Five Things to be Thankful For

We are slap-bang in the middle of exams, it’s been warm and sunny once for about three hours, and the toughest part of the Union redevelopment looms large. Sometimes, being stuck in St Andrews can get you down. In an effort to blow away Bubble Syndrome and maybe even make you miss this place a little when you escape for the summer, here are five reasons to be thankful for St Andrews.

Walking is optional. The few hundred meters walk from my house-in-real-life to the nearest Tesco suddenly seems a to be a true epic. ‘Walking? Isn’t there a bus for that?!’ I cry, thoroughly used to the number 92 servicing the overwhelmingly far distance of DRA, and the fifty or so paces from my door to Kennedy Hall being quite enough walking, thank you. Make the most of this bipedal-centric town of three streets – when you are stuck at the end of the Northern Line trying to get to Monument, you will long for the days when Morrisons was ‘sooo far out’.

Nando’s is here! Will this be the highest grossing Nando’s of all time? Hype and general eagerness would suggest so, with the restaurant opening at the end of this month and bookings set to be hotly coveted. You can print out the menu here to pin above your desk donkey-carrot style.

Tradition. For Freshers, this year will have been an absolute whirlwind of academic fams, foam, gowns and Lizard-ing. It won’t stop there, as May Dip, pier walks and soakings remind any and everyone of the awesome history we live around on this little rock, bringing us together in one splendid academic experience. Forgive me for being truly as nerdy as possible and sounding somewhat like a prospectus, but I love this town and it’s traditions, and being part of what seems like one big private joke is great.

Being a Social Butterfly is easy. Something often lamented is the inevitability with which you, unkempt or hung over or both, will bump into people on Market St, or outside the library, or in the queue at Tesco. Once you are your friends are scattered to all corners of the world, this will become one of the things you miss most sorely. As you are trapped in your graduate jobs (if you’re lucky – trapped in your parents’ spare bedroom in Stoke may be more accurate) you will wish that just once, that nice boy from your tutorial or the girl from Halls would bypass you at the photocopier, so you have someone St Andrews to chat with, and remember the good old days of being stuck in a three bedroom flat with a dripping tap and an angry Scotsman (every house has one).

Four years is just enough. In one year, my fellow classmates who picked English universities will be graduating after just three short years. I cannot express how unprepared I am for Life, and if I was to be thrown out on the streets in just twelve months time, I would doubtless end up living in a box outside the library, hoping someone would lend me their matric card to get back in. The beauty of a Scottish education lends you these four years to fill with small town livin’, by which time I will hopefully be entirely sick of this place and have my suitcase packed before exams are even over. In short, four years good, three years baaaaad. Be thankful.

So whilst you’re sunning yourself on a beach in Guatemala or some other glorious place, I hope you will spare a thought for a tiny, rainy, claustrophic little coastal town that’s lamenting your absence. We know you’ll miss it too.