Term has started (and at the time of posting, almost finished) and for a fresher, the whole swing of university life is starting to feel almost normal; of as normal as it can be when you have to battle through swarms and swarms of tourists as you head to and from the science department. You see, a running joke amongst some of us is that you can’t walk past the Radcliffe camera of the Bridge of Sighs (not the real one of course, just the one by Hertford College and more importantly, perhaps, a wonderful establishment called the Turf Tavern)…

Anyway, for those who don’t realise or are as well informed as I was a couple of years ago, I’m at Oxford and if you really care, Corpus Christi College; and if I’m honest, I can’t quite believe it. If you had told me 2 years ago that I would be sat, in Oxford, worrying about quantum mechanics and thermodynamics; I would have told you that you were insane.

I think that we’ll look at how on earth I got here another time, since the first few weeks are reasonably hectic; having information hurled at you from all directions and not taking it all in. Then, lectures and after that comes the first day in labs as an undergraduate; which is an alien environment for nearly everyone (luckily, I had some work experience in a research lab so it wasn’t that bad); complete with the mandatory tedium of COSHH assessments.

Then, here at least, we have lots of reading to do for tutorials; the 8 week term is fast paced and intense. Although lectures started with “this is an atom…”; you soon find yourself worrying about quantum mechanics and making jokes about Schrödinger’s cat on Facebook; heaving excessively heavy textbooks around and trying to fit work around going to the pub, running, impromptu tea gatherings and all the societies that you join up to.