Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Following a delightful final week spent eating out at restaurants, heading to festive get-togethers and indulging all round (shopping, eating and going out), it was finally time to leave the pleasures of Toulouse and head home to be reacquainted with friends and family back home.

Before having to head back to the reality of exams in January, there's two weeks of Christmas holidays from university. Whilst your mind is filled with worries of 'Have I revised enough? ' and 'Have I got all the notes I need? ', the joy of being back in England and being reunited with all your loved ones brings some Christmas spirit!

Make sure to rest and relax as much as you can in the period you're home and see your loved ones if you can (it's not easy to schedule everyone into fourteen days) & don't tell yourself 'revise tomorrow'. You'll end up on the flight back to France cramming all the information you've learnt in the past four months.

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I didn't return to England (not until New Year, anyway). Instead, I went to visit family in Germany where we spent Christmas and some days after. Having that alone time, travelling from France - Germany (via Barcelona) and Germany - UK for New Year, gave me a lot of time to not be in touch with anyone and allowed to concentrate fully on revising for the January exams. When I wasn't around people, I spent my time going over my notes, over-revising the areas I wasn't so confident about, and when I was a bit bored, I spent time watching Netflix in French (a good idea if you're bored of revising but worried you're going to slip back into English).

Most exams are spoken assessments and two weeks of chatting away in English can damage your French, so make sure you don't exclude French or you'll be rusty when you head back!

Also, make sure you come back with half the stuff you've accumulated over your stay over the Christmas holidays. Otherwise when it reaches the real end, you'll have suitcases upon suitcases (no matter what you think, you'll have somehow hoarded more than you think).

Don't go back with your Christmas gifts either - as much as we all love our new gifts and want to show them off, there's no point adding more to your luggage!

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