Signs that you’re back in Cambridge after holiday…

Stock photo of Cambridge to make things marginally less boring (maybe)

-  You spend plenty of time in the Grads Café overlooking the River Cam pretending to study...but really doing more blogging and other stuff…while listening to Norah Jones on endless loop on the Café sound system.

-  When working out in the college gym, you can’t help but wonder how the undergraduate English guys develop such awkward physiques.  Skinny in the chest, shoulders, and lower legs…big thighs…and rather soft, but not really fat middles.  Perhaps it’s the unique and bizarre weight training exercises they employ…such as the leaping squat with barbell or ‘the stork’.

-  You’ve half forgotten the right-of-way rules for bikes and road traffic…leading to a few near misses.

-  Your lungs start burning about halfway through the bike ride into class and your rear end is sore from sitting on the bike seat for the first time since the first week of riding.

-  You’re regularly reminded that Avril Lavigne still rocks as hard as anyone alive (yep, stole that joke directly from Michael Scott…by the way, if you haven’t checked out her old hidden single ‘Why’ you should).

-  You can’t help but notice that all the tools are still found in their normal and expected places (and I don’t mean shovels and rakes).

-  You’re happy to be reminded just how much time students have to do as they please…despite what seems like an intimidating workload from the outside.  And you fear you’re getting too used to this.

-  You find yourself pronouncing the 'a' in the word tomato with an 'ah' sound rather than a long 'a' sound to avoid being corrected by the cafe barista.  You can't help hating yourself for it just a little more every time.

-  Speakers at CRASSH still can’t figure out how to use PowerPoint…probably.

It’s great to be back…seriously.