A Day in the Life of a Student in Lockdown

Today, Thursday 19th November, should be a pretty average day in my life at the moment, so I thought I’d share it with you, to show what its really like to be a student in the middle of a pandemic. My to do list for the day consists of an on-campus seminar, two online lectures, a few virtual meetings, a LitSoc event, and a few other little bits. Actually quite a busy day, so we’ll see how that goes, I could end up being a stressed out mess by about 4pm but hopefully all will go swimmingly.

So, the day started at 7:45 am when my alarm went off; I keep my phone on charge on the other side of my room now so I have no choice but to get up when the alarm rings, even though there’s nothing I want to do less at 7:45 than get up and start the day. I’m sure many of you can relate, but I’d much rather roll over and go back to sleep in my very cosy bed, but no, I got up and started getting ready. After a quick shower, I got dressed in the clothes I laid out the night before, sorted my hair out and put on a little bit of makeup, basically so that I look more awake than I feel. I chose that matched my outfit best (today a black and white gingham print with little daisies), grabbed my bag that I packed the night before and a cereal bar to eat on the way and left the house at about 9:25 am. The walk takes about 25/30 minutes, which I spent listening to Christmas music, I have no shame at listening to Christmas music in November, my Christmas tree is already up too.

I finally got to campus at around 9:50 and made my way to my Victorian Literature and Culture seminar in which we discussed Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memorium. After a productive hour I made my way to our campus shop to buy a coffee and post a few letters, before making my way home. Although, on the walk home I did manage to trip over rather dramatically and make a fool of myself in front of far too many people, how embarrassing, I truly wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

Once back at home I made myself some lunch and began a pre-recorded Shakespeare lecture about Macbeth, however I had to pause it half way through to join a Microsoft Teams meeting for LitSoc (our Literature Society, of which I’m President), meaning that myself and our Vice President had to discuss how the society is progressing with a member of Students’ Union staff, which sounds boring but was actually surprisingly helpful. At 4pm and after finishing the Shakespeare lecture I attended an hour-long virtual masterclass for aspiring publishers which my uni had advertised. This was hosted by Faber and Faber’s Chief Executive, Stephen Page, and literary agent, Sile Edwards. I highly recommend attending any events like this if you’re considering a career in a similar industry; it gave me an opportunity to ask questions and listen to the advice of two individuals who are successful in the career I’m aiming to one day work in myself.

At this point I gave myself some time off, I facetimed my mum and chatted to my housemates for a while, before heating up the leftover Spaghetti Bolognese I had for dinner and setting up the Netflix Party for the LitSoc movie night I had to host. While the movie played, I wrote up some notes from my Postcolonial Fictions lecture, and later watched ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here’ with my housemates. Finally I attempted to get a little more work done before bed, I went over some more notes while watching Gilmore Girls (my current favourite binge watching show), I planned to also watch the first part of a Modernist Literature lecture but my WIFI was playing up and, honestly, I gave up because I was too tired to properly concentrate anyway. I finally went to bed at around midnight and read a little of my book before falling asleep.

On the whole, it was a fairly productive day, I was able to tick off most of my to do list, though I didn’t end up having time to do a Chloe Ting workout with my housemate but that’s not the end of the world. I had a few working from home issues, but on the whole I’d say it was a successful day.