Hi, I’m Olivia Lyes, a second-year English and Film student from Surrey. Come along as I tackle a typical Monday filled with essay prep, dance rehearsals, and a must-have sweet treat run!
7:30 – Monday mornings mean early mornings for me, so I woke up (two or three alarm snoozes later…) and got straight in the shower. I love a warm shower to wake me up especially on cold autumn mornings. I like to pick out what I’m wearing the night before so getting ready is uncomplicated and easy. Recently, I’ve been loving a combination of comfy and cute in my outfits, so I wore velvet, wide-leg joggers, a black baby tee, and converse. At this point I was absolutely starving, so I went to my kitchen to make breakfast. I’ve been needing to finish up a pot of Greek yoghurt, so I had a bowl of that with oats, cinnamon and peanut butter mixed in.
9:00 – I left for my lecture at 9:00, not without my leather jacket and thick woollen scarf that I could positively drown in. Griff’s new song ‘last nights mascara’ has just come out, so I listened to that on repeat whilst I walked to campus. I got to Streatham court by around 9:20 and went straight into my lecture hall. The lecture was for my Desire and Power module, where we look at Elizabethan and Jacobean literature. This lecture was on John Donne’spoems. I’m loving the module but I’m not the biggest poetry fan, so the reading for this week wasn’t my favourite. Donne’s poems are quite traditional and as a non-poetry reader I found them quite hard to approach. However, I have just started Mary Olivers’ poetry book called Devotions. I’m enjoying it and I think that starting with more modern poetry will be a great way for me to access the rest of the genre.
10:30 – My lecture finished at 10:30, and thankfully I didn’t have any others today, so I went to meet my friend Hannah in the library. My favourite place to work in the Forum Library is the ground floor, right at the back, by the windows. Not only are you able to get some fresh air while you’re working, but you can look out onto Forum hill and see the autumn leaves falling. Realistically, after about 20 minutes of studying, I was in need of some caffeine. My favourite hack that I’ve found out recently is that you can order a 99p filter coffee from Pret, and if you bring your own reusable cup, its 49p. Sure it is nice to treat yourself to expensive coffee every once in a while, but with Christmas right around the corner I’m trying to stick to a budget; and don’t tell my barista boyfriend, but I can’t tell the difference between espresso and filter coffee.
12:00 – After around an hour and a half of essay planning and writing, Hannah and I were in dire need of a boost, so we decided to get lunch. Usually, I take a packed lunch with me, either a salad or something warm in my thermos, but today I was craving a fresh pastry. Hannah and I headed to Devonshire house, or the area of Forum dedicated to the Student Guild. To me, the Student Guild offers some of the best food on campus, at a relatively student-friendly price. Hannah and I decided to each get a hog roast roll from Comida for £2. We sat outside the back of Devonshire house to eat and chat (gossip). Hannah had a meeting at 1:00 so I decided to wait for her before walking back home. I love autumn and it was really lovely to just sit and appreciate the nature on campus.
1:30 – After Hannah finished her meeting, we walked home together. During our lunch break, we talked about the upcoming Winter Balls and what dresses we would wear. When we made it home, Hannah and I decided to try on our different dresses and heels, as we each have multiple balls to go to. After a bit of messing around, we decided it was finally time to get back to work. November seems to be my busiest month, all my assignments and applications are due, which is why I need friends like Hannah to force me into finishing my work. Hannah recommended we use a studying style I’d never heard of before: pomodoro. It basically just consists of studying for 40 mins and then giving yourself a 10-minute phone and chat break. I found this style worked really well for me and allowed me to be productive without also making me burn out.
2:30 – At 2:25, I had a seminar, so I left Hannah’s and walked myself to campus. This seminar was for my Professional Writing module. I find the seminars for this module really interesting and engaging as each week we focus on a different style of writing, and how to expand our ‘toolbox’ as writers. This week we experimented with using AI to generate writing prompts based around our portfolio ideas. The theme for our portfolio is journey, and I want to write about female travellers. I put prompts into Chat GPT to generate a script about female travellers and it was fun and intriguing to see what results I got.
4:30 – My seminar finished at 4:30, and so I headed back home. Hannah had invited me over as we both wanted to relax after a long day of studying. Instead of going to the gym, which, while cathartic, is also pretty exhausting – we did some yoga. I’ve always followed YouTube videos when doing yoga, but Hannah thought we should just freestyle rather than being too strict. Honestly, I now fully recommend yoga after studying; my back was so stiff after sitting at a desk all day and after yoga, I felt very relieved.
5:30 – As I had a late-night dance rehearsal, I made dinner early. I love sesame bagels and I usually have them for breakfast, but today I made a quick dinner with tuna mayo and avocado in them. This was a really easy student meal, and a somewhat budget friendly dinner. I also had a can of Pepsi Max with it (guilty pleasure) and I watched some YouTube while I ate. At the moment, I’m loving Mina Le’s video essays, and this time I watched her essay on the ‘hotgirlification of reading’. I love Mina Le’s visual style, even though they are quite academic videos, they’re still visually entertaining. This essay was really interesting and discussed how TikTok culture affects reading. I watched this essay because it actually relates to my communications essay at the moment, which is about how TikTok influences authorship and book sales.
6:30 – At around 6:30, I headed out for a quick Tesco trip so I could restock on some essentials. I had run out of makeup remover and a couple of food bits, so I wanted to pick them up before the shops closed. I grabbed a bottle of micellar water; it tends to be more expensive than makeup wipes but it’s so much better for your skin and I love it. I also decided to pick up some fresh salad. I always meal prep using salad leaf bags as you don’t have to put too much effort in to make them tasty. I also grabbed a can of Diet Coke to take to my dance rehearsal as an extra boost of energy.
8:00 – For my dance rehearsal, I wore black joggers, a vest top, and my converse. I’m on the performance team for commercial, so we practiced the dance from last week as well as learning a new one. Dance has always been very important to me; I’ve been doing ballet lessons since I was a toddler and worked towards achieving dance grades up until I came to university. Commercial is a relatively new dance style for me, I did one taster class during Freshers’ Week and now it has stuck. I feel like it’s such an easy and artistic way to exercise, and I love having the opportunity to be part of a team this year. I haven’t had a performance, but I’m very excited for my first one in December.
10:00 – My rehearsal finished quite late, so on my walk home from campus, I met up with my boyfriend and we stopped at the Co-op for an absolutely essential sweet-treat run. We picked up some toffee popcorn and some sprinkle Christmas cookies. Once we’d gotten back to mine, I had some chicken nuggets as well as a Christmas cookie, whilst we watched an episode of Gravity Falls. Now, if had to ask me what the plot was of this episode, I’m not sure I could tell you. I’ve gotten into a terrible habit recently of saying I want to watch another episode but spending that whole episode with my eyes closed, not asleep exactly but definitely not conscious. I like to think that this is something we’re all guilty of…
11:30 – By 11:00, I was really struggling to keep my eyes open, so I got ready for bed. I cleaned my teeth, got my PJs on (M&S Christmas ones of course!) and settled into bed. I really struggle with light when I’m sleeping, so I donned my cat eye-mask and passed out.