Conflict of interests

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It's my last week of university lectures and seminars, although I don't really think the fact has sunk-in yet. It's quite a strange feeling: From an academic point of view, I've been looking forward to the end of the year for weeks. But on the other hand, when I think about the social side of uni life – meeting people after lectures, the banter in seminars, the gossip, being out-and-about during the day, even the shared experience of a particularly tricky essay – I'll be really sad to say goodbye to all that.

I'm quite shy, despite what some people might think, and it takes me quite a while to open up to people. (I don't have any trouble talking to people in seminars or on my course, but it does take me a while to build up enough trust in someone to start having a laugh and a joke with them). Whenever I've been dropped in new situations like big school, sixth form, and uni, it's always taken the best part of a year to really settle in. It's doubly annoying then, that in a few weeks a) I'm going to be leaving a lot of very cool people behind and that b) I'll have to start the whole process again.

● Someone who clearly doesn't lack confidence was the guy who ran into our lecture yesterday wearing only a thong and tossing Cadbury's Roses about the room. It was, in his bizarre way, a tribute to our lecturer Neil Roberts, who will be leaving the department of English after many many years of service, and who was reading his last ever address at the time. Students, eh?

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