All the lies you’ll tell yourself as a Cardiff fresher

A fresh start. A new beginning. At uni you can leave your old self behind and become whoever you want, they said.

So you tell yourself all these wonderful, wholesome things you’ll do. You’re gonna become better than ever and nobody can stop you. This is your year.

But as the year unravels so do your lies and your never ending ‘to do lists’ are finally exposed. What you really discover is a spiralling dismissal of responsibilities and a total lack of self control, all tangled up in the spider’s web of little lies every student tells themselves:

You’ll unpack your room

After telling your mum you were a responsible adult and insisting that you will unpack your room, you go out and drink until Christmas.

When she picks you up, you’re still living out of boxes and you’re not even sure you’ve ever seen the floor. You forget about it and spin the same tale that you’ll do it when you come back. But when you leave halls there’s always one dusty, useless, untouched box of stuff you didn’t even know you had.

You will never need this much

Drinking is not a problem

“This isn’t a habit”…“I’ll stop after freshers” Heard this one before?

Societies are super fun 

Unless you’re content with your school sport of choice, societies offer a tantalising buffet of potential new hobbies.

Well, the reality is that freshers’ fair is hungover, crowded, and sweaty.  Either you cave in and join the Spelunking society, the Real Ale society and everything in between, ending up with endless emails in your newly opened university inbox, or get overwhelmed and run out without having gained anything but a few free brownies.

As a sensible adult you will budget

There are few greater feelings than that first student loan. Free money? Yes please.

But by the end of the first term you’re begging for drinks at the bar, pretending to be surprised when it’s your round and you open your wallet only…oh no…it’s empty?.

Pennies for the poor?

You will be up at 6am to exercise

Talybont gym is literally on your doorstep, and in all honesty, the £165 fee isn’t a big price to pay. It’s a bargain for a year, but the value – and your bank balance – lessens with each passing day you put off signing up. Those pecs become the latest in the string of unfulfilled fresher’s fantasies, hopes, and dreams. And the only bit of exercise you get is running gleefully down the stairs to greet the Domino’s driver like an old friend.

Diet

McDonald’s has saved your life every time you wake up with an empty fridge and an emptier stomach. You’ll swear down to your mightiest power and will that you will not touch it during term. That you’ll go on a health kick and really nail that spag bol. But those golden arches between Taly and Tesco beckon you in from the rain and you’re left finding solace in a Chicken Legend. Nothing you could do.

McDonald’s to the rescue!

You’re going to have 100% attendance

When you arrive, you might genuinely intend on going to all your lectures.

After eagerly dragging yourself to lectures after a night out, you realise falling asleep at the desk would probably be comfier in bed. And since you’re not learning anything either way you might as well stay warm in bed. During Freshers’ you find the delectable power of repeating “40%” like a ritual chant, as you duck another seminar. Not even sympathy for your poor, lonely tutor could remove you from the cocoon of your bed.

At some point somebody will calculate exactly how much each lecture is costing. Then they will tell you. And you will still not care.

Lazing in bed hungover, deep into Netflix, it hits you. You lied to yourself. None of this was ever going to happen.

By Christmas it’s just too late to bother trying to change, you’re set in your ways. Next year it is.