Summer Plans

I have officially finished my degree (providing I pass, of course) and to be honest nearly two weeks later it still hasn’t quite sunk in. It’s a strange feeling not having to go to the library every day and at times I have felt a little lost. But of course it has been lovely; I even spent one day just reading a book on the park. Since finishing I had a visit from my Dutch friend, who finally got to see Leicester. That weekend was also the Riverside Festival so we were able to wander around the little stalls and even got to pet a goat. Last weekend was the Summer Ball, a final weekend of celebrations for my housemates and I before we all go our separate ways. It was lovely to get all dressed up and celebrate a great year living together. Over the next week or so I will be gradually moving everything out of the house and heading home for summer.

On the 25th of June I will be back in Leicester at the LRI to have a tonsillectomy. Whilst I’m not looking forward to two weeks of my summer being spent in bed recovering (especially after reading horror stories online), I can’t wait for the result. Since starting university I have suffered with recurrent tonsillitis which has been awful at times, so it will be good to get my tonsils out and put it all behind me. As I am only a 40 minute drive from Leicester, I am able to have the operation and then go back home to Nottingham to be looked after by Mum. To any student that suffers from recurrent tonsillitis (we’re talking at least seven cases a year), my advice would be to report each case and really push for an ENT referral if possible. Once I saw the ENT specialist I was put on the waiting list and less than a month later I will be having the operation. Tonsillitis can have a negative impact on your studies and it’s really important that you minimalise this as much as possible. Hopefully everything will go fine for me and I’ll have a speedy recovery. My birthday is two days after the operation, but turning 23 isn’t that exciting anyway, right?

As far as the rest of my summer is concerned, I have my graduation on the 15th of July (eek), followed by a music festival at the end of July. I then have 12 days in Newfoundland in August, to visit my Canadian friends. We met in Germany and I haven’t seen some of them for two years so I’m really excited to go and see where they live. I’ve never been to Canada so it’s something else to tick off my list. I’ll be compiling an itinery and whale watching will definitely be on the list!

Come September it will be time for me to move back to Leicester and start my Master’s course in Cancer Cell and Molecular Biology. I have accommodation sorted at CODE, where I will be living in a studio apartment. This is about a 25 minute walk to campus but that’s definitely doable after spending first year doing the 35 minute walk from Oadby. For now, I’m looking forward to a couple of months relaxing before getting stuck into the next chapter…

Daisy x