Time – that is the question...

I’ve always thought that summer holidays were fastest moving time of the year. I no longer do. The two months that I have been in Exeter have passed by so quickly. It feels to me like a single, long, busy week.

I’ve always thought that summer holidays were fastest moving time of the year. I no longer do. The two months that I have been in Exeter have passed by so quickly. It feels to me like a single, long, busy week.

I went to England in late September to quickly acclimate, fine-tune my accommodation, and start working on the Chai Society project that I’m the president of. Whereas in the first year of my studies I took a long time getting used to the English way of living, everything felt natural in the second year – I navigate the campus well and I know where things are in the town, and what to expect and how things work (or don’t work) here.

As for accommodation, I have been living together with Dessi and Alex, a Brit, in a typical old English house with a garden for the second year. Its location is a big advantage, as I can get to the university or city center in ten minutes. High gas and electricity bills are a disadvantage – the house is kind of drafty, so we have to run the heat a lot.

A pleasant change for the new academic year is that I have already managed to find a circle of good friends. It’s nice meeting familiar faces in the campus and in the town, and have a word now and then. I also decided to focus more on sports. In addition to squash, I started playing badminton and volleyball, representing the university in the local league. We have played two matches so far (one was victorious, the other should have been). A big advantage is that you get to know new places in the area and new people.

Time is, without a doubt, the greatest challenge in this academic year. You go to lectures, tutorials and seminars, you do group assignments and projects, you have to learn something and to produce something – and if you add sports, friends, personal projects and many other things (such as cooking), you will likely end up with little time left. I, for example, am in red ink timewise. A single free weekend would come in handy to stop for a moment and organize my thoughts. On the other hand, having something to do all the time, sunrise to sundown, means that you can really enjoy every day and make a lot of memories.

Ondrej Sitta

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