Chapter 48 by Johanna

What happens next?

The Introduction Week is a Blur

Your schedule did not look that busy, but you are well and truly caught in a whirlpool of events before you know it. Introductory academic events, three separate health and safety talks, the fairs of social and sport clubs and a stream of uni-run socials take more time than you could have anticipated. On top of that, however, a side effect of your new rules turned out to be that new PhD students are expected to start working on their projects in the first week itself. Fortunately you have caught on the message; a couple of your peers are less fortunate. The sole girl among them spent 48 hours bottomless, but you are quite sure that must have seemed like a minor inconvenience next to the paddling she received. You could not entirely avoid injury to your bottom either, but the consequences for smaller infractions were relatively bearable. The sight of your carefree yet-to-start-actually-studying first year younger cousin was less so when you met towards the end of the week.

All in all, you are settled into the new routine before too long. Just as you intended when writing the rules, however, the routine had its highlights too.