As the second term ended, I could not wait to get home to just relax with my family and eat healthy food. The last few weeks had been extremely stressful, what with a difficult statistics assignment to hand in and my housemates getting on my nerves. But I knew it would only take a couple of weeks at home until I was desperate to get back to Newcastle to see my friends.
At the beginning I went to France on a family skiing holiday, which was hilarious but then Easter came and went in quite a blur, probably because of the large quantities of chocolate consumed! After that I went to London quite a few times to go out shopping and to the theatre. I saw an incredible play worth mentioning because of the rave reviews its received and the fact that I got the tickets for £25, (now they are selling them for ten times that price) starring Helen Mirren reprising her Oscar winning role as the Queen. But Easter wasn’t all fun and play, I realised that I seriously need to start saving for summer so I got a job with a catering company close to home that I can work for during the holidays!
It also dawned on me towards the end of the break the actual amount of revision I need to do and the essay deadlines, which I once thought were months away were now only a matter of weeks! I started with my essay for Contemporary Russian Politics first as the deadline was the closest. I chose the title ‘Assess the role of hard and soft power in Russian foreign policy’; I had answered a similar essay question before in the first term about Chinese soft power so I really enjoyed researching this topic and expanding my knowledge. I also chose a relatively similar question in my module for African Politics on ‘Why have Western Commentators been critical of China’s recent involvement in Africa?’ When I got back to UNI what also hit me out of the blue was that I need to start thinking about my dissertation topic straight away, as by the end of term (only 7 weeks away) I need to have handed in my research question and decided on a supervisor!
This term is going to be a busy one for sure, endless days and nights spent in the library I think, but not to worry though I still have tonnes of Easter chocolate left over to keep me company!
Frankie