Dubious title; I know. But bear with me.

In short: life is a sort of juggling act, especially if you are a student.

Living away from home becomes the rather difficult task of balancing work and fun, old and new friends, cheap food and the occasional green vegetable.It’s like having course books on one shoulder, and vodka on the other: either way you’re left feeling a bit deflated.

The balancing act can be difficult to deal with. Some days you come home from a day of lectures feeling socially and emotionally drained, craving a hug from someone at home. If there is anything I have learnt this semester; it’s that a duvet and catch-up TV really can make a world of difference on your low days. Throw in a phone call with a friend and a homemade dinner, and you’re good as new.

Sometimes I feel like Dorothy with her red heels; simply needing to close my eyes, escape the madness and get home. Unfortunately for me it takes four hours, a change at Birmingham New Street and stressful speed-reading before Monday’s seminar. But still, the thought was there and at least my shoes are red.

And all of this stress is without even properly mentioning coursework. Perhaps that was intentional on my behalf. I’d rather not think about all that reading in my Christmas holidays, thank you very much.

It is so important, especially over Christmas, to keep everything in perspective. Twenty years from now- albeit a scary thought- you’ll regret locking yourself away in your room rather than spending time with family. Okay, perhaps arguing with your sister over a board game isn’t the best activity in the world, but the holidays are for bringing out the good old traditions. Even the wacky traditions that nobody remembers starting. For instance my dad’s side of the family sings ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ to their Christmas pudding… nobody quite knows why.

But, I digress. The point is, through this rather animated swerving of deadlines and the need to actually show your face every once in a while; life as a student is demanding.

The secret? You’ve just got to let stuff go; not everything can be planned out and controlled perfectly.

Today (conveniently) I stumbled across a quote that beautifully sums this feeling up: “Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s ability to deal with them”. In other words, rather than having your usual 1am sob, laughing at the impossible balancing act is probably the best way forward.

So put some Gogglebox on when times get hard, stick your feet up every once in a while over Christmas and, most importantly, laugh your way through life’s difficulties whenever possible. That twenty-years-from-now version of you will need that degree, but more importantly those happy times, to repeatedly tell their future grandchildren in the typical old person manner: “when I was young”…

Charlie Collett