“Now he wasn’t hungry anymore, and he wasn’t a little caterpillar anymore. He was a big fat caterpillar.”

Unfortunately for me I won’t be able to fashion an impenetrable cocoon, hide away for six months, then emerge as a beautiful butterfly; for me the only thing that will grow is my waistline! The wining and dining of late is starting to take its toll, my body groans under the sugary excess it has been subjected to, and begs for a simple pear, or a salad. But, I will never learn; today brought with it the temptation of Slug and Lettuce 50% off, in a moment of weakness I found myself sidling towards the door and sitting at a table with menu in hand. Being quite the Slug connoisseur I suggest a platter; sadly yet again no spin the rib, Cat felt it was too immature for two serious journalists such as ourselves. £5 ligther, and several pounds heavier we waddled further into town for more bargains. At Boots, the form of a virtual make up machine brought with it a whole new avenue of fun; we both decided the pink lipgloss and purple eye shadow were a good look for me, before I could stop Cat the picture had found its way onto facebook. A quick de-tag later and normality was restored, but I am sure this will become a frequent game.

My bank account rang with the KERCHING of the student loan company; despite trying to spend less I have survived since the last instalment, by the skin of my teeth. What I am yet to master is to remind myself it is in fact a loan, not money I have earned and will need to pay back. A long summer of working at the school, or beeping through the Sainsbury’s tills will be my reminder of this. I first thought of my loan at 5.30 am; as the rain hammered my skylight I remembered….LOAN DAY!!!! Quite sad that at 5.30 I was tempted to check my bank, and that money was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. It is hard to explain to non-students, but loan day is like Christmas; you furiously dash downstairs to get the x-box you wanted, or the knitted jumper from Matalan. Loan day has that same sense of wishes getting met, or bitter disappointment as you are forced to live off more Aldi beans for another week. My list of unnecessary items was long, what to buy first, it is again that naive sense of having money. A trip to Topman, and I couldn’t help myself, a striped top that had been winking at me since last week, something to add to my new, nautical themed summer wardrobe. I picture myself punting on the Thames, in a boater hat and blazer, discussing my days at Eton. However, my actual purchase was just a snip at £12(before student discount), but at the till, a great smile spread across my face; wrongly priced items are a god send to the student masses, I left the store having paid only £5.10. I may actually cry the day my student discount is snatched from me and chopped into many pieces; on this day Topman closes is offers to me, and cinemas return to their extortionate  prices.

Before all my monetary shenanigans I had to endure the two hours of education I actually pay for. Like a witches coven we were crammed into the stuffy basement to listen to radio packages to help us better ourselves. The location of our department leaves a lot to be desired, locked away underground, like the Fritzl’s of journalism,the walls close in, and the grey seems to cling to you; it clearly shows what the university think of our profession. Morning  drizzle and humidity had already made the walk to uni uncomfortable, but due to the heat I found a sickness rising in my stomach; I slurped down my Frijj chocolate brownie milkshake, but this only made things worse . I attempted to lighten the mood by teaching Cat a zombie game I had found on the internet, infect the world, and take over. I found myself sadisticly enjoying as each pixel character fell to its death, only to re-emerge as a rotting corpse; several times I was told to “Chill out,” as I was taking the game too seriously. We made use of the many weapons at our disposal, including a zombie Ronald McDonald, zombie Michael Jackson, and zombie Colonel Sanders; I laughed as he hurled his poison Kentucky fried chicken at innocent civilians. We whiled away the time with our screen hidden from view, slowly creeping across the world map with our deadly infection, claiming it as ours.

As the afternoon merged into evening my feeling of sickness continued; once again I found myself only craving some fresh fruit. For once this was a good thing as I made a trip to Morrisons; the bags of crisps, and boxes of cakes remained untouched on the shelves, my trolley slowly filled with a balanced diet that my mum might actually approve of. My housemate/chauffeur Jade filled hers with a vast array of frozen items, but was most annoyed that there were no “Turkey Dinosaurs” left; Bernard Matthews had abandoned her, so she had to settle for Morrisons own brand. I wasn’t used to this much effort in one day, a month off has left me dishevlled and weak; either I need to get back in the game, or I am becoming a narcoleptic. When Mikaela came round to discuss essay tactics I was hardly in the mood for intellectual stimulation, but it quickly turned into a fun evening of reminiscing and sharing ideas for our impending deadline massacre. We ended by presuming that Francine is now somewhere at sea, boarded on a cargo ship, bound for Leeds by the end of the week; with that Mikaela left and I returned to my sloth-like status. For now I am exhausted, and must return to my cocoon, to emerge as some kind of suitable member of society.