The definitive worst day you can have as a Durham student, hour by hour

Being a student at Durham is often full of sunshine and rainbows, until it isn’t. It starts raining, you’re in second year, and you begin to question the decisions made by your fresher self, who somehow decided a house 40 minutes from your department sounded like a brilliant idea. Worse, your college ends up on the opposite side of Durham. Your bank account is drained by Ubers trying to heal the pain of living so far out, and your friends live 20 minutes away at best. Down a hill, across two bridges, and entirely weather dependent.

Then there’s the second-year housing curse, which isn’t just a bad day, but a whole year of regret. Tensions arise, and what was once imagined as a wholesome group of students living under one roof becomes everyone’s worst nightmare. There’s no place like Durham…

If all of this already sounds terrible enough, here’s an hour-by-hour definitive worst day you could have as a Durham student (not dramatic at all), combining some of the worst situations this city has to offer. From living in deep Gilesgate to the forgotten hills of Crossgate Moor, first-year laundry rooms and the horror that is Billy B during exam season, Durham has an uncanny ability to humble you when you least expect it.

8 am wake up:

It’s Michaelmas term, barely 2 degrees outside, and it’s going to snow today. You wake up freezing, your radiator is broken, and your landlord hasn’t yet fixed it despite saying they’d “look into it” three weeks ago. Your alarm goes off, jarringly enough to wake you from the deepest sleep of your life. You’ve overslept, having snoozed your 6:30 am alarm for the past hour and a half, knowingly avoiding reality: Your 9 am is nearing, but your house isn’t. You live in deep Gilesgate, and you study Psychology. Only now do you realise that living over 40 minutes away from your department, plus taking on the treacherous “Cardiac Hill”, is not for the weak.

You’re still tipsy from the previous evening. It’s Thursday. A sports social took years off your life last night, having drunk your body weight in doubles. Worse, you’re currently on a four-day bender: Monday Ozzies, Tuesday birthday bar crawl, Wednesday sports social, and Thursday Fabs with a society for which you’re on the executive committee. You can’t miss it, and you also can’t skip this 9 am. It’s a compulsory lecture.

It’s snowing, after all; you’ve already admitted defeat and are working your way through the five stages of grief over a lecture you never really cared about anyway.

Surely one lecture won’t hurt. (It will.)

9 am

You’ve run out of money for Ubers. Imagine this: You tell everyone you live in Crossgate Moor, and they always say, “where’s that?”, so you’ve resorted to telling everyone it’s Neville’s Cross, ignoring the fact you live a further 10 minutes away, and there isn’t even a direct bus, but an almost vertical hill on your way to the city centre. After this, expect another 20 minutes walk before you’re anywhere near your department. Don’t get me started on what it’s like when it snows. Let’s just say, enjoy your snow day because you aren’t going anywhere, not least without falling…

10 am

That 9 am is long gone. You’ve emailed in sick, but you’ve already self-certified twice this term. Attendance at 50%, you fall back asleep, hoping it’ll cure your hangover, but instead, the unthinkable happens.

Your department emails you. You’ve been flagged for poor attendance, and college has requested a meeting. Worse, your compulsory seminar starts at 11 and you cannot miss this, not this time.

11 am

You begin the treacherous journey to your department. You study History, and your presentation is at Elvet Riverside. You’ve forgotten your gloves so your fingers are freezing. You slip in the snow, your clothes are now wet, and you’re running late because you didn’t factor in tripping at least three times on your journey down, never mind bruising yourself in the process. Three people walk past. No one asks if you’re okay. Peak Durham etiquette.

Your head is pounding and your seminar leader is asking you questions on a text you’ve definitely read… No amount of coffee will fix this.

12 pm

Via Canva

Your next lecture is at 12, but it’s on the opposite side of the city. You do Liberal Arts, and your next class is a 20 minute walk away from the last. The two overlap, so you awkwardly leave your seminar early, rushing to Elvet Hill House (I still don’t know where this is), relying on nothing but Google Maps, but you could’ve sworn you’ve done this walk 50 times over.

You arrive at 12:10, 10 minutes late, out of breath, sweating, but it’s cancelled. Your phone data is acting up, so you didn’t get the notification. You’ve walked 20 minutes for no reason, and you have two free hours before yet another lecture back where you were originally: the building of concrete dreams, Elvet Riverside.

The lecturer definitely sent the email. At 11:58.

