First complaint

OK, I don't want to start off on a negative, but here goes: why does York seem to want to start so late? It's October 9th and I don't move in for another two days, which is just plain ridiculous. Everyone else I know seems to have already finished Freshers' Week, developed flu, recovered and are halfway through their first term before I've even started.

Starting in October is just weird. Now, I know I'm probably on thin ice here, questioning the mighty Powers That Be within York University before I've even gone yet, but it does seem to me that I go there, have a week to settle in, and then I'm basically in the Christmas period. I won't have time to unpack before I need to book my train ticket home!

Now, being me, I've entertained the notion (several times (a day)) that this is all some elaborate hoax, and the University picks a Fresher or two at random every year and tells them the start date is October 11th, when everyone else has been working hard since the end of August. It would have to be that, because I've checked it several times; every letter, web page and phone call has told me that this is the correct date.

Having taken a gap year, this is kind of annoying. All my friends went off to uni during that year, leaving me behind (actually, I was the first one to leave, but that's rather incidental), and came back at Christmas with all of these (frankly pretty boring) tales of drunken debauchery and revelry interrupted by occasional half-hours of work. And this year, when I'm actually going to uni, I'm still the last one to get there.

Even one of my friends, who's going to the same uni as me, is going up a day early for some weird reason that only musicians can understand.

Not to mention that I am completely freaking out. I'm not completely packed (yes, it turns out you can procrastinate, even when you have nothing to do), and the stuff that I'm supposed to be taking just seems to keep growing, like the monster from a 1960s horror film. I didn't realise I had quite so much stuff. There is no way that all of that is going to fit into my little room.

I swear, I don't need that many saucepans. Or quiche dishes. And I very much doubt I'm going to be making that many casseroles - I should limit the dishes to two. Three at the most (I don't want to be caught unawares in the middle of a casserole crisis, obviously). What else should I get rid of? It's a choice between the toastie maker, blender, pineapple corer and the Sunday best china. Such difficult decisions...