It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times: Musings on the End of Term

Photo by Bruno Martins on Unsplash (the Unsplash License)

Being a student in December is reminiscent of the quote from A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It's a month of contradictions, colds, and confusion. The cost of a soon-to-materialize holiday season—a much deserved break from school—is the brutal workload, accompanied by everyone sniffling around you all the time. Most of us could weep opening Keats these days.

The end of term goes a bit like this: Trying to get a seat at the library is like fighting in the Hunger Games cornucopia, and you’re sure to be interrupted by the nagging urge to smoke a cigarette or spend money on a warm drink. All your professors suddenly care a lot about how you’re doing in class and want to meet with you for “final essay consultations.” The friends you’ve struggled to collect all semester are dropping like flies from the attendance record due to some mystery illness (is it the plague?) that’s overtaken the student population of London. To top it all off, you’re broke as fuck but still need to pay for TFL. 

It’s already dark by the time you step out of the Maughan Library on a Tuesday, and any lingering sense of warmth instantly evaporates from your body. You check your watch. Disappointingly, it’s only 4:30 p.m. You reflect on how elusive the promise of daylight feels these days.The days are only getting shorter, at least, until the winter solstice, when we can officially begin our countdown to summer again. 

That’s if we survive January, February and March first. The seemingly endless winter and all the deadlines that come right after you’ve sloppily kissed someone at New Year’s Eve, then remembered your core module’s final essay is due in six days. 

As an international student, one thing I haven't quite wrapped my head around with the schooling system in the UK is that my essays will all be due at the tail-end of my vacation, at the start of January. It’s a bit sadistic to make us consider suitable argumentation and secondary sources when we’d all much rather spend our holidays in blissful ignorance. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to submit whatever crap I’m planning to write ahead of my “time off” and immediately erase it from memory.

The end of term, like the beginning of it, feels bittersweet. On the one hand, we’ve all come so far and are almost at the finish line (I’m proud of you!). On the other, we’re at the cusp of a whole new year that brings with it the threat of unemployment, loneliness, more school, existential dread… we can just hope it’s not as much of a dumpster fire as the year before was. 

This first term has felt like watching ad previews at the cinema. You see snippets from all different possible viewings before you get to the much-awaited premiere. At King’s, I’ve seen previews from “Mean Girls,” a film about snobby classmates who won’t talk to you because you can’t sit with us; “The Namesake,” a tearjerker about immigrant grief and life outside the motherland; “Notting Hill,” a romcom set in London bookstores, and so many more. When someone says life feels like a movie, bro– I get it.  

It’s been the best of times, it’s been the worst of times. It’s been too hot midday in September and too cold midday in November, too dry when the wind chaps my lips and too wet when the library’s basement gets flooded. It’s been the saddest of times when homesickness crawls into my heart, and the happiest when I’ve made new friends. It’s been a roulette of emotions and I can’t believe it’s over.

It’s the end of my first term here in London, a city I moved to just over two months ago. I’ve grown used to its unabashed windiness and the ungodliness of the rush hour Tube. What I haven’t yet experienced—and frankly, am curious, scared, and nervous for—is what it feels like to come back to this city as my home. 

I, like many other international students, will be departing for my hometown soon to spend the holidays with my family, and for the first time ever will have to come back to London. Instead of booking a return ticket to Vancouver, this time my final destination, on my way back from submitting final essays in a beachy paradise, will be the British capital. It feels funny to not have any anticipatory jetlag just thinking about this journey. 

As much as I’ll miss London and the inevitable nostalgia that comes with a “first” anything, I can’t wait for my own bed and. Imagine not having to worry about groceries for four weeks.? Right now, it sounds like a dream.

In a week or so, my classes will wrap up. Most of my friends and I will be at the airport heading to various parts of the world, and the shortest nights of the year will be upon us. It’s hard to comprehend that three months will have flown by since I first set foot on the Strand and first had a pint at the LSE pubs nearby. Now we’re all heading home already?! Time is not real, I remind myself. 

So, cough a little harder, hug your friends a little tighter, and dress a little warmer—it won’t be this exact, 9 degree “but feels like 3 degree,” nostalgic, exciting evening in December 2025 again. 

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Edited by Hania Ahmed, Creative Editor