My final term

The last few weeks have seen our final term in Durham (our 21st!) come to an end. This year I've been drifting further away from college and this term was no different. From the very first week back in April, we'd miss dinners to go out with Chemists, I came home for a stag weekend, spent 15 days in Japan and then more time away for the wedding. I managed to stick to my beliefs and boycott the summer ball (finally). Is it really worth paying £60 to get pissed in college? We did it for free in the New Inn and the Bailey.

The only event we went to was End of Session formal where even though I had to work an hour at the bar, I still had a great time talking to a wide range of friends around the quad and then head into Rixies with a load of people - including all 3 of my housemates from the 4th year. I never would have thought we'd all still be here back in October 2002.

Graduation week came and went. Amazingly, we won a last-minute invitation to the Graduands dinner. Luckily we got to sit on a table of 4th years that we knew, but hadn't talked to in ages so we had a great time. Then alumni weekend was upon us. The term weekend is really a misnomer since a lot of people don't (or can't) arrive till late on the Friday and then everyone is kicked out by 10am on the Sunday so it's basically one day of seeing olf friends and then getting battered at an old-style formal (no restrictions, cork throwing allowed). It was great to see my friends, even though I'd seen most of them a few weeks earlier. Had I left after my 3rd year, I'd no doubt be talking to the same groups, but my extra years here have allowed me to makes loads of really good friends in all the subsequent years and it was great to see them again.


Unfortunately, I don't really remember talking to a lot of them as Saturday night turned into a massive blur.

Now Blondie and I have the summer to finish up in the lab and get our theses written. Leaving is going to be very hard after all this time, but it's the right thing to do. It's all too easy to want to stay on because we've got so many good memories and had some great times, but the fact is next year we would feel very very old and really not know anyone in college so it would mean our memories of Trevs would be tarnished by a lacklustre year. By leaving now, we've had 6 amazing years and a year of coming to terms with moving on which is a lot more than most people get.