Happy New Year

Christmas is always a hectic time of year for a student; it consists of trying to balance all the social arrangements and family gatherings that come with the time of year, with arguably the zenith of our workloads for the first semester.

My personal workload this Christmas break was probably the largest I’ve ever had; it makes my complaints about revising for A Level winter exams over Christmas seem particularly insignificant. I actually began writing this blog minutes after I put my preverbal pen down after finishing my dissertation. These are words that I never thought I would be saying – after all it doesn’t feel like any time at all since I arrived at the University of Southampton simultaneously excited and nervous for my first lecture, and now I have accrued enough Physics knowledge to write my own scientific paper on how solar variability affects the Earth’s climate! How time flies!

That being said I certainly did have the time to gorge myself senseless (and of course regret it every time) and do all the things I wanted to do back home in Surrey over the break. The first thing on my agenda was to finish my Christmas shopping, because even after several trips to West Quay and that Winchester market expedition I wrote about last time, I had still managed to come home without the full array of presents needed. Whoops!

Although as a child it was hard to believe, there are definitely more important things than presents; Christmas is a time to enjoy by spending it with family and friends. It was great to have my Gran come down for nearly a whole week, even if I did spend half the time locked away in my room revising! I also went to visit my grandparents on the other side of my family over the holidays, but unfortunately they didn’t let me join them for their Christmas holiday in sunny Spain – oh well!

The Christmas tree at home looked far superior to mine back in Southampton

It’s also great to reunite with friends from my sixth form and school days and to hear how they have been getting on since I last saw them in the summer, especially since some of them have now gone out into the world of work. Hearing stories about company cars and having conversations about tax brackets makes the fact that my university friends and I are nearing the end of our degrees (I have one more year after this) become all the more daunting and all the more real.

Catching up with old friends on Christmas Eve

But now back in Southampton, with less than a week left until the January exam period begins and with all my other deadlines met, revision for my three exams is well underway (and they say students don’t work hard!). No doubt the exam period will fly by and 2014 can begin in earnest with a new semester and plenty of new opportunities.

Happy new year everyone and I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and new year. I know I certainly did!

James