Week 2: The Big Sick

Hi again everyone! It’s Amity from the first year blog- back for more 🙂 I actually meant to write this last week but in true second-year fashion I was too busy and completely forgot. So here goes.

Anyway. Week 2, off to a great start. There’s a cold going around campus, or at least going around my friend group, so I’ve given myself express permission to pop two Codral and pass out at 7pm without getting any work done. If my writing starts to seem a bit incoherent, it’s because I’ve fallen asleep on my computer. It’s not that big of a cold so I feel very entitled to dragging my friends down with me into this endless hellscape of blocked noses and fatigue for at least the next two days.

Just kidding. I would never do that. (Or would I??)

Second year is off to a BANG and it’s just as hard as mum kept trying to warn me it would be. Especially now that I have to get a job (savings don’t last forever, it turns out…) while trying to balance everything else I over-ambitiously signed up for at the end of last year. Ah, November 2023 Amity… what on Earth were you thinking?? I signed up to volunteer as a peer mentor for the MPMP and I’m having a blast so far. If you’re a first-year reading this, PLEASE go to your peer mentoring sessions. It may seem stupid or a waste of time but getting to know the people in your sessions (and making your peer mentors look good by boosting the attendance numbers) is so much fun. My 3rd session is tomorrow and I’m already sad it’s going to be over. Definitely signing up again next year.

So far my Top Tip to myself this year is trying to get a bit more out and about. What I would like to say is that I’m doing it because I want to make more friends and expand my social circle but let’s be real- I want a love letter on UMLL. And I am not graduating from this university until I get one. I don’t care if I’m 28 and still on my third year of an undergraduate degree, I will do what it takes.

But for now I’m going to lie in bed and ponder the vocal folds until I ‘fold’ asleep. Hahahaha. Seriously, if anyone wants to let me try and explain how the vocal folds vibrate to make sound, that would be much appreciated. I’m three lectures in and already lost. Don’t even get me started on what a jump-scare it was to be watching actual videos of vocal folds in my lecture this morning. I don’t know what I was expecting when I signed up for phonetics but the fact that he could even speak with a camera shoved that far down his throat speaks wonders to the capabilities of the human body.

/ˈbaɪ/ !!

Amity xx