What did you ACTUALLY do during reading week?

In the run up to RED Week, we all declare that they are going to make the most of the week and get loads of reading done, as well as work towards assignments, but how often does that ACTUALLY end up happening?

Nicola, third year English with Creative Writing

“Well…I spent my RED Week marathoning Game of Thrones, because why not? It’s awesome. And Lord of the Rings, I watched them as well because I always do that when I have free time. I read Lord of the Rings as well, so at least I did get some reading done during reading week. Just nothing related to the course.”

Justin, third year Media and Film

“During RED Week I did a bit of research but other than that I sort of took it as a break from work. They hold events and stuff to go to over RED Week but they’re not really relevant to my course.”

Rosy, fourth year French and Spanish

“I went to London because my cousin is getting married so we went for wedding dresses and I’m a bridesmaid. Then we came back two days later and afterwards I did some research on my dissertation. Then Wednesday ‘til Friday I was just working on it and after that Saturday to Sunday I went to Amsterdam!”

Lyvonne, fourth year French and Spanish

“I went back to my home town of London and ran a few errands like went to the dentist. Then I came back to Nottingham again and spent most days in the library being a good student, studying hard and getting my work done and catching up on sleep that I didn’t have in normal term time.”

She then added: “That’s all legit by the way! It’s the first RED Week that I’ve actually done work!”

Laura, fourth year French and Chinese

“I studied maths because I’ve got a skill test and an equivalency test coming up for teacher training. I also did chapter one of my dissertation and then on Sunday I had a big Dominos and that’s it!”

Alice, third year English with Creative Writing

“I didn’t know it was RED Week until I actually got to uni on Monday. On Tuesday and Wednesday I did all the work on my dissertation that I could do as well as the 3000 words that were due the next day.

“On Saturday night my glasses broke, the lens popped out and then the screw fell off while trying to put them back in. So I had to go and get them fixed. Luckily I could but then I was looking through my room for hours trying to find the insurance card but they already had it on the system!”

Fran, second year English with English and Communications

“During RED Week I went home. I did a little bit of work for my new modules but that was about it.”

Rhiannon, third year English with Creative Writing

“I stayed in Nottingham for the first two days to do some work and then on Wednesday I went home. I read Ulysses…every day – it was horrible!

“I worked on my dissertation, I got some of that finished and I edited some other people’s work for this week back. And we’re moving house so we just got some bits ready for that, had house viewings and things.”

Kyle, third year English with Creative Writing

“So on the Monday of reading week we had our regular prose workshop for the Creative Writing society which I ended up being late to because there was an accident on the road and I accidentally did a bit of shopping when I shouldn’t have done. That was pretty fun – love the Creative Writing society and the workshops mainly just because it’s a bit of a lark.

“Tuesday I made a lasagne and went to a pub quiz. We did really well on the pub quiz actually but this team of old people got like 57 out of 60 points and I reckon they were cheating. I reckon they got their phones out! We didn’t cheat even though we were the youngest there, I think that’s pretty good of us.

“Wednesday, Anime society. Knocked about a bit with some people. None of them had got reading week they were all like ‘You get a reading week you bloody humanities students, you laze about, you don’t do a proper course.’ Sod off.

“Thursday, I baby sat my friend’s daughter and then when she was put to bed in the evening I knocked about with them for a bit. I think I caught a bug off her because I was really ill on Friday and then the succeeding weekend. I think that’s it, I don’t think I did anything on the Friday because I was DYING for most of the time.

“It wasn’t a blackout, I can remember it very vividly but I won’t go into details because it was vile. And that had nothing to do with drinking; you don’t need to drink to make yourself sick just knock around with kids. That’s my tip to all the students out there if you wanna throw up knock around with some two year olds.”

Well, we did say actually.