zero temperatures I decided that instead of venturing outside, I’d huddle up in my house and try to work there. I started writing the essay in my room, but was soon side-tracked by quiche and Queer Eye, so migrated to the living room in the afternoon to work/procrastinate with my housemates.
I didn’t want to re-make the sad salmon stir fry that I’d cooked the night before, so my boyfriend, Matt, and I went to Spoons for burgers.
As darkness fell, I thought it would be a good time to have a mini-breakdown over a gobbet due the next day. Re-reading those 300 words to analyse for the seventh time, I realised I understood next to nothing about my course.
Tuesday, 27 February
I woke up extra early, to meet a group of course-mates at 9am to go over work due for our seminar an hour later. Fortunately, I discovered that no one else knew what was going on with the set gobbet, which was a relief. I then met my boyfriend/course-mate to suffer through the Greggs queue together: we needed tea to tide us through the three-hour seminar ahead of us.
I thought about doing work when I got home after my seminar, but in the end I went for a nap instead. To procrastinate more, I went downstairs, sat with my housemates for a bit, and talked about the other people that we live with and how irritating their breathing is.
I next spent a lot of time to-ing and fro-ing from Fox and Medcalfe Pharmacy, attempting to pick up prescriptions which my doctors refused to sign off. Eventually, I got every pill I needed by 5pm. I had to walk past the same pharmacy again on the way to The Study Room, where I got half-price steaks with Matt.
In the evening, I decided to be good and do some reading for my essay (as writing it was too difficult). By the time I’d finished, I was too tired to re-watch any John Carpenter horror movies like we’d planned, so I heroically said I’d sleep with the lights on while Matt stayed up working.
Wednesday, 28 February
Today was going to be productive. But it didn’t get off to the best start: I rolled around in bed until noon.
My 30-day yoga challenge has gone rapidly downhill: yesterday and today I only did slight stretching. But I used my new-found meditative powers to make peace with that.
Eventually, I couldn’t put off the day anymore. We went to The Music Room in town to work. I finished my essay and got all the horrible referencing done, then went home to sit with my housemates who had watched the entire eighth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race in my absence. Drag queens are the glue that holds our household together.
My housemates asked me if I wanted to come in on a Dominoes deal, but I bravely said I was going to be healthy and cooked a vegetable risotto. The rice and beans were tasty, but I still found myself wistfully eyeing up the slightly stale popcorn that had been opened a few days before and was sitting on my bedroom floor.
Thursday, 29 February
I trekked to the University to go to my dissertation meeting with my supervisor at 1pm. I’m already at a (very rough) 10,000 words, as I have another 10,000 words due after Easter for Creative Writing, but I was determined to make full use of the thirty-minute slot by asking every banal question I could think of.
I then spent the rest of the afternoon in the library, trying but failing to turn my three-page introduction into a tidy few paragraphs. My dissertation is about slavery memorialization in the United Kingdom, using Bristol, Liverpool, and Lancaster as examples.
This knowledge was surprisingly useful for the quiz that the English Department had put together, at the suggestion of the Part One Mentors. While the department had done the heavy-lifting of writing the questions and organizing the event, us mentors contributed by pouring crisps into bowls and drinking the free drinks that were on offer.
My boyfriend came over with the Literature Society, and I hastily joined up with them as the other mentors had sneakily brought their own teams, which I hadn’t realised was the plan! While I knew that Sugarhouse was the building associated with slavery, getting us one point, we still managed to come in dead last.
Friday, 30 February
I tried to continue editing my dissertation, but the wind was howling, I was stress-crying, and most importantly my housemates were playing Mario Kart. I sidled downstairs and stayed slumped on the sofa for most of the day, with the highlight of my driving career being the one time I managed to come in at 11th place. When we got Guitar Hero out, I was slightly more successful, until I got too cocky and opted to play on “hard”.
To lift our spirits, Matt and I walked up to Williamson Park in the afternoon to take a break from deadlines and doing badly at Wii games. While it was very cold and windy, it did us good and made us feel as though we had done something.
Once again, we ended Friday night as a house watching the new episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Per tradition, I ate my body-weight in Sultan’s curry, magic stars and donuts, and purified myself with a bath and a face mask afterwards.
Now that my skin was citrusy and face slightly sore from the 99p self-heating sauna mask I’d bought from Body Care, my hopes were high for having a more productive weekend and starting to make progress with my deadlines.
