As a naive fresher, my initial thoughts when hearing the term ‘Fifth Week blues’ was that JazzSoc was officially branching out into new genres, ready to expand its musical empire-celebrating with a full week of blues, jazz and, as ever, reasonably priced wines at Copa. No such luck. After switching into a more ‘Oxford’ mindset, I considered the possibility of some sport-related week that I would know nothing about, other than snippets of ‘sconcing’ gossip from the relevant crew dates. But now that it’s Fifth Week I finally understand the concept of the Fifth Week Blues. And I’ve come to accept that it is not simply the name of the blues squad that your social secretary has lined up for your next crew date.
With two essays that I know nothing about (sorry to my tutors if they read this) and a set of reading lists that send me deep into the confines of the Gladstone Link, with a distinct possibility of getting crushed between the rolling stacks, I’m pretty sure I have gotten to grips with the Fifth Week blues. But why now? Why are the essays going downhill, library hours going up and caffeine levels through the roof, all because of Fifth Week? My only explanation can be that we have just passed the halfway mark of term and whilst many feel that they’ve met their capacity, others are trying desperately to remember what they are supposed to have learnt at all. Fifth Week marks the point where we all realise that we’re expected to know what we’re talking about and actually understand our modules.
But is this all just an excuse to feel a bit sorry for ourselves mid-term? The Oxford Fifth Week of Michaelmas happens to coincide with the ‘reading week’ of many other British universities. It is no coincidence that upon hearing that students around the country are homeward bound to ‘read’, the Oxford student automatically finds their work become a lot more painstaking. In many ways, the Blues is simply a myth: many students have commented there was nothing unique about Fifth Week. Yes, students do have a lot of work during fifth week, but as one Mansfielder remarked:”I do every week, so it’s nothing special”.
So, are the dreaded ‘Fifth Week Blues’ worth all of the fuss? Or are they simply a myth used to bide our time before the Oxmas convention starts and the cheese-floor at Park End becomes the new topic on everyone’s lips? Certainly, the blues seem to be providing the perfect excuse for all the societies you joined at the Freshers’ Fair to entice you into their latest activity/match/fencing tournament in order to ‘beat the fifth week blues’. Well, whether you are feeling the blues or not this Fifth Week, maybe some insight from an Edinburgh University student, who says he has “not quite developed the 9 week blues” may shed some perspective on the situation.