1 pm

It’s lunch time. You decide to head back into the centre to grab lunch, ready for an afternoon of seminars, library lock in, and some much needed productivity after this morning’s chaos. It’s too cold outside, and your trousers are wet through. No amount of hand drying in the toilets will help. You head to Cooplands. It’s full. Greggs it is: You order a sausage roll and guess who’s next in the queue? It’s your ex-situationship who you ghosted after he wanted to “get serious” post hook-up number three. Now that’s an awkward glance. Ouch.

2 pm

You’ve finished your lunch, and you’re heading to the SU to wait for your seminar. On your way, you get a notification from your house group chat. You owe your least favourite housemate £25 for a water bill for some ungodly reason, and they’ll need it “now”, because they’ve delayed it for three months but suddenly decided it’s urgent. You’re nearing your overdraft limit, so you humbly offer them the very little cash you have left. Will pennies suffice?

3 pm

It’s presentation time. You’re delivering a PowerPoint to the group on your summative project for your least favourite module. The hangover’s caught up with you, and it’s a group project for which 2/4 have contributed, but everyone’s taking the credit. That is, until the participation survey comes out. I’m outing them all. Your tutor gives you a sympathetic yet concerned look as you shuffle off after slide 5 to the sweet embrace of oblivion.

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4 pm

You’ve finished today’s contact hours. It’s still snowing, but you’re in need of a study space. The SU charging ports aren’t working, so the Billy B it is. Your hangover is wearing off, so you cleverly decide to check the Billy B study capacity online, only to see it’s full, not least by third years who are “genuinely locking in”, but freshers who’ve left their bags on level three while popping out for a “quick” matcha break. You admit defeat. Again.

5 pm

You’ve finally made it home. You realise you’ve got a 20 per cent summative due tomorrow which you haven’t even started. No worries, you tell yourself. It’s only first year. Academically, it doesn’t count. Tell that to LinkedIn.

You open Blackboard. It logs you out. You log back in. Error. You refresh. Error.

Eventually it loads. You speed-write something vaguely academic, submit with minutes to spare, and spend the longest 30 seconds of your life watching “Uploading…” on Blackboard.

Dinner time. Half your pans have mysteriously disappeared, the only thing left is plain pasta, and your degree, unfortunately, won’t complete itself.

6 pm

You resort to plain pasta, eating it unseasoned and alone. It gets worse when you get a message from a friend that starts with “urgent, we need to talk”. You could’ve sworn you didn’t see her last night in Babylon, but after all, you were blackout. “Hangxiety” hits for a second wave. What could I have possibly said this time?

7 pm

You realise you’ve missed more contact hours than you attended this week, and it isn’t even Friday. What on earth would I do without online recordings? You’ve watched approximately none of them.

While having a mini crisis over your degree, you remember you’ve double-booked yourself tonight, but you’re still critically hungover from the night before. What do you do? Say no to both? Risk social expulsion, or worse, be caught in a bar with one group, BY the other, while telling them you were too sick to come out. Now that’s a sticky situation that only shots can fix. Let’s hope both your social circles get along well as you’ll be sure to end up in the middle of them in Jimmies later on.

8 pm

Via Canva

The laundry you’ve been procrastinating is spilling over, so you hurry to your college laundrette and the unthinkable happens. There’s one washing machine left, and someone’s put their bag in there… To add to your stress, all of the dryers are broken and it’s raining outside. Worse, the handle on your bag snaps while you’re walking back to your accommodation. Anything for clean clothes, right?

9 pm

It’s going out time. You’ve forgotten your Campus Card. Every college bar is now off limits. Your mate suggests Uber Courier-ing it across Durham. Somehow, that feels like the most sensible idea you’ve heard all day.

10 pm

You enter 24s. Surrounded by “opps”, you avoid eye contact with everyone you see, remaining fixated on your drink only. Don’t let them see me! You’re not afraid of confrontation, but confrontation fears you. Half the Union’s here post-debate, and the last thing you need is to accidentally start another one in 24s.

11 pm – 2 am

You go to Klute, spending hours bumping into everyone you’ve ever met at Durham from course mates to faces you haven’t seen in months. Your ex-situationship is here and you make the messy decision to “talk things out” in the smoking area, and before you know it, it’s like nothing changed. That’s tomorrow’s problem, I guess…

After eventually arriving home, you realise you do not in fact have your key and have to call the porter to let you in. Worse, you’re in a Hill college, and there’s no sign of life in the empty hours of a Durham morning. They don’t arrive for half an hour, but hey, at least my contact hours don’t start until 3 pm today, but doubt I’ll make that one either.

Next week will be different. You convince yourself the cycle ends here. It won’t. See you at Ozzies on Monday because apparently you haven’t suffered enough. Entirely optional btw x

Featured image sticker via Canva

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