It’s officially deadline season, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering where on earth the last three months went and how you managed not to pick up a single piece of information along the way.
As I face down the reality of three essays that have yet to be started, I’m often tempted to start daydreaming about all the fun activities I’d rather be doing. However, it’s usually more useful to remind myself that it could always be worse.
For all you fellow procrastinators out there, I’ve compiled a lovely collection of activities in Leeds that are even more traumatic than any summative. Life is all about perspective, right?
Going to Kirkstall Aldi for a big shop on a Sunday (or any time after 5pm)
It’s a dingy afternoon and you’re standing dazed and hungover in front of the dairy section as people fight to claim the last pot of yoghurt. The neon lights are buzzing, your toes are being run over by trolleys, and despite the fact you’ve only been here for ten minutes, you’re starting to forget that a life outside of these walls ever existed.
Somewhere, on the next aisle over, a small child is screaming, and you wonder if it would be socially acceptable to do the same.
Checking LinkedIn
A quick scroll through LinkedIn seems like the perfect way to avoid doing work by pretending to look for grad schemes. In reality, you discover that not only are you behind on your uni work, you’re also behind on everything else in life.
While you were spending your summer sunbathing and working back-to-back shifts to pay off your overdraft, that guy in your seminar group bagged himself four different internships and shadowed the Prime Minister for a week.
Then, as you’re about to shut your laptop in despair, your least favourite classmate from sixth form uploads a post beginning with, “I’m pleased to announce…”.
Getting an Uber back from Beaverworks on Halloween
The skimpy Playboy bunny outfit seemed like such a good idea when you were taking cute Instagram photos at pres. Now that you’re standing outside the club in driving rain and single-digit temperatures, you’re not so sure.
Combine this with the throng of other drunk clubgoers trying to get home surrounding you, and the taunting message of “Waiting to connect to driver” repeatedly flashing on your phone. You begin to think you’d have been better off just staying in.
When Uber finally does connect you to a driver, all that awaits you is another twenty minutes of waiting and a bank account that’s now down by £30.
Trying to get to a lecture on the top floor of Roger Stevens during changeover
There’s nothing like being violently shoved into the wall by the students who are on their way down and seem to have no regard for you or your dignity. Don’t even think about trying to take the lift instead. That is, if you don’t fancy the idea of being crowded into a stranger’s sweaty armpit while it stops at every single floor on the way up.
Searching for a seat in Eddy B during deadline season
Endlessly circling the library starts to feel like a humiliation ritual after a certain point. Between the groups of people who reject Leeds’ multitude of cafes and pubs in favour of using the library as their hang-out spot, and the hundreds of empty seats taken up by the dreaded laptop and coat combination, the concept of finding a place to sit quickly begins to feel like a far-fetched dream.
Add to that the sight of several rugby boys downing bottles of Echo Falls on floor 10, and you’ll inevitably decide this is a doomed venture.
Hunting for a house in Hyde Park
Leeds may not have a shortage of student housing, but it never seems that way when the dreaded house hunt begins each year. Suddenly, all of your time is taken up trawling the pages of UniHomes, and you quickly realise a seven-bed near uni that doesn’t have any single bedrooms and isn’t infested with mould is as elusive as a Mischief ticket during varsity.
Queuing for disco spoons on a weekend
Ah, the good old Hedley Verity. On a Friday or Saturday night, this establishment is the perfect destination for those who wish to spend the best part of an evening queuing in the cold for an hour and a half.
Every time without fail, it starts to rain within the first ten minutes. This inevitably leads to the return of your sobriety as pres drift further and further into the distant past. With each passing moment, the Pop World across the road starts to sound more appealing, if only to get somewhere warm and dry.
To add insult to injury, you have to pay entry for the pleasure of this experience now too.
