The Alternative Guide to Reading Week

Don’t feel like reading during reading week? Here are the top ten ways to productively procrastinate…

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Reading week. The blissful time when Arts and Social Science students are free from lectures, seminars and every other aspect of uni conformity. To many, reading week is known as sleeping week, the uni equivalent of school half-terms, the seven days of guilt-free lie ins, catching up on trashy TV programmes and working your way through an entire box of chocolates whilst sipping on your favourite brand of tea.

Because let’s be honest, after a solid five weeks of pretending to read, it’s not like we should be catching up on our degree to prevent the god-awful term 3 cramming that awaits.

So, The Tab have come up with ten ways to spend your “reading” week. Chores productive enough to fight back your guilty conscience (kind of), but simultaneously mind-numbing to give yourself that well earned break. What more could you possibly want?

1. Clean your entire flat/house

It’s a hard life keeping your room clean at uni. Files everywhere, floordrobes, empty redbull cans lying on the floor. For girls, getting ready for just one night out can leave a room messier than the Copper Rooms after circling. Reading week is the time to sort it out.

Whilst you’re at it, why not just clean the entire house? There’s nothing more satisfying than a sparkling home. Your flatmates would appreciate it too.

 

Say hi to Henry

2. Go to the gym

Was your New Year’s Resolution to sign up at the gym and get fit? Did you maintain it?

Didn’t think so.

Not a problem, reading week is the perfect time to make up for it. Brush the dirt off those gym clothes, grab your water bottle and burn off those jaegerbombs.

3. Prank your flatmates rooms 

Whilst your fellow reading-weekers have gone home to their loving families to be waited on hand and foot, this presents you the with the perfect opportunity to pull some pranks on your flatmates pristine (see Reading week chore number 1), and crucially, unlocked room. Whack out the loo roll, cups, cling film- whatever you feel like on a slow weekday afternoon.

They won’t be leaving their room unlocked for a while…

4. Irritate your friends who don’t get a reading week 

You’ll probably be getting the regular stick from your Maths or Economics friends about studying a doss subject that allows for a week off during term-time. Instead of arguing back to defend your degree, just message them about how you went to Smack last night, got absolutely battered, woke up at 3pm, ordered a pizza and sat back on the sofa watching Breaking Bad.

5. Work out your budgeting

It’s likely you’ve fucked away most of your student loan by this point, so reading week represents a crucial time to take stock of how much you have left for the term.  Now is a great time to count out your coppers and build small towers of loose change- you haven’t got anything better to do.

Rich

6. Do some food shopping

Reading week is a great time to dust off any of those cringe student cookbooks people like to give us for Christmas. Order a big food shop and make that lasagne – your Maths and Econ housemates aren’t likely to complain about reading week after that.

7. Buy some unnecessary stationary 

Organisation is key at uni. What’s the point in reading if you have no place to keep your notes? Head on over to Ryman’s and buy some files, staplers and pens to prepare yourself for term 3. Why not splurge on some flowery post-its, or relive your school days by buying a couple of packs of scented gel pens?

Mmmmmmm, the memories…

8. Go home and spend your parents’ money

If you really haven’t got any money left, reading week is a good opportunity to go home not only for week of luxury (cupboards and fridges brimming with  goodies), but also to beg for more money.

Be sure to take a big bag of library books and ‘necessary work’- you don’t want to spoil your parents’ perception of you as the academic wonder-kid they brag about to their friends. Just make sure you lock your room to avoid the consequences of reading week activity number 3.

9. Catch up with friends you’ve ignored for the past five weeks

Remember that nice girl you exchanged numbers with at the first mixed hockey session but never saw again? Or the guy you got on really with once in a queue in Costcutters? Reading week is the perfect time to return to these shallow and unfulfilling friendships. Go to the cinema or Smack – preferably somewhere you won’t have to do much talking – and feel reassured in the knowledge that you’re still the veritable social butterfly you were in Freshers week.

#besties

10. Discover another trashy TV series 

Dexter, Breaking Bad, Gossip Girl, Made in Chelsea, the list goes on. If you’ve watched all of those, don’t worry – have a browse of Netflix and you’ll be sure to find another to latch on to.

Who could resist those pretty faces?

So, now that you’ve procrastinated by reading about how to procrastinate…

DO SOME ACTUAL READING.