November 11, 2014, by Tilly Potter

Travels to the North

I know what you’re thinking – she’s gone on a weekend jolly over halfway through the term?! Pfft, what is this nonsense – I’ve been holed up in Hallward churning out essays. Yes, yes, I know. I’m sorry. But I have four exams in January rather than essay deadlines this term. I’ll be the one feeling the burn soon!

I decided to visit my lovely friend Sammi in York and coincide this with a trip to a postgraduate open day at Glasgow University afterwards, so I could get the train up from York (yep, it’s scaring me too that I’m having to think about next year already!). Anyway, vaguely academic reasons can justify a minibreak, right? This entailed me printing off many, many train tickets:

I attempted to do some work on the train on the way up (as you can see, a blank note…)

…but got distracted by coffee and taking extremely boring photos while waiting around (more on my love of coffee in future posts – I guarantee).

 

Anyway, one of the highlights of my trip away was the huge amount of baking I did with Sammi. It was oodles of fun and all extremely tasty. Here’s some pictures to whet your appetite – who says students can’t cook?

We also had some lovely days out, involving many layers of jumpers.

All of this got me thinking about whether it was right to be having such a nice time in the middle of term. However, I think it’s really good to visit friends in other cities while at University. It allows you to explore new places (I hadn’t been to York since I was 7, so it felt like quite an adventure!) and keep in touch with friends. You get to widen your knowledge of the country and further your independence away from home. And let’s not forget – developing the life skill of navigating new train stations and packing things into tiny suitcases. It’s also good to de-stress and have a change of scenery. As much as I like Nottingham, it can be easy to get stuck in a bubble of home-campus-work with the occasional trip into the city. Getting some space can therefore be such a nice change before ‘real life’ begins again – in my case, a mountain of papers ready and waiting to be read on my laptop for the journey home!

So my corny message from this week is this: even if you’re really busy, try to take just a little time out for yourself doing something you enjoy. Study is important but well-being is too!

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