Summer is here!

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS to everyone on finishing a/another year at Leicester! There is no victory too small to celebrate and just getting through the year is a huge achievement.

Now it’s time to relax for the summer before getting back into it! But (and excuse me for pulling a classic Law Student here), what is ‘summer’? For me, summers have never really been a time for relaxing (in the traditional sense). Instead of looking at summers as a time to relax, I like to think of them as a time to get ahead. Naturally, it’s extremely common for uni students to find jobs and work over summer, and that’s what I usually do.

When I was in school, from what I can remember, my summers were filled with English and Maths workbooks that we would buy from Costco, piano exams, and going to work with my dad. And, every summer, the family would go on vacation for a week or two somewhere in the US or Europe, or to China, which was always really exciting!

Then, in high school, I would take summer school courses to get ahead so that I could have a spare period during the school year, and I would work at the pool as a lifeguard/swim instructor on weekends. As much as I enjoyed those busy summers, we couldn’t go on holiday anymore because of all my commitments. Such is life!

Then, when I went to university, I would work at the pool Mondays to Fridays for 7 hours a day in the summer. Every day, I had to make my lesson plans for the following day and I had to fill out approximately one bajillion report cards every two weeks. Even though it wasn’t relaxing per se, I absolutely LOVED (and still love) teaching swimming and I genuinely looked forward going to work everyday.

Having such busy summers filled with things to do is fun and productive (funductive) and I couldn’t imagine any other way to spend my time off from uni. Although, admittedly, sometimes it does feel like life is just non-stop with busy summers, I would go crazy if I didn’t have as much to do all day!

Having said all that, this summer is a little bit different. This would have been my 8th year at the pool, so I decided to not re-certify my lifeguarding certification and find another job to get a different sort of experience! I’m also going to try and get the bulk of my dissertation done over summer so that I don’t have to worry about it as much during term. So, it will be a different kind of ‘funductive’, and different is just what I need at this time in my life.

I’m changing, and so the direction of my life is changing, and so the sort of experiences I have under my belt need to change as well. Plus, I’m in major denial that I’m in my final year, so I’m trying to do everything I can before I’m not an undergraduate student anymore.

So, this year, my summer is full with prepping for my dissertation, Law Society (the committee never rest!), practicing for my music scholarship audition in October, doing my Leicester Award in preparation for doing the Leicester Award Gold this year, volunteering for the Toronto International Film Festival, and thinking about what to do after graduation.

I can’t wait to see what the next few months have in store for me!