Lauren Chaplin – Don’t cry because it’s over…

Last week was a bit of an anomaly – I actually got a positive response to an article!!! Well, it had to happen at some point.

This week though I’m going to return to the banal, the cheesy, and the altogether underwhelming. I’m not even going to be original. Charlie Dowell went and stole my idea to write about Halfway Hall, but hey, what’s a girl to do. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

At least, that’s what I tell myself every time I plagiarise another essay from Spark Notes.

The fountain of knowledge

So, Halfway Hall. I’m not really one for sentimentality. Don’t get me wrong, I cry all the time. In the past twenty four hours I’ve cried reading Philip Seymour Hoffman’s obituary, thinking about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s obituary, during an episode of Sex and the City because Harry and Charlotte looked so cute together, and on the long bike ride home, just to pass to the time.

However, I can be pretty certain that no tears will be shed by me at formal this Thursday, as everyone gets nostalgic for Fresher’s Week and first year friendships and a time before internship applications.

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The real me cries all the time…

Okay, so this meal marks the midpoint of our degrees. In four and a half more terms we won’t be living together in Hogwarts, playing the Humming Game (the latest craze at Girton) until the early hours.

We won’t have kindly bedders scrubbing out toilets and fluffing our pillows and we might even have to go a night club where we don’t know every single person in the room. The Bubble will burst, and we’ll have to sell our souls and mortgage our wombs just to afford a bedsit with an NW1 postcode.

Can’t wait to get on the property ladder!!

However, Halfway Hall, for me at least, marks thirty six weeks of cycling to and from Girton. I may still struggle to differentiate a trochee from a dactyl, but boy, has my time here taught me how to ride a bike. According to my (very shoddy) mathematics, I’ve ridden approximately 1260 miles, a number equivalent to the distance from London to Madrid. This in itself is pretty ironic, because I’ve had some Mad-rides in my time!! Haha!! A pun!! But seriously, I’m a pro. Sometimes I don’t even hold onto the handlebars.

Despite these mad skillz though, I’m looking forward to the day when I can get the Tube to work, and when my Sainsbury’s shop isn’t limited by what I can fit in my basket. This day, as of Thursday, is that little bit closer.

Artist re-enactment of the Girton commute

For most of you, however, this small consolation may not be relevant, doing nothing to relieve the emotion of Halfway Hall. If that’s the case, consider this: in another eighteen months, you’ll never have to endure another 9am supervision again! And even better – your friends aren’t going to vanish the moment you graduate.

Cambridge isn’t the Matrix guys – you don’t leave to find it’s all been a big trippy dream. Realistically, we’re all going to pootle down to London with our fresh faced optimism/cynicism and have a big ol’ laugh. Some of us may even end up living together.

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Just a nice song in case you’re getting bored xxx

A wise man (Pran) once told me that he felt lucky to be at Cambridge. He’s absolutely right – where else in the world are you going to find such an intense mix of academics and friendship and VKs?  However, that luck doesn’t run out when you graduate, and Half Way Hall shouldn’t be a half way Hell.

In the words of Dr Seuss, ‘I do not like green eggs and ham.’ Oh, and ‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.’