And so it begins, the very last week of term. This time next week I will be sitting at Logan Airport, an hour away from lifting off on a Boeing 747 which will fly me for approximately 6 hours and a total of 3300 miles back to my native England, and my first year will be officially completed. But that’s this time next week. Standing in the way of me and my flight is the small matter for three final exams over three days between Thursday and Saturday, all at 9am. I realised the last time I had been up at 9am for more than 2 days in a row had been when I was working last summer, nearly a year ago! My already dwindling motivation is not helped by the fact that I have friends finishing off their classes left, right, and centre. Indeed, while I sit on Friday night revising for my History exam at 9am the next morning, half of campus will already have departed back to their homes. I cannot wait.

In truth, I can’t really complain. My finals period was rather fabulous last term, I only had one final exam close to the start of finals period, so I managed to finish a full week before some others. Indeed it was this that allowed me to change my flight to 6 days earlier, a fact I left unknown to all but my sister, so I had the lovely experience of turning up back home unannounced and surprising all my family and friends. I guess the moral of the story is that you have to have the bad to have the good. I especially can’t complain as I would have had to have been here for rowing until next Monday anyway, so in fact having my finals so late should be a blessing, giving me more time to revise. Except, I tend to work best when I have a dirty great deadline breathing down my neck. Having a week between my final papers being due and the start of final exams has not proven to be good for my productivity. It would have been nicer if I’d had them a bit more spaced out, but now it just means I need to work a bit harder over these next few days. Anyway, finals rant over. As my roommate rather wisely said last night, ‘if you know one thing, it’s that they will be done,’ and that is very true.

A few surprised friends and I when I returned last winter!

What has provided a nice distraction from my attempts at studying has been the necessity of putting the items I don’t want to take home into storage. Every upperclassman house thankfully has a storage facility for all students who live more than 150 miles away, something which saves my wallet a great deal in baggage costs and my back in lifting duties. Storage is open for the last week of term, and so knowing how much I have on at the beginning of the week I have been productive in organising what I need to take home with me, and what I can keep over here. This is a slightly tricky job due to the capricious nature of the weather in England over the summer, but I have erred of the side of optimism and put my large winter coat and thermals into storage. Other standout items include my bulky winter boots, a big saving in weight and space, and my rather nice, fake English Christmas tree my mum sent me over Christmas. Although packing was a bit of a pain, I’m now left with the pleasing result that everything that is now left in my room I have to somehow squeeze into a suitcase and a medium sized duffle. Safe to say that having retrieved it from a 16 week hibernation under my bad, my suitcase has never looked smaller. It’s rather unfortunate though that by packing all my things away I’ve got into a rather nice end-of-term vibe, another factor not helping my final motivation.

My things (including Christmas tree) safely stored for the summer in Currier!

The culmination of the English Premier League (football) has come just at the right time, and has certainly been hotting up. My team, Arsenal, are going right down to the wire trying to qualify for the Champions League, the big European club competition, and are playing both tomorrow and Saturday. I will have to desperately try and avoid the distraction tomorrow, and it’s going to be unbearable being in my history final knowing that we’re playing, but fingers crossed I will have some good new when I come out!

But I suppose I must return to my studying. Next time I talk to you I will be free at last, and I can give you the lowdown on what happened at Eastern Sprints, as well as a few final thoughts on the end of my first year. Until then!

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