thoughts in the quiet You can tell it's the weekend on campus. There's that slow, creeping quiet that forms a muffling blanket over the flats, a comfortable contrast to the frantic energy of the week. #life slowed to a crawl as students drowsy from hangovers, or late nights spent studying, emerge blinking from their blocks only when necessary. It's strange to live in a place with so many people, and yet only see one or two others when you go out for a walk. It's nice though. I enjoy this quiet, broken only by the distant rush of traffic, the calls of water birds. Something about the crisp autumn air lends itself particularly well to creating this kind of atmosphere- it does, in a way, feel like putting on a warm jumper against the chill, a cosy silence to wrap you up. I do tend to get more introspective around this time of year, a product of the peace I guess. The glassy surface of the lake reflecting not only the growing sunset, but also myself, the worries and concerns that I find fade a little after a while outside. The quiet outside is met by several indoor silences, the excited buzz of freshers replaced with a comfortable ease, or a sharper lack of words, as flatmates leave washing up on the side, and passive-aggressive notes on the fridge. I'm lucky that I get along with my flatmates, though we don't see each other often; the busy schedule of a physics degree not leaving a lot of time to hang around the flat. It's not the close-knit community that it was at the start of the year, but I wasn't expecting that to last anyway. The connections I've made with people on my course, or in societies, based on shared interests rather than a situational necessity will last longer and grow stronger as time goes on. I'm excited about that- excited to share more comfortable silences with people close to me.