After a long Christmas vacation spent with family and friends back home, enjoying home comforts, mum's cooking, long-awaited catch-ups, endless games of articulate, shopping and great christmas tv movies, my heart sank when I realised it was time to return. I felt anxious about collections, having done far less work than planned, due to all of the above, and about the work to come in these last few laps to finals, but also feeling a bit of premature home sickness because, having spent so long with my family and friends I was reminded of how much I love spending time with them, which made it so much harder to leave.
As I sat on the train back up to oxford, trying to psych myself up to get back into the finalist mindset and shake off this negative attitude of dread, I remembered that this would be my final normalish term as a student; When I was on my year abroad last year, working 9-5, I had realised how great life is for students and felt both lucky and relieved that I still had one more year to enjoy. And that's when I came to my senses and remembered; university isn't just about what results you get, its about what you learn, the people you meet and the experiences and opportunities that you encounter. Whatever happens at the end of this year, whether I get a first or third, or something in between, I will still have spent four years of my life doing something I love, meeting people who inspire me, learning things I might never have had the chance of knowing, pushing myself to be the best I can, starting new sports and living a life full of possibilities and, sometimes, excitement, working hard and feeling the sense of achievement that comes hand in hand with that. No one can take that away from me, and as long as I do the best I can, I will have no reason to regret anything.
When I arrived, I got off the train with this new-found positive approach to finals. After that, once collections were done and dusted, 0th week has turned out to be far better than I expected.. In fact if I'm honest, its been really fun. The post-collections bop was a great reward after a few days of non-stop cram revision, and on Sunday before 0th week I got back into the swing of things by getting back into rowing properly. There's nothing like a Sunday afternoon spent on the riverside, in the fresh air and the winter sunshine, getting active as part of team. Rowing has given me some of my best memories, although some of the most painful and testing too, and I hope I will be able to keep it up and have many more in my last, 'normal' term of university. So far, so good, nought down, eight weeks to go!
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