It’s the 31st of August, half past eight in the evening, it is already dark outside and the kettle is going. I don’t know how to start my report, so I am laying on my green sofa and reminiscing about the days where the sun never seemed to set. It makes me wonder if I had enjoyed summer at all—an empty recollec on, because I saw breathtaking sunsets over the Thames and danced under the flashing lights, all this I can remember with photo evidence. But right now, it feels as though I am missing out on youth. Of course, university was never going to be like how I saw in the movies, real-life romance is not like the earth-sha ering love you read about, and the club is not a haze of dancers like you imagined when you were younger. I have my internship tomorrow and am wri ng a report to sum up a piece of my life in English because I have half-forgo en how to speak my mother tongue, let alone type it. I wonder what one loses in the process of forge ng one’s mother tongue. I wonder if my bout of melancholy stems from this newfound deficiency: perhaps there is a longing for who I used to be as a child, kind and curious, to whom I cannot form a connec on because the language which shaped her mind I can no longer understand. Perhaps it is, instead, a craving for the bond I had with my family, to whom I have so much to say but the only thing they can comprehend is the frustra on at my own babbling. Without my childhood I have hardly existed and without my parents there is no home. I have lost something and I miss it so much. I have shed and shed to become be er, but perhaps some things should have been kept around. It’s like when you move so much you realise you have thrown away all senmental objects. There is a parallel to be drawn here; I have moved a lot, and every me, in the freedom of being unknown, I become (not build—it is a top-down process) the best version of myself that no one would ques on. I throw away my old clothes and books and fill the space with the newest purchases. Maybe only now I am realising that some things, regardless of if they were good or not, clothes or personality, I should have kept with ac ve effort. This ma errequires further perusal.

Aside from evening musings, it has been a wonderful year. Sacrificing my health for coursework and not minding it because I would come to the library at 7am a er 4 hours of sleep and who do I see? My best friend who I saw 7 hours prior. Telling each other “Why are you here? You should be at home res ng!” knowing full well we were not going home for another 15 hours. All passed by in a whirlwind and I hope it stays with me forever. Got an internship at my dream lab, met some lovely people, experiments don’t really work but apparently that’s research for you! I am scared for third year because I feel like it is the last year of youth I have le ; a er, I shall get a job (hopefully) and become a grumpy, anxious adult who pays taxes. It is very silly I know, I am 21 and youth is a mindset anyways—it just feels like I am not maximising it. See how ridiculous that sentence is? My mind, my most cherished vessel for senments, has been polluted by capitalis c and meritocra c denomina ons. Life is not something you maximise, you silly li le beast. It’s not shareholder value. There is no quota of fun to reach. But it feels like there is. I miss something terribly from my old life and having “enough” fun, with external recogni on to make it more real and true, makes me feel like I can fill that space. One day, my life is going to be like a beau ful love song.