All the New Year’s resolutions Leeds students have already broken

“I’m going to get a membership for the Edge and go every day. I mean it this time”


2017 is well and truly here, with so far less of the heartbreak of 2016 (touch wood) but A LOT more scandal about a certain sex tape (ahem, Donald Trump). The year is already proving to be just as unpredictable as the last one, but one thing that will be the same, year after year after year? Leeds students’ New Year’s resolutions. Everyone makes them, they’re always the same, and they’re always broken before the end of January. It’s the circle of life.

Resisting the urge to get a meal deal from Tesco

You start out with good intentions. You pack a salad for your lunch (yuk), in an attempt to be healthier, complete with a bottle of water and a plastic fork. This probably even worked the first few days. But now it’s half way through the week, you’re tired, and the thought of having yet another lunch of limp lettuce leaves and warm tomatoes is sickening. So you trundle on over to Tesco’s, your pride shattered, vowing to never again make a stupid resolution. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCfzEOitaZR/?tagged=tescomealdeal&hl=en

“Wanna come to Laidlaw tomorrow? I’m going to be there every day from 9, get loads of work done, and be so on top of all my work this term. So I’ll see you there?”

Followed up the very next day with “actually nah, I’m too tired today, maybe tomorrow?”. Exam season’s barely started, and already you’re skipping out on the library, pretending you’ll do enough work at home. The only time you ever will be found in the library this term is the day before an exam or an essay deadline. And that’s okay.  

Promising to stay away from Fruity and go literally anywhere else. Literally anywhere. Anywhere is better than Fruity.

Probably the worst resolution to have, because you won’t even TRY to keep it. You pretend, but everyone knows, come first week back, that’s where you’ll be, necking Jagerbombs and shouting all the words to “Shake It Off”. You’ll claim it was because it was free, and “how can you miss an opportunity like that” but that’s just a cover-up and you know it.

Not getting post night out food at Crispy/Zulfi’s/TJ’s because you’re trying to be healthy

You end up leaving your first night out early so you can properly enjoy said post night out food. You justify it by saying you deserve a treat after exams, but you secretly know you were never serious about it anyway. It was just something you said to keep your mum off your back.

“I’m going to get a membership for the Edge and go every day. I mean it this time”

Every day becomes a few days a week, then twice a week, and eventually it’s simply “when I feel like it”. All of this is hypothetical though, because you haven’t actually bought the membership yet, and you’re never going to. You’ll make yourself feel better by promising to do some squats in your room, but deep down you know you’re just lying to yourself.

 

Attempting to be more edgy now that you’re at Leeds

The “new year, new me” takes on a whole new meaning when you’re a student at Leeds. There’s a pressure to look and dress a certain way, a certain edgy way – the kind of look that Leeds’ whole reputation was built on. So you decide that you might as well try and fit that look. You go to a few charity shops, buy an oversized denim jacket and some Adidas trainers, maybe raid your mums closet for vintage before you leave. That’s about as far as it goes though. It doesn’t take you long to realise that your mum’s stuff isn’t “vintage”, it’s dated, and Adidas isn’t edgy, it’s basic. But at least you can say you tried.

Photos by: CWPhotographics