Things you thought you’d get done in Week One but didn’t

It’s the same every semester. We march into Week One bursting with optimism and motivation, the thoughts of a bright new semester dancing before our eyes. This semester’s going to be different. I’m going to work really super hard and it all starts in this week. Week One is the beginning! Week One is the start of something great! Hooray for Week One! I’m going to achieve so much this week!

Fast-forward to my Sunday night, nursing a hangover from the awfully-titled Pop Hearts, and exactly zero of the things on my Week One to-do list have been accomplished. The inevitable student mentality has crept back into place; the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry. So here’s a list of things you thought you’d get done in Week One but, of course, didn’t.

1. Catch up on sleep

No more nights spent wasting time on the Internet and pretending to be surprised when you find it’s 3 in the morning. A new semester means a new sleeping pattern. The only difficultly is fitting sleep around such a hectic Game of Thrones schedule. Winter Daylight is coming.

2. Go to every lecture

Despite having fewer hours than ever before, hitting all seven is just too much to handle. Plus it’s been raining a lot recently and most of your jackets aren’t really suited to the tempests outside.

Is every single one absolutely necessary?

3. Get new stationery

Despite the intense enjoyment I get out of stationery shopping, ‘Buy a new notepad’ hasn’t been scratched off my to-do list this week. I’m still clinging onto the final few scrappy pages from Semester 1. A lack of notepad and folders results in mass disorganisation and the inability to do any work.

It just ain’t write

4. Start dissertation

At the beginning of Week One I decided to stop taking the ostrich approach to my dissertation and wrench my head out of the scholarly sand. Ostriches can’t even read, let alone write. Yet Week Two begins and no progress has been made. The dissertation conundrum: once you start writing, you realise how much you have to do. So you should probably just not start.

Blinkin’ cursor

5. Post-exam body

January’s hibernation period of exams, essays, and endless amounts of chocolate has taken its toll, and the body is no longer a temple but more a run down town hall. All those Sainsbury’s meal deals are beginning to show. But never fear! It’s Week One! You can do anything! But now Sainsbury’s is selling three crème eggs for £1 and, as a student, it would be blasphemy to turn down a deal that good. Week Two looms and the post-exam condition, much like the rain, looks set to continue.

6. Sort out a grad job

It’s time to complete those half-filled out graduate application forms, or the ones which haven’t expired yet. You definitely are a passionate, enthusiastic, and innovative person, who is capable of resourcefully solving complex problems, maximising profit and efficiency, and benefiting both the company and the industry as a whole. But that application form sure does have a lot of questions …

So here’s to getting everything done in Week Two instead!