Microsoft authenticator
Maybe this is less scary and more just annoying. The number of times I’ve actually wanted to study and I couldn’t because Microsoft thinks my face is unrecognizable at 9am is enough to make a student swear off academics forever. Also is it just me that worries excessively about Microsoft stealing the rights to my face and putting me in an AI ad one day?
Going to a seminar having not done the reading
Not done the reading, but you’re still a good enough student to go to the seminar regardless. The level of risk entirely depends on the seminar group you have. God save you if you are in a room full of non-interactive note-takers. And rest in peace if your seminar leader asks you any kind of question.
Sports initiations
The horrors of human nature are well observed at sports socials at university. As a fourth year student, I can say I am still haunted by the things I saw and did as a very silly fresh. I can still taste the vodka porridge I ate as part of a sports social (I won’t name societies because anyone who thinks of vodka porridge is a dangerous enemy). Everyone I know has a horror story that has kept them up at night, vodka porridge is tame.
North Road late at night
Durham is a comparatively safe university city, but even so, walking down North Road at night is just a strange and scary experience. If it’s a busy night out, you’ll see the most debauched side Durham has to offer. If it’s a quiet one, it’s just empty and eerie.
Having more than one assignment due on the same day
If you’re taking modules across different departments, I’ll pray for you on this one. Watching the days tick by and having to worry constantly about two equally urgent tasks is enough to drive someone mad. Which one do you work on when? Which one is due at 2pm and which one at 4pm? While you’re at it make sure you don’t submit the wrong paper to the wrong Turnitin link…
Exam season
This one goes without much prelude. It’s just a hard time for everyone. Can’t even forget your worries in the club because nobody will be out. Plus, every Durfess submission at this time is an argument between stem and humanities students over which exam format is worst. They’re all bad. There is no fun option. Why are we arguing instead of studying?
Laptop running out of charge mid lecture
The aggressive, lightning-speed typing. The frantic deletion of open tabs. The lowering of screen brightness settings. All trying to belay the inevitable while also trying to keep track of the very essential lecture information. It’s a fight against power and time. My thought are with you if this has happened to you at a seminar.
Running into someone you got with in the club in the real world
Such a canon Durham experience. You make a mistake on a night out – or you meet the love of your life – and you have to see them (or live in constant fear of seeing them) until you graduate. The only time you appreciate how small Durham is. Do you interact? Do you wave? Do you ask them on another Jimmy’s date? Nobody knows the protocol and it’s awkward.
St Chad’s naked run (why is this a thing?)
As a fresher, I often saw this at the bottom of a list of challenges at a sports social. Didn’t know people actually did it until I saw one for myself. Now I wish I could go back in time to when I was young and naïve and full of hope and I’d never seen a random man’s penis on a Wednesday night. This is a baffling tradition, and this is why other universities think we’re weird.
Couples living together in student accommodation
It’s like the beginning scenes of a horror film. Nothing scary has happened yet, but you know it’s coming and it’s going to scar you mentally and emotionally. Same feeling as when two people you’re living with are going out. Something is going to go wrong. No way to escape. Nowhere to hide.
St Chad’s Tree
Well this never turns out well. I’m 90 per cent sure nobody has every actually, successfully jumped through Chad’s tree, but I know many people that have been injured in the attempt. I’m not sure if seeing the sports socials approach Chad’s tree is more anxiety-inducing, or morbidly entertaining. Probably the latter. But it still makes the list.
A posh Durham student with a signet ring
Nothing in this world strikes as much fear in me. You hear a rah in the distance and suddenly they’re in front of you in Hatfield bar talking to you about the Palatinalps ski trip and their second home in Greece. You’re there trying to keep your cool and not say too much or they might hear your non-southern accent and call you a ‘povo’ and get you blocklisted from all the Durham secret societies.
Cleaning out the fridge in your shared house
The smell is what gets you first. You have to hold your breath and remind yourself it’ll be over soon as you remove the small civilisation that has been created out of your housemates old, mouldy pesto pasta from four weeks ago. Now you lie awake at night, never knowing when the smell will come back (probably very soon).
Freshers’ flu
The unavoidable consequence of seeking higher education – freshers’ flu. You’re bed-ridden but you still have lectures to go to, so you brave the outside and all you can hear in the lecture theatre is a chorus of coughing and you just know some of those germs will come back to get you. You can’t escape it, you can stay in all the way through Freshers’ Week and it will still find you. It’s like being hunted by Michael Myers but worse.
The long house group chat message
Whenever there’s a message in the chat from *that one person* in your house – you just know there’s trouble. You went out last night and didn’t clean up immediately after pre-drinks? The bins are three-quarters of the way full and nobody’s emptied them? Someone left a spoon in the sink? The possibilities are endless but there’s always something and you can bet it’s your fault. Or if it’s not your fault, there’s some tension in the house forthcoming.
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