Guide to Freshers Week?

It's Freshers Week across the country for many students, or alternatively it's about to start. I've been reading the various 'Guide to Freshers Week' in papers with a sense of arch irony, wondering if many of the articles are in fact writing for graduates who chortle at the stereotypes and remember their own Freshers Week fondly. After all, no student is reading the paper, right?

It was at about this point I remembered my first day at university. I moved into university owned housing, a self-catering house for six girls, and on the first day three of us sort of awkwardly banded together and desperately tried to make tea for the others. We all had biscuits, too. I felt very cunning, because I'd read the UCAS guide to making friends and it was very emphatic that making tea was a great way to make friends. The only downside is that Frances managed to make a round of tea, first.

About a week later, more comfortable in each other's presence and with a few vodkas in us, Frances mentioned that she didn't actually like tea. She'd only made it and drank it because that was what she'd read in the UCAS guide. I gasped. So did Sandra. Turned out we'd all tried the same cunning trick.

(True story: Frances really doesn't like tea. I've seen her drink it once since, when she was desperately trying to work out what her pregnancy cravings were. Turns out that it wasn't tea, but she felt it was a fair guess.)

My own Freshers Week was an awfully long time ago, but I do know that Freshers Week is a lot more fun when you're not a Fresher. Still, it's the start of a great time. Plus, in what feels like an eternity away, you'll be sat on the internet and reading Freshers Week guides and feeling horribly nostalgic, particularly as you have to be up early for work tomorrow. Alas.

Graduate Myth #9: Food

Students can't cook. Fact. Graduates magically acquire powers to ensure that mean they know the best restaurants and can whip up a soufflé to impress the boss. Fact.

Or not, as this mindset is actually a total myth.

We'll deal with problem number 1 first. To begin with, a lot of students can't cook, and that's with all due respect to students. Many eighteen year old people can't cook. That said, a few can, and most learn, out of necessity. Cooking well is perhaps a different question, simply because good ingredients and student budgets don't always mix. Nor do kitchens with any real living space. Then again, with a lot of free time, some students become very good cooks, and even better bakers. It's always cookie time when you're a student!



(Okay, I just love the Cookie Monster.)

Then again, university is the time when your mind can be opened up to new foods. I grew up in a household of fairly unadventurous eaters with some weird food aversions. Mum won't eat parnsips or peppers, and Dad dislikes pasta. All of the p words, pretty much banned. So when I got to university, I could cook, a little, but all of the new flavours that friend's cooking introduced me to basically blew my mind. I didn't even know what pesto was until I got to university. Now it's a mainstay of my diet. Arguably, my interest in food and food culture began at university, and now I happily eat things that still freak out my family.

As a graduate, am I a better cook? Well, slightly, but mostly because I can afford the ingredients (sometimes) and have a kitchen to myself. Honestly, though, I don't have the knack. I am a functional cook. I can throw together a meal from basically nothing, I can cook for a few weeks without any repeats, and and a push I can now create a three-course meal from scratch although I will use every utensil and fail to do the washing up. Most of my cooking, though, comes from jars and packets in some way or the other. No Come Dine With Me just yet.

Am I a discerning eater at restaurants? Well, I can read a menu better now, and I love going out for meals, but I wouldn't say I'm especially sophisticated about it. I get slightly unnerved by 'cuisine' as I don't know what most of it is. I'm best on Italian food, after traipsing around Italy for three happy weeks a few years ago. I'm also shameless, though, about going to chain restaurants, most recently eating my own weight at Gourmet Burger Kitchen (try the bean burger, it's epic) at lunch.

I went to aforementioned lunch with my Mum, and she was astonished that I knew what everything on the menu was. So I suppose, compared to when I was a green eighteen year old who didn't really know what a roasted parsnip tasted like, I am fairly sophisticated when it comes to food, and I do enjoy flicking through recipe books and trying new ideas. More realistically, though, very few people are miraculously good at food. Instead, it's a sign of growing up and moving around a bit, and trying new things.

But if you were the kind of student that ate nothing but beans on toast and Pot Noodle, then no, you are not going to miraculously be able to cook. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

"Cheese, Gromit!"

I have buggar all willpower when it comes to food.

I love eating. Love it, love it, love it. I would pretend to be a foodie, but to be honest I'm too fussy for that. I'm not even a proper vegetarian as I still eat chicken and fish; I just don't like the taste of most meat. Or the smell. Don't get me going about bacon sandwiches, they smell like evil to me. However, if it's not meat I'll give it a go.

I love stodgy food. I love crisps. I can actually take or leave chocolate and puddings most of time, but hell, I'd rather take. Cheese. Man, I love cheese. And chips. Combined with cheese. Mmmm.

All of the above said, I'm fairly sensible about food, I think. I try to eat rounded meals, and not overly snack. I also try to walk where I can, although I do basically loathe exercise.

Office work completely floored me, in terms of food. You plan your day around food, and other people eating tends to set you off. People bring in snacks, and I love cooking biscuits for people. Takeaway occurs at lunchtime. All of this is combined with a massive decrease in exercise.

As a whole, essentially, the office gets fat together. As I said, I have buggar all willpower.

Despite all of my lovely statements about how New Years resolutions are useless (and I still believe they are), I was making a quiet decision to try and cut down on the snacking front. For some boring medical reasons I had to get weighed, realised with horror that I had put on A Lot of weight over Christmas and that I also have to be fitted for a wedding dress at the end of this month.

Which is why I am on Day 10 of the Special K diet. This involves sitting there at lunchtime eating cereal for lunch. I have managed to lose quite a bit of weight, as crash diets will tend to do, although last night I dreamed about eating pasta for lunch and to be quite honest if someone gave me the choice between murdering a nun or getting to eat a cheese sandwich I wouldn't fancy the chances of the nun. I get to eat a full meal at night. They're nice, let me tell you.

The office, though, has developed fruit overnight. Fred jogs into work every day. Every day! It seems that eating habits, healthy and unhealthy, spread throughout workplaces. Things you learn!