Stay positive and amazing

The first night was very cold and short as I woke up at 6 the next morning because my room was freezing… I forgot to turn the heating on when I arrived! The self-isolation period was good thanks to my friend, who did the shopping for me and almost daily calls with my family. After it ended, I had one week before the school year started. The weather was blissful and I was going to the beach or on trips every day. The first term started on 28th September and for the first few weeks, everything went great.

My schedule includes online lectures from Monday to Wednesday and in-person PC Labs on Thursday. My timetable varies from week to week as we have different lecturers delivering certain parts of the modules. This semester I am to do a Literature review on a topic of my interest. I have decided to do mine about the Evolution of Cycads, indeed amazing and beautiful organisms. This year I am a Secretary of Conservation Ecology and as a member of the committee, I am having a say on what activities we do. Without Covid-19 it would be an amazing year, as we got many offers from different projects such as Dynamic Dunescapes, Mumbles City Council, and volunteering opportunities in SSSI Crymlyn Burrows. However, the current situation is not looking good and we managed to organise just one in-person activity, Beach Clean. Even in this situation, we got an amazing turnout with almost 30 people! We were planning other activities, but then the Welsh Government announced a fire-break lockdown from 23rd October until 9th November. This made things significantly difficult, as we had to postpone out Rocky Shore Bingo in amazing Bracelet Bay and hadn’t had the chance to do our first activity with Dynamic Dunescapes. We are all hoping, that things would go to before-lockdown ‘normal’ and we could do more in-person activities after it ends.

Since the third week of the university, I had very little time to do anything else than Uni stuff. Online lectures, pre-recorded lectures in-between, coursework in the afternoon, and placement search whenever there was a time. The amount of workload is much higher than last year and I was quite shocked to find out the hard way. Additionally, committee meetings, meeting with external partners of the society were almost too much to deal with. To deal with this increased stress and to get some movement after sitting all day in front of my laptop, I committed myself to run every day. Depending on the weather, which has been really nice, as there is at least one hour when it is not raining, and I am wondering if I’m still in the UK. It is always really nice to go out and occasionally pass someone I know, exchange a few words, and carry on. Meeting new people in these times and possibly making new friends is almost equal to the possibility that I will go back home for Christmas, none. Even in these difficult times, I am trying to remain positive and hope that the situation will get better soon.

Being in a lockdown is not as bad, as long as you are able to maintain human contact. Many students haven’t even come to Swansea, for various reasons, as my university allows both online learning only and combined in-person and online learning. Many UK students already left Swansea to escape the Welsh lockdown. This, unfortunately, left many international students alone in their house. Thankfully, the Welsh government allows adults living alone to join another household for support. It is amazing that so many people are being supportive and try to remain positive in these challenging times. I am really glad, that our University is helping and supporting us. This is not easy, but nobody is alone.

Stay positive and amazing.

Adam