Uhhhhh… a big shock came to me the other day when I logged onto my first French seminar of the year: the fact that I actually have to, like, speak French.

It sounds incredibly stupid, but after months of nothingness, I completely forgot about this whole ‘degree’ thing that I’m supposed to be doing. I thought I was just being given money to have a good time or something.

Okay not really, but after being back at university for a week (I say back, I’ve been in Cardiff for a little while, but I’m more referring to the actual lectures and seminars which only started last week), I’m actually a little bit aghast at the fact that I’m supposed to be spending the majority of my time doing uni work. 

Seriously, who’d have thought that doing a degree would mean you’d have to well, study for a degree. The horror.

Anyway, I logged on to my first seminar of the year and my lecturer just started speaking French and honestly my brain died a little because I had no clue what on Earth was going on. And then she wanted us to introduce ourselves in French and I forgot every word of French I ever knew in 6 years of studying it.

Weirdly, I don’t feel the same way about the English language part of my course. In fact, am I incredibly excited for some data analysis? Like the nerd I am, you betcha.

This makes my reaction to French all the more concerning. 

You see, I entered First Year thinking that there was a strong possibility I’d switch to something else within the first week because my confidence was ridiculously low, I hadn’t practiced it at all on my gap year, and I didn’t get the grades I wanted at A-Level. But then I got there and everyone was as clueless as me, and I left feeling somewhat decent. 

So why the hell have I come back for Second Year and feel like someone has pushed me into the ocean when I’ve only ever been in a paddling pool? 

I don’t know and here’s to hoping it will get better as I start to adapt to being back in an academic setting.