I’d like to talk about a dinner I had with my flatmates last June, right after we handed in our final dissertations and completed our last exam papers at university in Bristol. We had spent months cooped up in the library under an enormous amount of stress, so the moment we walked out of the exam hall, we decided to book a table at a small, independent Italian bistro down by the harbour to properly unwind.
There were four of us in total, myself and three close friends who had shared a flat together for the past two years. We arrived at the restaurant around seven in the evening, and the place had a really warm, laid-back atmosphere, with fairy lights and the smell of fresh dough drifting from the kitchen. We decided not to hold back, so we ordered a huge antipasti platter to share, followed by freshly baked wood-fired pizzas and bowls of rich handmade pasta. To mark the occasion, we treated ourselves to a nice bottle of sparkling wine and raised a toast to reaching the end of our degrees.
What made the meal so memorable was the sheer sense of relief in the room. For weeks, every single conversation had revolved around revision timetables, academic references, and looming deadlines. Sitting around that table, it felt like an immense weight off my shoulders had finally vanished. We spent hours reminiscing about our favourite moments from the course and talking about our plans for the future.
It was definitely the culmination of years of hard work, and while there was a slightly bittersweet feeling because we knew we would soon be moving to different cities, it was genuinely one of the happiest evenings of my life.