-0th week - Bring it on.

It's a Saturday night. This is not just any Saturday night though. No. This is the Saturday before the Sunday that marks the start of 0th week of Michaelmas of final year. In my head I still feel like a fresher. I'm still just as unprepared and oblivious to what is to come. Or at least I'm fooling myself into thinking I am. The truth is that this time it's completely different. This time, I know. I know the horrors that await me; the all-nighters, the panics searching for rooms minutes before tutorials, the terrifying moments when your tutor asks you a question and your bind blanks, the hours of reading and re-reading, thinking and over-thinking, feeling the penny-drop and then sensing it slip away just as quickly. But before all that, I still have to overcome collections. I can imagine it already. My french tutor Genevieve's face as we enter the first class and she purses her lips together, rolls her eyes, lets out a long sigh and says, "Well I thought after the year abroad you would all have shown miraculous improvement, but it seems I was mistaken." I can already pre-empt the regret I'll feel at having wasted these precious few weeks before term begins, enjoying my freedom instead of preparing properly to make the next 8 weeks a little more bearable. It's only natural.

On the bright side, my new university house is just as I want it. I have made sure my home environment will be warm and comforting to help me through it all. I have a bike and lights and a basket. I bought a bookcase, carried it home and put it together myself (OK that's a lie - what actually happened is that I TRIED to fix it together myself, but in the end I was forced to leave the construction to my lovely handyman of a housemate, and he did it beautifully.) We now have a microwave, a toaster, a washing up bowl and drainer. The hot water works and the internet is soon to be installed. The bill-paying has been organised and I have tried to manage my finances as well as I can. All of this takes time, so much time. Simple pleasures are not so simple it seems. It's taken me two weeks to get all of this in order. Imagine if I had turned up just a few days before term began and had to deal with all that, on top of everything else. That's how I know I'm a finalist and not a fresher. I might think I'm unprepared but in fact, I'm not; I realise that last minute reading isn't going to help me now. What's more important is that I make sure that everything else in my life is in order so that when the work begins properly I can focus fully and completely on that. No distractions. Obviously I have been doing a little light reading to calm my conscience, but sorting all of these other small yet time-consuming details has kept me preoccupied for the past few weeks and now all I have left to do is reflect on what's to come. I can't deny that it's dragging on a little now and I'm tired of being worried and anxious.

Final year, I promise to give you all my focus and attention. You might scare the hell out of me, make me sick, wear me down and give me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, but you know what, I'm ready for you. Bring it.